DINA AMSTERDAM - BEYOND YIN

DINA AMSTERDAM - DOES YOGA



BEYOND YIN -

FOR YOGI TIMES MAGAZINE-






Dina Amsterdam guides her class into a simple child’s pose – knees wide, toes together, belly softening towards the floor, and then keeps us there breath after breath. Dina characterizes her teaching as a mix of yin yang yoga influenced by her studies in Buddhism, Iyengar, vinyasa and meditation. Her hatha flow classes begin in Yin style yoga, which can be described as “a sequence of long held poses to enhance the meridian and organ systems.” But as she has us sustain this seemingly restful pose well past comfortable she invites us to explore Yin Yoga beyond organs or asana, into pure philosophy. And this is no small gift. For 13 years Dina’s classes have filled with loyal students eager for another dose of what she offers, the experience of simply learning how to be present. Slowly and quietly Dina moves us through our ease into our discomfort and then beyond the ache to go deeper into the discovery of compassion for ourselves under any condition. “We don’t always have a choice as to what challenges life will serve up next, but with practice and skill we can choose how we respond to it. That is our realm of influence.” Dina speaks from experience. She’s had her share of challenges and has nothing but gratitude for the gifts of growth they’ve each offered her.

Dina has been sensitive to human suffering from a young age. Now 37 she was brought up in Davis California, (in a family shadowed by a history directly impacted by the the holocaust.) -(or rather) she I learned about human suffering at a young age when my parents taught her about the losses her family had suffered in the holocaust. Her health was compromised from a serious illness, and an eating disorder. Though a top seated tennis competitor she felt that in an intimate way, she was not at all connected to her body. She describes her suffering as a “virus of self loathing.” At Wesleyan University she focused her quest to consider “how people manage to live with human suffering” and found some solace in her studies. Through world religions to philosophy to psychology, each offered some comfort but didn’t address the whole question. When her ethics professor assigned a research project, she proposed looking at the idealized female image and its impact on eating disorders. Quickly five girls joined her group. It was one of these women who first invited Dina to visit the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health.
As she was guided through her first class of gentle movement, breathing, and encouragement to feel her body sensations without judgment - she felt a sensation of spaciousness and love for her body that lead her to weep with joy and relief. “It had been a long time since I had felt this open and at home in my self.” She bought a car and began making the trip to Kripalu regularly. She found the Guru’s teachings answered her quest of how to manage suffering by “cultivating compassionate awareness first for one’s self and then it will flow naturally to everyone else.” The teaching touched her on both a heartfelt and rational level.

But it was in his presence that Dina delved beyond the rational. Invited to sit on stage with the guru she felt the vibration from his being. As he met her eyes, a shock of voluminous energy seemed to enter as a fountain from her root to her crown chakra, tears spontaneously pouring down her face. Shaktipat was an unfamiliar notion, but undeniable as she was introduced viscerally to the awakening of her central energy channel. She speaks of the epiphany now, not as a spiritual experience, but rather as “an epiphany of the very nature of reality.” Her perspective needless to say, began to shift. She stayed on at Kripalu to get her yoga teacher training, her yoga therapy and massage certification. And it was during that time that she recognized the healing power of her practice to cure both her illness and her eating disorder completely. The experience profoundly informs her teachings to offer this faith for her students to apply to their own healing.
She returned to California to make her living with a series of successful but ultimately unsatisfying enterprises. In 1994 she still didn’t consider teaching yoga a real job, but was pulled into it by insistent gym and studio owners and found herself with a full schedule of classes. It was at the Yoga Journal conference in 1996 that she met Rodney Yee and enrolled in his advanced teacher training at the Piedmont studio. She found herself profoundly involved in her studies there for nearly 3 years, and credits Rodney’s instruction as her true introduction to proper alignment dynamics. He unveiled the physical aspects of yoga and equipped Dina to become the safe and conscious teacher that she is today. In 2000 Dina met her latest and lasting influence. It was on a retreat in Hawaii that Sarah Powers introduced Dina to Yin Yoga. And she instantly disliked it. “It was so agitating.” But she loved Sarah’s perspective, so she kept going. Rather than struggling to master her practice she finally learned to surrender into it, and discovered the truly transformative powers of the form. And it is in this expansive exploration that Dina humbly recognizes the greatest benefits of yoga. She has dedicated her teaching to the power of compassionate awareness ever since. With 5 public classes, private sessions, an annual schedule of workshops and retreats, silent and otherwise, here and abroad Dina touches 1000’s of students from Brazil to Santa Barbara, Amsterdam to the mission district with her powerful belief, “If we can meet our challenges with loving acceptance we fill with our own kindness and our cups can then overflow to those around us.”

You can contact her at damster106@aol.com.
And on her site www.dinaamsterdam.com

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