Yoga Body Shop is proud to the Binghamton area’s only Baptiste Affiliate Studio, and a member of an elite group of affiliate studios across the country. Yoga Body Shop has an ongoing relationship with the Baptiste Institute to maintain the quality, standards and effectiveness of the Baptiste Methodology. There are so many different types of yoga out there, as you consider your personal spiritual and physical transformation you may be asking what does practicing at a Baptiste Affiliate Studio mean for me?
Let’s start with the history. Baptiste Yoga is named after its founder Baron Baptiste. It would be hard to find a better yoga lineage than the one boasted by Baron Baptiste. His parents, Walt and Magana Baptiste, opened the very first yoga studio in San Francisco in 1952. Early on, Baptiste was taken with the teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar and Bikram Choudhury. Baptiste took what he learned from these great eastern teachers and created a style of yoga that worked to empower, strengthen, and stretch the bodies and minds of modern westerners.
Baptiste Yoga has three main elements. The aim of Baptiste Yoga is to create freedom, peace of mind, and the ability to live more powerfully and authentically right now. This is achieved through the following elements: asana, the physical practice of yoga postures; meditation, the practice of focusing the mind; and inquiry, the practice of self-transformation.
What to expect? Baptiste Yoga is a physically challenging, flowing practice that will get your heart pumping while also encouraging you to find your authentic personal power in life. Classes feature a vigorous 90-minute sequence, performed in a heated room and designed to condition the whole body. Baptiste methods are intended to be adaptable to any level of physical ability. Each of the seventeen instructors at Yoga Body Shop are Baptiste trained. A Baptiste yoga instructor does not practice from their mat while they are leading the yoga class. They will move continually through the room guiding the yogis from one pose to another while looking, listening and giving tools to the yogis in order to expand the students’ practice. This may mean giving a hands-on assist to square the hips or additional verbal cues to enhance a yogi’s alignment without a physical assist. It also means watching the flow unfolding and offering modifications or enhancements depending on the yogis in the studio and in the moment.
Instructors trained in the Baptiste style are encouraging, uplifting, positive, energetic, attentive and aware. They are known to be grounded, down to earth and “non-guru-like” teachers. This style of teaching can be a powerful experience for a student as Baptiste instructors are tuned in to your practice, encouraging you to try new things, pushing you to something bigger than yourself.
What’s next? Now that you recognize what it means for a studio to earn the designation as “Baptiste Affiliate”, understand the value of the practice’s beginnings and know what to expect in a class, we challenge you to give the Baptiste Methodology a try. New client specials offer unlimited session in the first month. Join us at Yoga Body Shop and find your power both on and off the mat.