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I hate the word blog

But everyone uses it. Sounds like blob to me. Until I find a better descriptor this is my blob.

Writer's picturerebmendez23

In the Autumn of 2019 I started my yoga teacher training at Sellwood Yoga. I believe my statement in the first class was something like "I'm here to expand and deepen my yoga practice."


Three years ago, February 8, 2020, I graduated (at the Bottle Shop!) and started on the path to where I am today. And yes, my yoga practice expanded and deepened!


Thank you to Savonn Wyland and Bill Wyland for everything you do – for students and teachers and this community. Thank you to all my teachers (then and now!). Thank you to all my fellow students (and now fellow teachers) for support and encouragement. Thanks to my friends, family and students for being present for so much of this. Thank you to my husband Mark Evans for oodles of support and being my yoga guinea pig. And many, many thanks to my mother for starting me out all those years ago.






Writer's picturerebmendez23

Finding the right words to express how much I love the Sellwood Yoga community has been challenging for me.


Until I was reading A Song of Comfortable Chairs and a quote jumped off the page:

"...Mma Ramotswe stepped forward and put an arm around Patience's shoulder.

"Mma," she said, "I see you."

It was the oldest and simplest of African greetings: I see you. It implied so much more than it said, though, because it meant that Mma Ramotswe saw not only the person standing before her, but all that lay behind her––who she was, where she came from, how she felt."

–From A Song of Comfortable Chairs by Alexander McCall Smith, book #23 in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series


This is exactly how I feel when I come to a class as a student, when the teacher greets me and welcomes me even though the words are just a hello, how are you. "I see you."

This is exactly how I hope my students feel when they attend my classes and I greet them and welcome them in. "I see you."


I see Sellwood Yoga "Community" in the teachers and in the students and in the space.

I see you.




Writer's picturerebmendez23

Welcome to 2023... shared this in my classes last week... a little play on words... do any of these "Re"-words... "re"-sonate with you?


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