When you don’t know what to do, take good care of you.
This is our theme for January. Such a good action to move toward a better way, every day. We’re aligning our themes with the new 2023 Strala Calendar (printed edition), and 100% of the profits from this calendar go to Strala community member Shelly Himmelrich’s foundation, The Charlie Fund, to help bring depression awareness to young people. Please grab your calendar now for a whole year of ease inspiration. They make wonderful New Year gifts as well.
We’re also beginning a new chapter (literally!) with Strala Reads. By popular request, we are finally starting our book club!
Yoga and reading go together like deep breaths and feeling good. We’re so excited to expand our experience and read together. Our first book is The Caretakers, by Amanda Bestor-Siegal, our very own Strala community member. Grab your copy and start reading.
We’re already chatting about it in our Community Section of Strala Home and on social. Get excited for a book-themed class, French Twist Yoga Flow, coming Tuesday January 3. This new adventure is in addition to your regular 5x new classes per week, plus the video version of Feel Better with Tara Stiles podcast, all shared on your Strala Home. We’re so grateful and energized to practice together. Thank you for being here.
Please join us for practice and sharing at StralaHome.
Download the January Strala Home Calendar.
Practice together with us at StralaHome Now
Upcoming Training & Events
Online 25+Hour Intensive Yoga and Tai Chi Training for Vibrant Longevity
January 6, 2023 – January 8, 2023
I’m most excited about our approach of ease – a path for releasing, relaxing, replenishing – all right in the middle of everything need to do, all day long. Together with short bursts of intense practices to transform where are into a better place, it’s a magic formula for extending your health span.
I’ve been learning from our good friend, functional medicine pioneer Dr. Frank Lipman, for a long while about how our approach – carrying these ancient foundations from qigong into our yoga, and our all-day-long – is perfectly in line with the latest research on how to live a long and vibrant life. And I’m so excited to share how we can support each other to get here together. – TS
Online 500+Hour Advanced Teacher Training in Tai Chi and Qigong
January 7, 2023 – December 31, 2023
There’s something magical my old teacher would always tell me – “Mike, if what you’re doing with me here isn’t exactly the same as what you’re doing everywhere else (translation – while you’re brushing your teeth, shopping for groceries, or meeting with people at work), then it’s not tai chi.It took me a long while, but I get it now. Tai chi isn’t meant to be separate from life. It’s not meant to exist on its own, as some better path isolated from the rest. It’s a way of connecting with me, seeing me, and transforming wherever I am into something that’s a bit better. Even, a whole lot better. That’s another thing my teacher would say. Make it better to be here. And also, make here better.
We‘re heading into our second year of sharing these practices together, and a big addition for this training group coming up is live Zoom sessions – on many different days and times – so we all have more chances to come together, see and support each other, on whatever schedule works, right in the middle of your life.
So please be here if you can, and if you need help being here, we have all kinds of scholarships to help – just email Mike@StralaYoga.com. I can’t express enough how wonderful it’s been sharing new ways that tai chi heals and empowers, energizes and calms, and just makes it feel good to be here. It’s the practice of a lifetime, and the gift of a lifetime, having everybody here together. – MT
200+Hour Yoga Teacher Training with Tara, Mike, and Sam Berlind in Miami
May 8, 2023 – May 21, 2023
We’ve been coming to Miami more than a decade now for retreats and Strala Trainings. It’s the perfect warm and relaxed atmosphere to make moving well and feeling better a real part of your life, and what you share with others. Our theme for this 200+Hour Strala Training is Co-Creating. Leadership easily slides down a tough path of doing only for others – which invokes a leaning forward, off-center and out of balance, sacrificing yourself for someone else, for an idea about a greater good. It’s a well-meaning path, but it has an endpoint, often in burnout and injury.
So there’s a real magic you feel right away in the tai chi practice of harmony – that makes it so clear how things don’t get better when one part of us suffers to help another part. Or when one person suffers to help another. There’s a better way. No part of us is ever truly isolated. No one of us ever truly isolated. Even when we are not.
The magic of tai chi, that we can carry into our yoga and our everything, is in finding this truth of harmony – in how we care for ourselves, and in how we connect, create, and care for each other. There’s always a way to help, to lead, to enable, that helps all of who I am, that brings all of who I really am to the table.
Every one us can come together in this practice of harmony, and this shared circle of caring without endpoints. Through yoga, tai chi, and shiatsu, we’ll focus on the tools we need to co-create while practicing, leading, and sharing all the moments we have together. – TS
20+Hour Intensive Yoga Training with Tara and Mike in Berlin, Germany
Sept 23, 2023 – Sept 24, 2023
Berlin has become a wonderful home base for us, thanks to our global community of ease-makers. Joining a 2 day intensive is a comforting mix of new friends looking for more calm, and leaders of all yoga styles and backgrounds, excited for some self care time and a big reset.
We begin each day with an inclusive Energize practice. We spend the day workshopping principles of moving into harmony and balance with our selves, and all that’s here to support us, carrying these ancient foundations of qigong and tai chi into your yoga, and our everything. And we wind the day down with a Gentle practice.
It’s a mini-retreat, a renewing burst to invigorate, replenish, and inspire. You’ll discover a wonderful way to be, just for you, and for leading people together on this same circle of self-enabling care. Everyone is welcome. – TS
200+Hour Yoga Training with Tara, Mike, and Sam Berlind in Berlin, Germany
November 18, 2024 – December 1, 2024
Berlin is the perfect home to soak in your 200+Hour Strala Yoga Teacher Training, together with a wonderfully supportive, caring, and inspiring group.
You’ll learn to move through your yoga, and all that you love doing, in a way that’s powerful, sustainable, and healing. You’ll discover the ancient foundations of qigong, for mobilizing, harmonizing, unweighting, and replenishing in every breath, and every step. And you’ll learn to use these foundations in your yoga, and all your moments, to transform wherever you are into something better.
If you’re a care-giver, a teacher or health practitioner, in your family or across whatever you’re doing, you understand what it means to give until you’re out of energy. There’s a big secret and gift waiting for you in these practices. It’s at the heart of why Strala Guides and practitioners have found a way to stop burnout, and keep going sustainably, for the people they help and love.
There’s something deep in the foundations of tai chi and qigong, that teaches a way to care for you – in every moment, every action, every breath – and in all those same moments, how you can bring the people you support into this same circle of healing and care. It’s literally called turning lines into circles. The lines of giving and giving until you hit an endpoint, depleted – are transformed in these practices. In their place you find a way of being, moving, and giving that keeps going, that lets us all move each other together into a better place, on a shared circle of caring.
Our program is for anyone interested in feeling better, and gaining the tools to help others work toward enjoying a life of wellbeing. You’ll have yoga with Tara, tai chi with Mike, and shiatsu with Sam Berlind. Yes, you’ll learn how to lead a yoga class, in countless variations. But what we’re practicing alongside these tools is a real-life all-the-time self care practice, that cares for and empowers all that you do. This program changes every time, and changes lives every time. – TS