Wow! How is it March?! The warm weather is starting to bring on thoughts of spring, but we know winter isn't over yet! Every month seems to bring new challenges for Elaine and Alyssa, and excitement as we see our small community grow. We have new members every month and you all add something unique to this place, and we thank you for being part of what we are trying to create in Butte.
We are proud to welcome Erica to the crew at the Yoga Coop! Erica brings a fantastic style of Hatha to the studio, and we particularly enjoy the "traditional meets modern" style Erica incorporates into her classes. Come practice with her on Thursday nights at 5:30! If you were lucky to grab a spot for this month's workshop, congratulations! The Breath Trance Workshop filled our little studio and participants raved about the experience. Didn't get a chance to sign up for the workshop? That's okay! We will be hosting this workshop in the future. Do you want something specific for a workshop experience? Let us know! Our inspiration comes from YOU! Lastly as always (Shameless Plug!), many people find out about our studio by word of mouth and searching for Yoga on Google. If you enjoy the services we provide, consider leaving us a review! Facebook works, too!
Member-Voted Donations for February
In honor of Black History Month, we believed that it seemed fitting to honor and support our BIPOC community in the State of Montana. You voted and it was a close one this month, but HERE Montana will be the recipient of our Monthly Driven Intention for February.
HERE Montana is based out of Missoula and provides the BIPOC community with opportunities to connect and recreate in Montana's great outdoors.
THANK YOU members for showing up and allowing us to continue with our mission to support organizations in need.
Announcements and What’s New at the Coop
The Dreamers Meeting
Have you heard us talking about the Dreamer's Meeting? Elaine and Alyssa believe in the pillars of this Cooperative: Inclusivity, Accessibility and Community. A big part of this, we believe, is transparency. We want you to know what our goals are, how the business is doing, and also exploring whether we are living up to our values.
The first Dreamer's Meeting is all about big picture! How are we doing? How can we do better? Where do we see this going? and here are the highlights from our first Dreamer's Meeting...
Firstly, we love the face lift we gave the studio, especially the gold lotus! We also believe that we have gotten off on the right foot regarding getting the word out to the community. We need to brainstorm ways to keep spreading the word though! There are a lot of people that can benefit from a wellness practice. We are proud of the number of members we have, and therefore the community that is being cultivated in this space. Although there is a natural ceiling to the amount of members we can sustain in the current space, we are not there yet, and want to come up with ways to increase the number of memberships. We've decided to change the yoga instructor pay in order to ensure they are getting paid fairly. This ties in greatly with high quality experiences, classes and workshops for our members, and we can't do that without the best yoga instructors in the area! They deserve to be taken care of.
Lastly, from a financial perspective, we have set the goal of getting our Return on Investment paid off, and we believe we can do it! We want to break even as soon as possible so we can start planning for our next big steps! Those next big steps will be discussed at our next Dreamer's Meeting where the focus will be our financial position and how we can shape our future based off that!
March Member Driven Intention Choices
In Honor of Women's History Month, we have found 3 organizations in Montana that support Women in this state.
AAUW Of Montana
Gender Equity & Economic Security: We’ve led the fight for fair pay and economic opportunity for women — and the battle continues: Women still get just 82 cents for every dollar paid to a man, and men continue to dominate the top roles and highest-paying professions.
https://aauw-mt.aauw.net/
Inspiring Girls Expeditions
Increase the participation and diversity of women in field sciences, art, and outdoor recreation. We encourage attitudes which foster supportive and inclusive science and outdoor communities. Foster young women’s self-confidence in their physical, intellectual, and leadership abilities while creating lifelong advocates for Earth science and wilderness stewardship. Support a network for current early-career scientists, artists, and guides through continuing development opportunities and collaboration.
https://www.inspiringgirls.org/who-we-are
Safe Space
Safe Space will provide assistance to primary and secondary survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, with the goal of breaking the inter-generational cycle of violence.
http://www.safespaceonline.org/
Upcoming Workshops and Events for March Handstand Workshop Talk about empowerment! Have you ever wanted to add a handstand to your yoga practice? Never done one before? Want to strengthen your inversions that you already incorporate into your practice? This is an ALL levels workshop where we will be practicing skills, drills, and modifications to help build strength and knowledge around inverting! Join us March 19th at the Yoga Cooperative MT!
Meet the Crew
Cami, Yogi and Yoga Instructor
What do you love about Inversions?
I love to teach inversions because society portrays them as an impossible task. When in reality, our bodies already have all the pieces and muscles needed for them. It is a matter of communicating with the body, learning how to turn on our deep stabilizers, then watching my students feel empowered by what they were already so capable of doing.
What does your future with yoga look like?
I would love to pair my yoga teaching with my nursing background in the future to develop more community outreach programs and focus on primary healthcare prevention.
How has yoga helped you?
I, like most people, found yoga during a hard time in my life. It has helped me rebuild a meaningful relationship with my body and spirit and has provided me the confidence I needed to share with other people.
Yoga Snack: Down Dog Prep for the shoulders. This video will teach you how to activate important muscles surrounding the shoulder blades in the upper back. These muscles help stabilize the shoulders in weight bearing postures such as Down Dog and Handstand. You will definitely feel this one....Try it out!
Resources
If anyone has been to Alyssa's classes lately, you may know she's been borderline obsessed with moon salutations! Moon salutations are the complimentary flow to sun salutations. They are cooling where a sun salutation is heating. They are circular where a sun salutation is linear, and moon salutations are meant to be grounding and therefore connect to the divine female energy in all of us. This book, written by Laura J Cornell, is a fantastic introduction to this particular series of poses and the philosophy behind this aspect of the practice.
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