Daily Inspiration: Meet AMY VALDEZ

Today we’d like to introduce you to AMY VALDEZ.

Hi AMY, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I was a stressed-out mom with failing health and did not know why. A friend took me a yoga class and I felt I had found what I needed. I loved dance and movement but not working out. Yoga gave me the experience of moving with grace and challenge. My favorite part was savasana as it gave me a space and permission to rest.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It was a struggle to get classes at the beginning. At the time yoga was young in our community so yoga studios struggled. In the early days of Yoga Sol, the studio where I still teach after 14 years, the owner, manager and I would meet weekly for lunch and discuss how to serve our community. Instead of following trends and going after the hype around fancy yoga poses we focused on who was in our community and how we could best serve them. We live in a bedroom community with a mix of families and older adults who were nearing retirement or were retired. We implemented check-in and registration practices to make sure we knew if there were any injuries or issues that would affect the client’s abilities in a yoga class. I developed the habit of getting the list of names from front desk (manager) of who was in class and if there were any issues I needed to be aware of. This allowed me to serve the needs of the class in front of me. I became skilled in tailoring the class in the moment because each class was unique. I was consistently the most attended class across the schedule with 10 classes a week. During the pandemic I lost half of my classes yet still continued to teach online even when I moved out of state and had to get up at 4pm and 5am to teach my class in California. To this day I have retained those students and we have a strong, cohesive group of 7am yogis. We have become bonded through the years. A few have moved out of the area and continue to attend online while I teach in person. During the pandemic the owner and my friend passed away. She was my mentor, had confidence in me and is largely responsible for my growth and success as a teacher. I miss her to this day. The new owner is a wonderful business woman and has helped the studio continue to be succesfull. I am grateful for her but I miss my friend and still hear her words of encouragement. She used to call me her star teacher, said I have the voice of an angel and taught me to know my worth and be compensated accordingly.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I teach without a plan and create the class in the moment based on who is in class. In leading teacher trainings,I created my own sequencing method called “Whole Body Integration”, which divides asanas into asana families that follow a certain order to prepare the body for the subsequent poses that follow. I sing and play the guitar for savasana. I had become known in our community for this. I have met people from different places who will say, “Are you the teacher who sings and plays the guitar?” I have also heard that my name was known by students in other studios throughout our county. I follow the 8-limbed path of Astanga Yoga according Patanjali’s yoga sutras. I incorporate life-affirming principles that inspire and affirm each person’s infinite worth as divine beings. The body is sacred and how we move can not only reflect that but can also help us feel our own divinity. In the past few years, I have embraced mindfulness as part of my teaching to help my students feel embodied, treat themselves with compassion and thus practice compassion for all beings. Some comments that I have heard about me is that I am peace-inducing, nurturing as well as being able to challenge my students safely. I have taught a vast array of classes from meditative, gentle, hatha, vinyasa flow, aerial yoga/pilates to pilates on apparatus. I have led a few retreats because I believe in the benefits of taking time away from daily life to be nourished on multiple levels. It is difficult to fill retreats and I feel I am not doing well in that department. But I keep trying because it can be such a powerful reset for people’s health, well being and peace.

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
The strongest piece of counsel I would give is from personal experience. I was in my 500 hour teacher training in the module on mantra. We read a book on mantra and how we can choose one to serve what we need. I was stressed about getting classes and being able to help support my family with income from teaching but it was not easy. I chose the mantra for prosperity to remove obstacles, “Oh Shrim Maha Lakshmie Swaha) to be practiced over a period of time. I practiced the mantra daily and at around the 2 week mark I felt a shift in my consciousness. Before then I was seeking to find what the yoga studios could do for me. Then I realized, as I was practicing the mantra, that I had food to eat, a roof over my head and transportation. I had the basics of life. My mindset shifted from what can the yoga studios do for me to what can I do to help the yoga studios grow and thrive. This is still my mindset to this day. My advice to anyone starting out is to seek to be of service and practice.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kayamindfulmovement.org
• Instagram: kayamindfulmovement
• Facebook: kayamindfulmovement
• Youtube: kayamindfulmovement
• Other: Spotify: Kaya