Spirit Yoga - Yoga tradition meets zeitgeist and modern lifestyleThe English term "spirit" is most often used synonymously with mind or spirit. Spirit can also mean mood, vigor, and enthusiasm. However, none of these translations alone can accurately describe the essence of Spirit Yoga. Yoga has always united body and mind into a strong unity, but Spirit Yoga adds a particularly powerful dynamic. In this respect, Spirit Yoga is a fundamentally traditional, yet still very young style of yoga, in which spirit represents life energy. Founded in Berlin in 2004 by Patricia Thielemann, Spirit Yoga, with several locations and studios, is now one of the best-known European yoga movements based on the American model.
Patricia Thielemann's path to becoming a yoga teacher and trainer
With Spirit Yoga, Patricia Thielemann created a variation of Power Vinyasa Flow Yoga, which she had learned and loved during her stay in Los Angeles. Instead of concentrating on an acting career in the USA as planned, she trained as a yoga teacher there. A few years later, the athletic young woman returned to Germany and took off: She founded a yoga studio in Berlin and created her own label, Spirit Yoga. She gained a reputation as an expert, particularly in the areas of prenatal and postnatal yoga. She wrote several books on yoga during pregnancy and after birth, and she also released numerous CDs and DVDs on Spirit Yoga. More than 100 yoga classes are taught every week in Berlin alone – most of them open to the public. The levels range from beginner courses for newcomers with no prior knowledge to classes for advanced and professional students. There are also classes with different focuses, such as back strengthening, power, or pregnancy.
Learning and teaching Spirit Yoga
Spirit Yoga is, on the one hand, a style of yoga that is now practiced in three Berlin studios and one licensed studio in Aachen. At the same time, the studios are also yoga schools. There, yoga teachers are trained to pass on the "spirit" as yogis and yoginis. Spirit Yoga does not claim to completely reinvent yoga, but rather to be a bridge between Eastern and Western styles. The physical exercises are dynamically flowing, very precise, and breath-focused. Inspired by Power Vinyasa Flow, many elements are similar to this style, but are more clearly structured. A certain luxury is characteristic, such as the studio's own spa area with sauna and massage. The basic idea of Spirit Yoga includes retreats that take place in exotic locations and high-class (and correspondingly expensive) hotels. In addition, regular training and continuing education courses, workshops, and seminars are offered.
The philosophy of Spirit Yoga: Stepping into your own light
"Step into your light!" is Patricia Thielemann's unique approach to yoga and the guiding principle of Spirit Yoga. She distances herself from promises of healing and esotericism, instead emphasizing the importance of individual spaces of experience and resources that each person can create for themselves through yoga. She believes that modern yoga should be relevant to life, challenging, and free-spirited. Meditative elements help you face everyday challenges and stresses more calmly and with renewed energy. Yoga is intended to be an inspiring source of strength for people of all ages. A matter of the heart, then—without coercion, without pressure to perform, and without intense spiritualization. The motivation is sufficient to want to do something lasting good for yourself that equally addresses body and mind. Since Patricia Thielemann has trained over 350 teachers in recent years (as of 2015), you don't necessarily have to live in Berlin or Aachen to find a course where this style of yoga is practiced and taught.
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