My Story
Melanie Lancaster
My medium this life has been the human body. I have been fascinated with movement and healing practices for as long as I remember. I took my first yoga class at age 19 and have basically never stopped. My yoga background is rooted in the traditions of Iyengar and Ashtanga yoga. I have been influenced by every class I have taken but the profound teachers for me have been Pattabhi Jois, Richard Freeman, and Francisco Kaiut. Guruji, Pattabhi Jois, gave me permission to teach the Primary series in 1993. I completed Richard Freeman’s teacher training in 1999. In 2017 I was certified as a Kaiut Instructor.
After three journeys to Mysore, India to study with Pattabhi Jois, I returned to the States to study with Richard Freeman and attend the Rolf Institute in1995 in Boulder Colorado. I opened the Denver Ashtanga Yoga Center after finishing my certification as a Rolfer of Structural Integration in 1996. The center flourished in Denver. But at age 50, I began an unfolding process realizing I was pushing my body rather than listening. I couldn’t keep up the pace of classic Ashtanga. I sold the yoga center and moved to Oregon. I became a gardener, dancer, hiker, Vajrayana Buddhist and occasional yoga student but couldn’t find a style of yoga that my values aligned with enough to teach it.
While visiting Boulder in 2017, I kept hearing about a new type of yoga, Kaiut. I went over to a studio with nearly 50 people in the class and knew within that first hour… I had found my way back to Yoga. Within 3 weeks, I moved to Boulder and began a yearlong teacher training with Francisco Kaiut. It was a wonderful immersion back into a yoga I believed in, aligned with and felt profound results from.
As an advanced Rolfer, Yoga teacher and a lover of anatomy of many years, I discern with my eyes and intuition while listening with my hands in the class room setting. Sensing where the body is bound and movement is impaired. I bring these skills along with years of meditation practice to my teaching because what I cultivate in my life is what I have to share. I feel my job as teacher is to provide a quiet haven, to lead a practice of depth and to offer retreat from the buzz so students can feel what is present for them and to step on the path of wholing themselves.
I look forward to coming back to my home town of Seattle and introducing this system. My goal is to eventually open a Kaiut Center and train enough student to bring Fransico Kaiut to the yoga community of Seattle. See you on the Mat!