Lucien Dall’Agata...the French professor

                                        
“Yoga is not seperate from our daily life.  Yoga is flowing into our daily life.”

“If you fall, then make the fall a part of the posture.  Fall with grace.”

“There is no teacher without a student.  You learn from your students.”

“You succeed because you keep trying.  Success is in the trying.”

Lucien Dall’Agata has been a student of yoga since 1977.  He first learned in Europe with his master, Jean Klein, who trained in India with Krishnamacharia.  While teaching philosophy in his native France,  Lucien went deeper into his yoga studies.  Coming to the US in the nineties, he broadened his experience by studying with a variety of teachers from different styles.  Eventually he retired from his job as manager of the French government tourist office in Chicago to teach yoga as much as possible.  He completed his studies at Integrative Yoga Therapy where he achieved a 200 hours level certification.  This training combined postures, breath work, body-awareness, and deep relaxation for a ‘whole person’ approach to health and healing, focusing on adapting the practice to the needs of the students. 

Lucien is very influenced by a type of yoga from an obscure lineage in Kashmir.  In this “Kashmiri” style, you do the pose mentally first.  You close your eyes and “evoke the sensation of the parts of the body that are going to move in a certain direction.” Lucien says, “It makes a difference.  You have less tension, fewer muscle contractions.  You feel more relaxed, especially in the more challenging postures.”   Lucien explains that there are many levels of the human body.  We usually remain in the physical body.  However, “when we become aware of our subtle body—a body of light that surrounds our physical body— and expand it, we become aware of not only our muscles and bones, but also our energy and vibration of our soul.”