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JENIFER EBEL
Founder and Director of The Yoga Studio
Over 30 years of inquiry, study, and practice of yoga.
Certified Yoga Teacher
500 Registered Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance
12 years teaching experience
Teacher training in Iyengar, Kripalu and Anusara styles of yoga.
I took my first yoga class when
I was a mere 17 years old, in the old fire house on Strongs Avenue, in Stevens
Point, Wisconsin. It was a YMCA class and the teacher… well, in those
days, good training was hard to come by. I don’t remember her name
but I give her credit for doing what she was doing and for being my very
first, real live yoga teacher. I was intrigued and inspired. I continued
through the years taking classes whenever I could. I studied yoga the next
summer in Madison, WI at the University. I read Richard Hittleman’s
yoga book. I read Autobiography of a Yogi and I read about Neem Karoli Baba
in Miracle of Love, by Ram Dass. I read as many books as I could get my
hands on about Ramana Maharshi. I read dozens of different translations
and commentaries on The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
For many years I was a closet yogi. I had a beautiful, rich practice of
three hours daily. In those days I was homeschooling my two sons. I told
them they could not get up before 8 am. If they did wake up early, they
could read in bed or do some quiet activity in their room until 8 am. I
never got a single complaint! Actually, quite the contrary. They really
appreciated my practice. I think Sean might have been about 8 or 9 when
he said to me, “I wish all moms did yoga.” I would be up at
4:30 and my practice began at 5 am. This three hour period was filled with
silence, asana, pranayama, meditation, journaling and study of the yogic
philosophy (some of the aforementioned books). Sometimes I worked with videos
and tapes. I did a lot of kundalini yoga in those days.
Somewhere in those years of homeschooling my sons, I took yoga classes from
Mark Ensweiler in Amherst, WI. No longer was I a closet yogi. I discovered
I was not the only yogi on the planet. On the contrary, there were all kinds
of fun people gathering together to sweat and breathe and open their hearts
through a shared practice. It was wonderful! I loved the sense of community
we all felt in Mark’s classes. I loved the gentleness and humor he
brought to the teachings. I especially loved the devotion and the sincerity
and the beautiful readings and sharing circles, and the openness and humility
that people brought to the experience there. I loved driving to the classes
with my friend and homeschooling comrade Amy Phelps. We would sit in the
car after class and have long philosophical discussions about life and consciousness
and love and education. Over the next few years, Mark and I shared sadhanas,
compared notes, worked together to support each other’s practices
and deepen our understanding of the various dynamics of the practice. The
move from an isolated practice to a community practice proved to be a pivotal
one, not only in regards to my personal practices but also in the direction
my life would move.
Mark encouraged us all to go to Kripalu. I had been subbing in for him from
time to time, helping him with his yoga classes and friends were asking
me to teach more. I didn’t feel like I was really teacher material
back then. I had a good 20 years of practice and study in, but I didn’t
feel at all qualified to teach others. So I called about 12 different ashrams
around the country with a list of questions. Many of them had to do with
anatomy and my concerns about safety. Kripalu answered all my questions
in a way that left no doubt about where I would take my teacher training.
So that’s where I started. I took my first teacher training there
in February of 1993. Since then, I’ve taken advanced trainings there
at Kripalu. Trainings on Teaching the Deeper Practices, Meditation, and
Pranayama. I’ve also assisted the teacher training programs and other
programs at Kripalu.
In searching for more specific alignment information, I turned to Iyengar
Yoga. I studied Iyengar Yoga in Madison, WI way back when, and occasionally
when a teacher would pass through town and offer a special workshop. I continued
with that whenever I could and eventually went to Minneapolis to take a
teacher training in the style of Iyengar Yoga. It was intensive and challenging.
I studied under the tutelage of Kristin Chirhart and Lee Sverkerson. They
both study regularly with BKS Iyengar at his institute in Pune, India. Their
training was rigorous and thorough with a high level of professionalism.
It was difficult for me in some ways. Most of the trouble I had there was
with the languaging. It was sometimes difficult for me to understand what
it was they were asking me to do, or just how to engage a particular muscle.
Still, the training I received there was excellent and full. It takes a
long time to integrate all the information taken in at an intensive training.
As my personal practice deepened and intensified, misalignments in my postures
made themselves more obvious. I started feeling more pain in my back, in
my sacrum, in my hip. I have scoliosis and have been told that the misalignment
was causing some uneven settling in the sacrum. I needed some expert advice
and feedback on my alignment in some of the more advanced asanas I was practicing.
I asked Mark if he would observe and adjust me. He told me to go to John
Friend. When Krishna Das came to Stevens Point, he also told me to go see
John Friend. I had no idea at the time, who John Friend was. I started looking
into it and finally caught up with him at a weekend workshop in Chicago.
About that time I also spent some time studying with Mukunda, Tom Stiles
at a workshop in Ohio. I got to work one on one with Tom and he gave me
some excellent advice and feedback on my alignment.
I took a year to work with the information and then returned for another
weekend with John in Chicago. This time, I was able to absorb more of his
principles of alignment and feel the difference it makes to work in the
Anusara style of yoga that John has developed. I knew I needed to spend
more time with John. So the following month I took another workshop with
him, this time in Boston. But flying all over for a weekend with him seemed
crazy so I spoke with John about it and soon I found my way into his week
long trainings in Utah at Inner Harmony Retreat Center. I have been spending
a week there with him every August. It is intensive, fun, rich, challenging,
and rewarding to be working with a master like John. I have such gratitude
to him for all the work and thought and effort he has put into Anusara Yoga
and for how much love he has for all of his students. No matter how large
the class is (and sometimes they are 250 people!) I always feel watched
over and cared for. I always get the adjustments I need.
So I catch John whenever he’s in the neighborhood and get out to study
with him whenever I can. I got to take a teacher training with him recently
in Boston. It was amazing! I have had the pleasure of sharing the information
with so many people in the years since I’ve started with John and
I am awed at the results I’ve seen. The principles of alignment are
RIGHT ON!!! They work every time! Back problems, neck problems, knees, shoulders,
over and over, just sticking with the program he has so beautifully designed,
I have seen miraculous results… in my own body and in many others.
Working with John has brought the joy back into my practice. I am no longer
afraid that I am hurting myself with poor alignment. I know how to respond
when my body has pain. I know how to align myself for the greatest ease
and enjoyment of the postures. But John’s teachings are much more
than asana alignment. He has a beautiful way of weaving the timeless teachings
of yoga into each class, each lesson. He makes it beautiful, he makes it
real, and he makes it very accessible.
Anusara Yoga is a right handed Tantric philosophy. It’s about beauty.
It’s about co-creating. About creating artful asanas with the body.
Anusara means flowing with Grace. John says Anusara yogis are a merry band
of Bohemian artists! I have also been drawn to Advaita (non-dual) studies.
In advaita, there is no co-creating because there is no “co”.
Only one! Union IS! It is what Ramana Maharshi spoke of so simply and so
eloquently. I am inexplicably drawn to him and his teachings. But Ramana
left his body before I was born and I have longed to sit with a living master.
So I have been spending time with Francis Lucille in Temecula, California.
He is a warm, beautiful, funny, and very accessible teacher of advaita.
I felt immediately welcome and at home with his friends and with him. His
teachings are beautiful and they continue to work for me long after I return
home from the retreats. Francis also loves beauty. He loves truth, he loves
LOVE. What could be sweeter? So although the two philosophies are different
in a fundamental way, they are both about finding truth and beauty and love.
They are both about knowing the Self.
I have been blessed with some of the finest teachers on earth. In addition
to the teachers already mentioned, I have appreciated the teachings I received
from Jeff Migdow at Kripalu, and from Ravi Singh (kundalini yoga) and the
guidance I received from The American Sanskrit Institute. I am currently
studying a Sanskrit program developed by Cynthia Churchill at Mindflow Learning
titled Devanagari: Gateway to Sanskrit. I hold it in high regard and recommend
it without reservation to beginners of Sanskrit studies. And I am eternally
humbled and honored to be in the presence of the many individuals who have
studied with me and shared their experiences of yoga and of life with all
of us at The Yoga Studio in Stevens Point, WI. I also get to meet many new
faces in my travels and have befriended many gifted yoga teachers and yogis
along the way. I include them all in my prayers of gratitude.
