Christopher Baxter, R.A., R.Y.T.
Christopher Baxter (also known by his Sanskrit name Devananda), is founder and president of AtmaYoga Educational Services. He uses the philosophy, practices, energy, tradition, experiences, and intelligence of yoga to awaken the unlimited potential within each of his students. Combining a thorough, well-organized, and thoughtful learning process with 30 years of intuitive practice, he directs 200- and 500-hour AtmaYoga Teacher Certification Trainings, classes, and workshops from his base at the Discovery Yoga Center in St. Augustine, Florida.
An architect since 1972, for 20 years he was also a founding member of the world renowned Kripalu Center for Yoga in Lenox, Massachusetts. While director of Teacher Training there, he assisted many thousands of teachers and students in understanding, strengthening, and deepening their practice through recognizing their inherent potential in yoga.
Christopher is the author of Kripalu Hatha Yoga, was instrumental in the development of Kripalu Yoga, and was founding director of the international Kripalu Yoga Teachers Association. During his seven-year leadership, the association grew to more than 1,500 teachers in 30 countries. In 1997, he spearheaded a series of national meetings among diverse yoga teacher training schools. These meets resulted in the establishment of the Yoga Alliance, a nonprofit affiliation that certifies 200- and 500-hour yoga teacher training schools throughout the United States.
AtmaYoga is a naturally graceful way to embrace and awaken your core self. Contemplative yet skillful, kind yet powerful, safe yet challenging, it provides an active integration of your mind, body, heart, soul, and life through a blend of subtle yogic teachings, transformational experiences and concentrated physical practice.
In every posture, essential anatomical information and safe technique is given. The physical skills are supported by conscious understanding of purpose, benefits, and modifications. This external information is counter balanced with your intuitive felt sense of what is happening, and what you need in each moment. In this way, each external posture is modified to your specific internal needs. Through focused attention on your inner experience you learn to feel your external movements, positions, and sensations with clarity and wisdom. When your postures become permeated with breath, and you rest steady and comfortable in your core strength, your mind becomes quiet and your heart is at peace. From this, you learn to root yourself in the moment where movement and stillness feel the same, sense and sensation become one, and you open into spacious wisdom and compassionate awareness—the essence of the core self. |
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