By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Yoga instructor Chelsea Cloeter has found a literal ray of sunshine in these stormy pandemic times.
Back in the spring, she moved her sessions online. But she, and her students, found focusing during Zoom sessions difficult.
As soon as she was able classes resumed indoors with people socially distanced and wearing masks.
“Some people won’t wear masks because it’s not comfortable to wear the masks when you’re breathing more deeply,” Cloeter said.
So, she decided to move sessions outdoors. “When you’re outside it’s safer to be without a masks.”
Since mid-summer she’s held sessions in the morning and evening sessions in parks around the area.
“It was glorious weather,” she said, and seldom did they encounter rain. Once when a storm passed through during a session, it was hardly a disruption.
“It was cleansing,” said Melissa Colburn, who travels from Monclova to do yoga with Cloeter. “I think she’s just a fabulous yoga instructor. She can really tap into the pose.”
Last week, Colburn was one of three students who worked with Cloeter at Wintergarden Park. It was the first time Cloeter had held a class at the park because there isn’t much room for doing yoga on mats. “But it’s great for walking.”
The small group starting in the clearing near the nature center, moved through the woods, stopping for a half dozen poses along the way. They moved through woods, over the bridge over the dry beds of the wetlands, and into the prairie.
They become part of the natural habitat, Cloeter said.
“We are meant to be outside and people have forgotten that. I have forgotten,” she said. “It’s been such a reminder to me that it is so life-giving to be outside. I feel so much more at peace after I’ve been outside for one of these classes.”
She moved through the area to visit different parks. The Simpson Garden is a favorite spot. She’s held classes in the woods near Otterbein, where she teaches regularly, and visited Farnsworth, Side Cut, Fallen Timbers, Swan Creek, and the W.W. Knight Preserve.
Colburn said she was so impressed with Simpson Garden that she’s brought friends to visit it. “This is really so close to home, but I never knew it existed.”
Cloeter said she had maybe taught a couple classes outdoors before this summer. “You think there’s so much you can’t control. You think you need the perfect day to teach outside,” she said.
“But then when you have to teach outside because people won’t come inside then you see this is what yoga is about, learning how to be flexible, how to be vulnerable, how to take what comes and then proceed. I used to think I’d have to be prepared for what happens so I could control it and keep everything the way I want it,” Cloeter said. “I have learned from this experience things are going to come in and you’re just going to have to figure out what to do. The more adaptable and on your toes you can stay in the moment, the happier you’re going to be.” That’s true in life as well as yoga.
Everyone accepted “the vagaries of the outdoors,” whether it was warm, or cold, or wet.
“Not a single person complained or said they wished it was different.”
Lisa Herr said people enjoy the variety of temperatures.
Sue Donaldson noted that Cloeter made use of the natural features they encounter, using trees, for example, to do stretching.
“One of things I like to do is take a moment to merge with the environment,” Cloeter said. “We always think we’re separate as humans, separate and above. I’ll often tell people to take a tree and just identify with the tree.”
Its roots extend deep into the earth, the trunk is tall and steady, and students should feel that sensation in their spines. “That’s your center.”
Cloeter continued: “Then reaching up to the sky, the tops of the tree is always flexible. So, I always talk about how the tree is rooted and strong but the top moves and is flexible. That’s how we can be as humans. We can stand in and for what we believe in but also be available to change and vulnerability.”
And as the weather turns colder, she plans to continue to offer some sessions outside. She wants to do yoga in the snow.
She spent a part of her childhood in Woodstock, Vermont, downhill and cross-country skiing. She attended Middlebury College and remained in Vermont a couple years after graduation. She knows winter, even if she does not like being cold. She admits to feeling the chill even on an early fall morning.
But winter may be the time when outdoor yoga is needed, when people are cooped up inside.
They may not realize it, the culture may tell them it’s better to stay out of the cold, but there’s still a need to be in the fresh, albeit cold, air, she said.
“These people who are going out week after week are starting to realize that this is something we need,” Cloeter said. “How do I feel after doing an outdoor yoga practice? It’s different even from how I feel after doing an indoor practice, which is pretty dynamite. But it’s different from that,” she said.
She sees it as “part of my mission” to help people understand that need to connect with nature.
“I want to do yoga when we think we shouldn’t be outside, but we need to be outside in some way.”
