Spotlight

Hi Friends- How was your Wednesday?

I had a little food poisoning today- I won’t go into the details- but let’s just say today wasn’t fun.  It involved a lot of sleeping, eating toast, and this.

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I thought it would be fun to have an interview on certain yoginis and yogis in my life and here’s the first one! 

SPOTLIGHT ON CHRIS LEICHT

1. How does yoga help you to express who you are and who you want to be?

Yoga has helped me and continues to help me find balance in every aspect of my life. Life is full of challenges:  the time i spend on my mat helps me refocus and center. When I’m stressed, when I don’t have enough time in the day to get everything done and I start to stress and panic, going to my mat helps me find that balance. My practice helps me put everything into perspective and then it goes with me through my day. 
 
2. What important lessons have you learned about yourself through your yoga practice?

Yoga has taught me patience, love, trust, gratitude but most importantly to look past what people can present to you with their insecurities and see how amazing every person truly is. (Even though that can be the biggest challenge of all!)
 
3.  What’s your favorite pose? Why?
 
Bakhasana. I never had any upper body strength before I found yoga. I played soccer, I danced but I wasn’t strong. When I started teaching I was obsessed with learning the pose and then being able to teach it from a beginner’s perspective. I’m constantly learning and improving on how to teach every pose but when I teach crow, I think about what a challenge it was for me and how I really felt like I tried to understand that pose inside and out because it was such a challenge.
 
4.  What inspires you?

My friends. My family (especially my nephew Dane!!). Music. The moon. A sunset. Travel. My students.

5.  How did you get into yoga and what made you want to become a yoga teacher?

I never thought I’d teach yoga. I went to high school for modern dance and one of my teachers recommended yoga as a way to stay flexible and strong over the summer. So i bought Richard Hittleman’s “Yoga: 28 day exercise plan.” I had no idea what to expect but i did it almost every day that summer. I didn’t know what I was doing and if the poses were “correct.” As I continued to dance in college, I went to dance workshops and trainings and they would sometimes offer yoga as a class. It felt so foreign in my body from dance that I wasn’t sure if I liked it or hated it. Anyway, eventually I moved to Baltimore and couldn’t find a place to take dance classes so I found yoga classes. I loved it. When the first teacher training program at I jumped at the chance with no intention of ever teaching. Then I got laid off from my job. Someone offered me a yoga class to take over and I loved it so much that I can’t imagine not teaching.

(Chris teaching)

6.  Since you recently became a nurse (yay!) how will you incorporate your yoga teaching into your new career- maybe this doesn’t apply but I just thought I’d ask.

Great question since the reason i went to nursing school was because of teaching yoga. I just wanted to take the next step in helping people. when people ask me for advice in my class I only have so much knowledge and experience to work with. I thought that going back to school for nursing would help me be a more effective yoga teacher and at the same time I thought that I could use everything I’ve learned from people as a yoga teacher as a nurse.
 

(Nurse Leicht and her hubby Mike!)

Chris teaches the following classes:

Tuesday 4:30pm Charm City Yoga Midtown and 7:15 at The Lather Lab

Wednesday 6:15pm  Charm City Yoga Towson

Sunday 4:30pm Charm City Yoga Midtown

Yoga is invigoration in relaxation.  Freedom in routine.  Confidence through self control.  Energy within and energy without. ~Ymber Delecto

See you tomorrow!

xo, C

Tags: Charm City Yoga, friends, spotlight, yoga