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teacher training | Testimonials
Katie Parker
As a graduate of Patty Townsend’s Embodyoga™ Teacher Training
and In-Depth Yoga Study Program I can attest that Patty provides her students with a
rock-solid foundation of the fundamental techniques and skills of practicing and teaching yoga. Yet what makes Patty so special as a teacher is that she also allows ample room for the individual to discover, develop, and express a vision and voice that speak from her own experience of yoga, so that her practice and teaching are robustly alive and embodied.
As a poet, I find it difficult to describe anything without the use of metaphor, so I cannot
resist sharing the image that comes to my mind when I think of my experience as Patty’s student. I imagine myself standing in a kitchen surrounded by a vast array of foods, and finding a note inviting me to use them to prepare a lavish feast. A book of recipes is
available for me to consult, but the note encourages me to develop my own recipe, through the process of discovering the tastes and textures and subtle properties of each ingredient, so that eventually I intuitively understand how to combine them to create a well-balanced, yet fresh and surprising dish that represents my personal relationship to each ingredient, as well as to the dish as a whole. Patty encourages her students to develop the creativity, courage, and confidence to experiment and connect at a personal level to the material she provides them with. I believe Patty teaches her students how to prepare and serve up “soul food”, fit for both deep healing and ecstatic celebration, in classes that are immensely rich and satisfying, and never, ever boring.
Patty Townsend, by supporting my journey toward the freedom to feel and experience asana as an expression of my true self, in fact seems to be teaching in collaboration with my true self, empowering me to trust myself as my own teacher. It is this aspect of Patty’s teaching for which I am most grateful, and which I have not found in any other teachers.
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