by Molly Glennen
Meet Your Teacher is a series of interviews of YGSF teachers by students. If you are interested in contributing to this series, please contact David.
Marisa practicing Bharadvajasana 1 during her eight month of pregnanacy.
“Yoga isn’t a panacea; it isn’t a quick fix. It is like the tortoise, not the hare – the slow, steady road. It is about being deliberate and living in the moment.”
– Marisa
Marisa Toriggino, a co-owner and teacher at Yoga Garden, has personally experienced the benefits that a long-term yoga practice can offer. Several years ago, Marisa committed seven months to a fertility sequence that restricted her from doing any yoga postures that were not part of the proscribed set. She worked closely with Manouso Manos, her teacher for the last five years, to learn the sequence. The prescription included long-held poses like backbends to balance her hormones and soften her abdomen. Manouso also advised her to adapt her teaching style so that her verbal explanations were more concise and to use students to demonstrate poses that she was not supposed to be doing during this time.
Not only was the experience beneficial for her practice and teaching, it meant learning something that had been passed down through an oral tradition. The experience changed her life and practice due to a deep level of understanding that was obtained from seven months of daily deep backbends and inversions. She conceived and gave birth to a robust daughter shortly thereafter.
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with Marisa Toriggino