Dearest Friends,
Baxter Bell and Melina Meza will be leading a retreat—Playing Between the Opposites—at Feathered Pipe Ranch from June 30 to July 7. Here, they share stories of how they discovered yoga and Ayurveda, what inspires them to continue their work and how we can use yoga tools to prolong our health.
AV: Baxter, you’re a trained and experienced medical doctor and acupuncturist. How did you discover yoga and make the switch to becoming an instructor?
Baxter: When I was first introduced to yoga in the mid 90s, I was in the thick of my role as a family physician. As much as I enjoyed the physicality of the practice, the meditative aspect of savasana was much more intriguing because I had never been exposed to this type of quiet, inward practice. I started practicing with teachers like Rodney Yee, Patricia Walden and Erich Schiffmann—all teachers who taught at the Feathered Pipe over the years—and I
attended my first retreat at the Ranch in 2000 with Judith Hanson Lasater. It was here that I voiced the idea of leaving my family practice and entering the yoga world—and a lot of people at this retreat supported me and made me feel like it wasn’t a completely absurd notion. A few years later I found myself in California completing a year and a half yoga program, and in 2003, I co-taught with JJ Gormley at the Ranch for my first retreat on the other side of the classroom. After 11
years as a doctor, I finally made the switch to a full-time yoga instructor.
AV: How does your training support your role as a yoga teacher?
 Baxter: It’s a really nice blending, actually. I joined the International Association of Yoga Therapy (IAYT), which is paving a formal path for instructors to become yoga therapists who can then go out and interface with the existing healthcare
system and bring the benefits of yoga to more people in a structured, professional way. Because of my medical and yoga background, I’m able to teach a number of modules as part of the Niroga program, a yoga therapy training program: experiential anatomy, endocrine system, digestive system, musculoskeletal system, men’s and women’s health, occupational health, sports medicine. I teach therapeutic back care classes weekly in Oakland and hold one-on-one sessions with students, so
I can really integrate all of my knowledge and find out what’s going on with people on a deeper level, which is what I enjoyed as a doctor.
AV: And Melina, when did you discover yoga and Ayurveda?
 Melina: I was introduced to yoga during my college orientation at nutrition school. After my first class, I had that feeling of, “I’m going to do this for the rest of my life”—and it’s been true almost 25 years later! I did
my yoga teacher training after college then studied with Ayurvedic doctor Robert Svaboda on and off for about 10 years at conferences and workshops. I was really inspired by Ayurveda because of my nutrition background. Food is so healing, and I believe if your physical practice isn’t met with good nutrition, you’re not going to get very far. When I started diving into Ayurveda, I became more aware of just how unique everyone is and that no diet or lifestyle routine will work for
everyone. Ayurveda allows the individual to honor their specific needs and provides ideas on how to be more in tune with nature, which can be as simple as eating what’s in season where you live.
AV: I’ve always found Ayurveda to be approachable because of that. This theme of accessibility also shows up in the style of yoga that you and Baxter teach.
 Baxter: Yoga really is for everyone—no matter your age, ability, body type, or whatever else people think would prevent them from practicing. Our classes are for anyone who wants to implement yoga tools to improve their
health span—meaning the number of years you are healthy in your lifetime. We don’t know how long we are going to live, but using these yoga tools, we can increase the number of days we live well.
AV: You just published a book called Yoga for Healthy Aging, too. How’s the feedback been?
Baxter: It’s been really fun to share these practices in a different way through this book. My co-author, Nina Zolotow, and I have received a lot of great reviews and feedback from the general public as well as specialty groups and licensed healthcare professionals. So we’re doing Yoga for Healthy Aging trainings, for yoga teachers who want to learn more about this program, as well as yoga students who want to learn how to keep themselves healthy. Melina is
also bringing Ayurveda for Healthy Aging into the mix because the lifestyle practices are so important to a long and healthy life.
 Melina: Yeah, so we’re opening a new conversation that people are very hungry for. I’ve been addressing the transitional seasons of someone’s life—for example, moving from the Pitta, busy, householder,
working phase to the Vata time of life, when people have more space, independence and freedom. In Ayurveda, those times are general transitions, so I’m focusing on how to help people have more health and ease in these times and work through the potential challenges of fewer responsibilities and lack of structure. Or when people get to that later phase, they’re so exhausted and dried up from working the majority of their lives, they need a lot of time to rest and rejuvenate
themselves. We’re helping people strengthen their immune systems, find more creativity, design routines that work for the specific phase of their lives and be mindful of energy expenditure.
AV: Your work and teachings are always evolving. Where do you find inspiration for the next step?
Melina: I’ve been inspired by Yoga for Healthy Aging, and I find creative ideas to add to this program. When Baxter is talking about the immune system, I’m practically jumping out of my skin with ideas of what we do in Ayurveda and nutrition to support the body. So it’s been a natural progression to add some of these tools in with the yoga teachings. All the side conversations I’ve been having with myself are turning into workshops! I’m
also drawing a different crowd of people than I did when I was teaching in my twenties, and I want to find things that work well for my audience. My popular crowd in Oakland is my gentle class, and I’m always looking for ways to help them move their bodies and stay healthy.
 Baxter: I’m interested in the idea of diving deeper into yoga’s potential over time, and I’m really inspired to work with folks who want to better understand the mind, the body and the nervous system and
become more skilled and sophisticated teachers and practitioners. Usually the work starts out as a small seed from what I see with my students or new research or what’s going on in the world, then the idea grows, kind of like a plant. For example, we’re exploring this idea of Playing Between the Opposites, which is what we’re teaching at the Ranch this summer, because we see so much polarization in our world and these practices can help us realize the strength of
interdependence and equanimity.
Melina: We come across ‘opposites’ every day—hot and cold, hungry and satisfied, equanimity and overwhelm, restless and content, active and relaxed—the list goes on. We are going to be using the tools of yoga and guidelines of Ayurveda to discover that middle ground where you can find peace without being pulled too strongly in one direction. That’s the goal, and it’s something everyone can practice.
We invite you to join us at the Feathered Pipe Ranch this summer, June 30 - July 7, for Playing Between the Opposites: Independence and Interdependence.
*Special thanks to friend and freelance writer Andy Vantrease for this wonderful interview
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Going Deeper: Parivrtta Janu Sirsasana – Marla Apt
So often in your practice, you’ll feel a craving for deep sensation, like that of a cat luxuriating in its morning stretch. Parivrtta Janu Sirsasana (Revolved Head-of-the-Knee Pose) is one of those asanas that can inspire this desire, and if you practice with a focus on stretching, the pose can definitely provide a great deal of sensation.
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It’s the Journey, Not the Destination – Gernot Huber
Yoga for most of us is a journey towards increased awareness and acceptance of the way things are. But letting go of our future-focused, goal-oriented mindset is a long journey, where we frequently find ourselves, like a mountaineer on a slope of loose rocks, taking two steps forward only to slide back one.
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Contact Us |
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Feathered Pipe Foundation
P.O. Box 1682
Helena, MT 59624
(406) 442-8196
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