I met Sonya at the Valencia studio for my first one-on-one where we worked in a lovely, quiet back room for a very basic one hour class. During that first session I learned that I was developing MY practice, and that my pace and my body was the most important thing to remember. It was an encouraging, supportive hour.
Because Sonya teaches an evening class @ the 6th ave. studio, we moved over there for the next 5 sessions. We had the whole studio to ourselves from 8 to 9pm over the next 5 weeks as she supported my goal to grow, stretch, move, learn, release, and remember.
Each session was candle-lit, intimate and all about my practice. Sonya is intuitive, smart, supportive, funny, experienced, soft natured, and wise. She helped me maintain poses that I tend to get frustrated with and then helped me breathe into that frustration. With her tutorial support I stretched muscle groups that never get attention and then the following session, helped those muscles remember the new memory that we learned earlier. Often I got emotional during our sessions and Sonya knew what I needed, changing the pace and practice to be more gentle and healing.
Without the love and support that I received from Sonya, I know that I would not be where I am finally at with my personal practice. Can I do a backbend? NO! Am I able to do crow? Absolutely not! I fall over when I’m supposed to balance on one foot 🙂 But what I am confident about is that I am growing in my practice and that even at 53 years I can still move my body in ways that I never imagined was possible. And I can laugh at myself and adjust when necessary. And then try the next pose!
I know that most people are not able to afford the luxury of personal sessions, but it was what I needed to get to the level where I can try new classes. I keep my Yoga Tree paper schedule next to my desk and every day I look for a class that I want to attend.
– Tamera Walters