Category: Blog

Stay up-to-date on the latest from Asheville Yoga Center with our blog! Meet our teachers and hear them share more about their lives and yoga practice. Read tips on how to integrate yoga more deeply into your life off the mat. Learn more about inspirational teacher training programs, and discover new ways to deepen your practice!

Blog

Teacher Feature: Get to Know Gota Cebrero

To me, it’s more about sharing yoga than teaching. When I began walking this path of yoga, it never crossed my mind to teach because I had enough work to do on myself. I began to fully focus on my Sadhana (my own practice). Through this process, practicing every morning and afternoon at some beach, park, plaza or outdoor space, people started approaching me out of curiosity and asked me to share with them. That’s how it all began, organically and this is how it still feels and will always feel. Even though in times of being a father and a husband, I need to make a living to support my family, I still consider it an exchange of energy. From the most profoundness of my heart, I share this path of yoga that carves and transforms my life infinitely.

Read More »
Blog

Teacher Feature: Get to Know Sierra Hollister

The first yoga class that really captivated me was a power flow style with Sarah Powers. I was young – still in college, and a dedicated runner and climber at the time. Yoga was poetry for the body. In my attempts to find a class / teacher similar to Sarah, I stumbled into Ahimsa Ashram in Washington, DC and found kundalini yoga- which felt like
rocket fuel to me. Some 30 years later, I am still enchanted with kundalini and the
incredible power of the practice to transform. And, I still love flowing vinyasa andmany other styles. I think of myself as a “yoga universalist” – I love all the
lineages and paths deeply but kundalini is the maha (great) practice of my heart,
the one that I do every day, no matter what.

Read More »
Blog

5 Tips for A Sustainable Yoga Practice: Connecting On & Off The Mat

We can practice ahimsa or non-violence with others, mother Earth, and also ourselves. When we notice thoughts of judgment or criticism, there’s an opportunity to return to the breath, witness those thoughts and emotions, and allow them to flower. This momentary gap enables us to choose how we respond – ahimsa lives in our breath, that dynamic and divine pulsation of inhalation and exhalation that we share with all living beings.

Read More »
Blog

Spring Renewal: Yoga Practices to Care for Your Self & Environment

We can practice ahimsa or non-violence with others, mother Earth, and also ourselves. When we notice thoughts of judgment or criticism, there’s an opportunity to return to the breath, witness those thoughts and emotions, and allow them to flower. This momentary gap enables us to choose how we respond – ahimsa lives in our breath, that dynamic and divine pulsation of inhalation and exhalation that we share with all living beings.

Read More »
Blog

You Already Know How: Yoga and Breathing​

Did you know that Ada Limón, the extraordinary 24th Poet Laureate of the United States, loves yoga? And yet, in a recent On Being podcast, she laughed while sharing the following:

When I lived in New York City, my two best friends, I would always try to get them to go to yoga with me. And they would say, “I don’t want to go to yoga.” And I was like, “Why?” And they said, “I just don’t want anyone telling me when to breathe.”

I know, right?! Breathe in—do this. Breathe out—do that. Enough already!

Read More »
Blog

Warrior Breath: Astrological Archetypes & Yoga

A short time after I moved to Asheville, NC in 1996 I stumbled upon a little yoga practice room above an antique shop downtown. There was no sign outside advertising it as a studio or practice space. At the top of a narrow and creaking staircase there was simply a wooden bowl for donations.

Read More »
Blog

Community Kīrtan Audio with Michael Johnson

Here is the first limb of Yoga. It is a set of skillful means (upāya) that we can adopt to create a space where we can practice Yoga. These five great vows (Mahāvrata) appear to have originated with the Jainadharma tradition c.600 BCE, yet have been adopted by many other traditions.

Read More »
Blog

Bhakti Yoga: The Flow of Devotion

Bhakti means devotion, a deep yearning to experience love in its purest form. According to Dr. Shyam Ranganathan, Bhakti is identical to Yoga as a basic ethical theory that originated in South Asia. Although it is often confused with Theism, a decolonized view of Yoga or Bhakti does not require any beliefs.

Read More »
Blog

Nationally-recognized Yoga Institution Transfers Ownership to Ayurvedic Wellness Organizations

Nationally-recognized Yoga Institution Transfers Ownership to Ayurvedic Wellness Organizations Co-Founders of the Asheville Yoga Center Handover Stewardship to AyurPrana and The Ayurvedic Institute to Continue Supporting the Local Community ASHEVILLE, NC (February, 24, 2022) – Asheville Yoga Center (AYC) is coming under new leadership, with the previous owners Stephanie and

Read More »

“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”

– Mary Oliver

Receive Heart & Soul In Your Inbox:

Sign up for our newsletter