When Renate was in her early thirties, she and her husband started going to yoga class once a week. It was not fashionable at the time, there were few studios and few classes at gyms or other places. They enjoyed the time together and the benefits to our body and kept up their practice.
While Renate received her first Structural Integration ten series, she was surprised to find herself drawn to doing more yoga and started a daily practice. The combination of having the tissue lengthened and enlivened by the SI work and self-guided on stretching, twisting, and strengthening had profound results. Over the years, yoga had helped her to keep limber and, and to find more freedom in my movement. Renate is still not a “Gumby” practitioner, but seeing opening while growing older has been a wonderful surprise.
After a few years, Renate was teaching her clients yoga stretches as part of their Structural Integration work, and many commented that they enjoyed bringing the work of opening to their homes. Renate decided she needed more education, and studied at Avalon Yoga Studio in Palo Alto. The training was rigorous, especially for someone who was not a ballet dancer or gymnast, and no longer in her thirties. But Renate enjoyed practicing more yoga, learning, meeting others, and seeing things change. In fall of 2003, Renate was certified at the 200 hour level.
Renate taught with the Stanford Health Improvement program and gives regular yoga instruction with Insight Meditation South Bay, though her main work is with her clients. She usually reserves the last 10 minutes of a session for movement education or stretches.
Testimonial: After my initial ten series, I asked Renate to help me work with some tightness that made certain yoga poses challenging. Because of her background as a yoga teacher, she was able to assess where additional opening might be possible and work on key areas to allow the opening. I could not believe that my palms were fully on the floor in the next class!
In 2007, Renate attended a 100 hour yin yoga teacher training with Sarah Powers and Paul Grilley. She found this training educational and transformative. It made her realize how easily we impose someone else’s alignment ideals on our bodies and how quickly we forget that feeling a stretch and a change in our body is what counts. Paul spent a lot of time illustrating the differences in human bone structure and made us all realize how much that bone structure determines how we look and how far our bodies can be expected to stretch. See Paul’s slide show of bone differences. That said, it still makes perfect sense to open up the connective tissue to allow us to move freely inside the range our body supports. We can do this opening using yoga poses, and SI is often useful in assisting the separation of long-held adhesions the prevent us from truly enjoying our yoga practice.
Renate says that the training validated her belief that every body is unique and beautiful, and that all she can do is support that beauty. She hopes to start teaching more yoga as her schedule allows in the coming years.
