Taos Mountain Yoga Festival
Join us for the inaugural Taos Mountain Yoga Festival presented by Taos Ski Valley and Blue Sky Retreat Center on July 27 - 28, 2019.
Schedule:
Saturday, July 27:
- 7:00am: Registration opens on Resort Center Plaza
- 8:00am - 9:30am: Satisfaction Guaranteed Yoga with Selena Isles
- Class Description: Deliciously slow vinyasa to ease and align yourself to the sacred ground with an off the deep end meditation and possibly a spontaneous dance party equals satisfaction guaranteed. Accompanied by the sounds of DJ Seriousblack, Selena’s DJ alter ego.
- 10:00am - 11:15am: Restorative Yoga & Sound Bath Meditation with Justine Fanarof and John Robert Malone
- Class Description: At the Taos Mountain Yoga Festival Justine Fanarof will offer a gentle and relaxing yoga practice followed by a guided Yoga Nidra meditation. The yoga class is accessible to all levels and is an opportunity for practitioners to slow down and feel their breath. Yoga Nidra Meditation is practiced lying down. It can be an accessible way to learn and experience meditation and has been shown to decrease stress and anxiety and improve sleep and well being. Students are invited to bring their mats, a few bath towels or yoga blankets to cushion and support their bodies, and a face cloth to place over their eyes during the Yoga Nidra practice.
- 11:30am - 1:00pm: Acro Yoga with Alana Lee assisted by teachers from High Frequency Yoga Loft Taos
- Class Description: AcroYoga is a physical practice done with a partner which combines yoga, Thai massage, gymnastics and acrobatics. Learn to fly! It's fun and easy & anyone can do it! All ages & levels welcome. No experience or partner needed. Why lift weights when you can lift your friends? Fly, stretch & breathe & play! We will learn a sequence of foundational poses with an emphasis on proper technique & alignment. A solid foundation is needed to build a strong Acrobatic Yoga practice so we will focus on strength, conditioning & hand balancing to awaken all the proper muscles needed to get upside down & off the ground, with a little help from your friends! Whether you are beginner or advance come refine technique. We will do poses that elongate the spine & relieve stress & tension for both the base & flyer! Come prepared to have fun & leave feeling alive!
- 1:30pm - 3:00pm: Rocky Mountain High Vinyasa Flow with Rob Loud & Random Rab
- Class Description: In this class we will move and breathe with purpose to the amazing and soulful sounds or of RANDOM RAB through a skillfully created, well rounded sequence steeped in mindfulness. Through observation and a practice imbued with sensuality and feeling, our inner light of awareness begins to reveal itself and we come to know Life not as separate from us, and also as our ultimate teacher! You will definitely be feeling Rocky Mountain "High" after this 75 minute experience. Open, unguarded and light! All of Rob's classes are inclusive to all level's a little something for everyone!
- 3:30pm - 5:00pm: Fire and Flow with Albina Rippy and Roger Rippy & DJ Seriousblack
- Class Description: We are ruled by the elements: earth, air, fire, water and space. In this class, we delve into these elements, especially the elements of fire (passion) and water (flow), in order to step into our natural way of being; a state of joy, ease and, most importantly, fun.
- 5:00pm - 5:45pm: DJ Seriousblack
- 6:00pm - 7:30pm: Live Music by Random Rab
- 7:30pm - 9:00pm: Silent Disco with DJ Seriousblack, DJ Oliver Knight & DJ Julia Daye
- Silent Disco is included in the full event ticket. You may purchase a silent disco only ticket for $10 CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE
Sunday, July 28:
- 9:30am - 11:00am: Rise and Shine Yoga with Shree Yoga's Kari Malen
- Start your morning off on the right foot – breath work, gentle fluid asana, deep stretch and balance work. Loosen your body, lighten your heart, and open your mind.
- 11:00am: Chocolate & Wine Tasting
- Must be 21+ for this event
- Space is limited and may sign up upon check-in
- Must have a full weekend ticket for event
- 11:00am: DJ Lunch & Social
- Cost not included in Ticket
*Registration and classes are located on Taos Ski Valley Resort Center Plaza
*Event will happen rain or shine, there is an indoor location in case of inclement weather
*Please bring your own yoga mat
*Times and classes subject to change
Tickets on sale online now until July 26 at 6:00pm MST.
About the Teachers & DJs:
Inspired by the Infinite and motivated by his own inward journey, Rob’s desire is to be a catalyst for change in others on the path towards Self discovery. He describes his style of teaching as embodied power vinyasa, pulling wisdom from multiple lineages. Rob teaches yoga full-time exclusively at the Yoga Pod in his hometown of Boulder, CO as well as in Denver. His passion for yoga is apparent through his dedicated personal practice as a student first, so that he can serve more effectively as a teacher. Rob empowers, inspires and shares his love of yoga through every connection, his classes are creative, challenging, intelligent, FUN and bring depth beyond physical asana.
Selena's journey officially started when in 1996, after a traumatic injury during the Canada Games which ended her athletic career in 4 seconds. While recovering she found a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi which then led her to discover her mother’s copies of Light on Yoga, Yoga the Iyengar Way, The Bhagavad Gita and a poster of Dharma Mittra’s 608 Asana. She spent the rest of that summer in full leg cast and crutches, secluded in her parent’s basement, trying to wrap her mind around this age old practice and its concepts.
The AHA! Moment came through Yogananda’s reverence for simplicity in his writings; Selena learned to find the joy in the rise and fall of life, the triumphs and tribulations and learning to understand the impermanence of everything around her. It was also at this point that Selena stumbled down the path of meditation like an elephant in a china shop, seeking refuge. She learned important lessons in the basement, that summer that live on in my practice and teaching today.
In 2001, she traveled to Thailand, and became dedicated to the path of yoga and meditation. While there she lived in a small ascetic village which affected my practice greatly, this was not a cool resort teacher training at all; it was day to day living, offering oneself up to serve and being humbled in the most painfully extraordinary ways.
Today she works at blending the alchemy of her own practice with her years of studentship. She aspires not to teach but to allow the practice to emanate from her, letting awareness blend with movement and breath. Selena's practices are dynamically focused classes that force you into the present moment, using a bit of urban vernacular.
Albina & Roger Rippy
Roger and Albina Rippy are yoga teachers, conscious community leaders and former yoga studio owners from Houston, Texas and Taos, New Mexico with over 36 years of collective yoga practice and over 22 years of collective teaching experience. They founded YogaOneStudios, a community of 7 yoga studios in Houston, Texas and own and operate the Blue Sky Retreat Center, a historic mountain retreat center in Taos, New Mexico. Teaching yoga has taken the them to the White House as well as to Moscow for the Yoga Journal Russia Conference. Their purpose is to help people live happy, healthy and inspired lives through yoga, meditation, self-inquiry, and heathy, conscious living. They have three children and a fluffy dog named, Dante, and recently returned from a year of traveling the world with their family.
Roger and Albina have been leading 200 hour beginner and 300 hour advanced yoga teacher trainings since 2008 graduating over 1000 trainees. Roger and Albina co-founded and co-produced the Texas Yoga Conference from 2010-2013 in Houston, TX with peak attendance of 1500 people. Collectively, over the years, Roger and Albina have led over 6,000 yoga classes with over 90,000 students. Albina lives her passion as a success coach for individuals and businesses. Read more about Albina’s magic atwww.albinarippy.com.
Alana Lee is the owner of High Frequency Yoga Loft in Taos, New Mexico. Alana began her journey in movement at the age of 3 with dance which then evolved into gymnastic, diving, cheerleading & partner acrobatics. Alana took her first yoga class at the age of twelve. Then after completing her competitive collegiate career at the University of Central Florida, she returned to yoga because she realized she needed to move her body for the rest of her life but in a mindful way. Through yoga she was able to overcome many challenges that she had faced in her athletic career & learned to connect to herself & love her body.
Alana has been teaching movement & meditation for over 20 years to all ages & levels. She has led workshops in Yoga & Fitness all over the world and is certified in 20 different formats & modalities, hatha, vinyasa flow, power yoga, mommy & me, kids yoga, Cardio Flow, SculptWorks, Antigravity Aerial yoga & AirBarre, Pole, Lyra, ballet barre fitness, Pilates, Acrobatics, Acro Yoga, TRX suspension trainer & RIP trainer, UrbanKick Cardio kickboxing, JumpSport trampoline Fitness, Pound, Pon De Flo Caribbean Dance, ecstatic dance, Spin, hands on healing, energy healing, transformational breath work & more. Since 2006 she has been teaching Yoga & Fitness as her full time career in Boston, Los Angeles & San Francisco. She was the NorCal regional Sculptworks Teacher Trainer for YogaWorks, lead regional group fitness Teacher Trainer for Crunch, & lead Trainer for Wee Yogis Kids Yoga teacher training program. In her spare time, she plays violin in a band & she performs partner acrobatics & AcroYoga all over the world. Her joy is sharing her passion for mind-body awareness with others & helping to make the world a better place one deep breath at a time.
Kari wants to help you clear your mind of “can’t” while finding your best self both on and off the mat. A yoga and fitness Instructor based in Taos, NM, Kari began her yoga practice as a compliment to other athletic endeavours. In an effort to achieve a deeper understanding of yoga and share its benefits with curious minds, Kari earned a teaching certificate in 2012 in Mysore, India under Yogacharya Barath Shetty - a disciple of B.K.S. Iyengar, in the IndeaYoga Practice. IndeaYoga combines Hatha, Ashtanga, and Iyengar styles including elements of meditation and breath work with movement aimed at improving mobility, balance, and self awareness.
Kari’s teaching tends to focus on body care such as - Hip Bliss, Shoulder Recovery, and Yoga and the Aging Body. She has studied these and similar topics with Anusara instructors Bea Doyle and Desiree Rambaugh.
Kari challenges her students to develop strength and resilience through awareness, and to get stale energy moving through and out of the body. Her regular classes include Fundamentals, Cardio Yoga Sculpt, Vinyasa Flow, Inversions, Arm Balances and sport specific practices such as pre and post ski yoga (winters at Taos Ski Valley), and yoga for cyclists. See karimalen.com for a full schedule of offerings.
Justine K. Fanarof, JD, MPH, E-RYT 500
Justine was brought into the world with intention—born in South Africa into a lineage of freedom fighters supportive of her spiritual path. Her work as a yoga and mindfulness teacher is grounded in a lifetime of intellectual inquiry, social justice activism, and community service. Her spiritual practices have supported her through the arduous process of becoming and being an adult. The thread of her spiritual practice ran concurrent to her practice of higher education and her personal work has been to understand how the two practices coalesce. Justine’s range of life experiences, from being a lawyer, working with undocumented children, producing news, living abroad, speaking Spanish, and working on legislative issues, to studying, practicing, and teaching embodied physical and spiritual practices yield her specific gifts as a teacher. A teacher of yoga and mindfulness since 2004 and a practicing lawyer with a Masters in Public Health, Justine is a creative, thoughtful, and ethical teacher. Justine is the Owner and Founder of Fanarof Law and Justine Yoga and the creator of Mindful Law Firm™, Mindfulness Based Mediation™, and Yogi Know Thyself™. With deep gratitude and joy she brings her range of practices and teachings to her community.
As DJ called Seriousblack, Selena transforms the vibes of any scene she is set loose on. Her versatile roots run deep in underground hip hop, dancehall, reggae, soca/calypso, jazz and funk. She put to work her years as a bassist and steel pan musician to work to create a sound that is like no other. Her seamless blends of rap, world, soul, dancehall, reggae, electronic, and trip hop in her sound and productions makes any show an event.
Her resume is extensive, yet she maintains an extensive touring schedule involving various artists that she has opened for and shared the stage with; DJ Drez, MC Yogi, Karsh Kale and Thievery Corporation, to Micheal Franti, Afrika Bambataa, Kaytranada, Lord Finesse, A-Track, The Rolling Stones and DJ Kool Herc. She has appeared in festivals and organizations such as Wanderlust, Montreal Jazz Festival, SumFest, Yocomo Yoga Festival, Lovebox Festival, Who’s Got NEXT, Under Pressure, Red Bull Music Academy, and Tools of WAR.
Rab was born. He began to experiment with sound. The back of his head fell on the ground. Sound was released from the THUMP. It was deafening and created around him the first note of Random Rab’s music.
