What My Buti Yoga Practice Means for Me...

Buti (Marathi Indian) – the cure to something hidden or kept secret

​On March 19, 2018, I marked a year of practicing Buti Yoga.  A year isn’t long in the whole scheme of things.  I will be 40 this year after all.  40 trips around the sun.  However, when I consider the journey my year with Buti has been, it feels as if I have traveled light years from where I began.
                I first saw Buti in a Facebook ad.  I had been practicing yoga for 14 years, lost one hundred pounds and had kept it off pretty well.  I thought I had as much control over the autoimmune disease, that had caused many terrible days since my teens, as I could.  I felt as if I was making all the right wellness choices, but I found myself in a black pit of darkness.  Medication and talk therapy were keeping me functional.  My combination of vinyasa and kundalini yoga practice was keeping me alive.  I was fighting to be present in every moment for the three beautiful daughters I am blessed to be raising.  I desperately want to model empowered womanhood.  Yet, in this case, the darkness was overwhelming me. 

     After a few times seeing clips of Bizzie Gold and the Dynamic Flow DVD, I was intrigued.  I recognized elements from my vinyasa and kundalini practice, but there was an undogmatic freedom and power I had yet to experience.  I wanted to know what it was that I was witnessing as I watched Bizzie move.  So, on March 19, 2017, I did the 30-minute Dynamic Flow practice in my bedroom.  It kicked my ass and I fell in love.  I had found the missing elixir to aid my healing.
Despite being what I had thought was pretty fit, as I continued to practice, I found Buti a challenge.  My joints would swell.  My doctor told me that my body just didn’t like the intensity, and if I were to continue, I should do so mindfully.  He, knowing me and my determination, said, “I’ll see you back when you have an injury.”  I love a good challenge, especially when my success is up to me and only me.  I knew my body should be and would be capable if I listened and supported my effort properly.  I kept up, mindfully.  My joints stopped swelling. 
                Within a few months, I had all the DVDs available.  I live in a very rural community with poor internet access, so I waited to subscribe to the Tones.  The closest, in person, class was over two hours away.  No one in my town was doing Buti.  Buti, alone, was motivating me to keep up.  Before too long, I was following the three days on and one day off schedule recommended by the DVD inserts.
                The change was subtle at first.  I didn’t know if I’d stay enthusiastic.  I had no clue that I was committing to the practice that would lift me out of the dark pit.  Oh, but I had.  I connected with the tribe of butisattvas on Facebook and was floored by the beauty and loving kindness there.  No cat fights.  No body shaming.  Personal answers to questions from Bizzie herself and all the other master trainers. This practice was not created to leave you in the deep waters to sink or swim.  It was created as a tool for thriving.  Never before had I been in a group of women that actually felt like a genuine sisterhood.
                Soon, I stopped getting on the scale every week.  I stopped using the tape measure I bought to measure inches to avoid weighing on the scale.  I no longer felt the need to monitor my intake of macros.  I just kept up with my autoimmune protocol paleo diet and started supplementing collagen and turmeric.  Then, I found Golden Ratio Nutrition and used the protein powder to support my new level of activity in a way that brought vitality.
                By July 2017, my community had crowd funded my Buti certification in Nashville, TN with Talen Lane.  Experiencing the Buti sisterhood in person gave me a new level of understanding in my practice and friendships that are still ongoing.  While I haven’t had the opportunity to teach Buti much in my community (my Buti class will start at Evolation Yoga Kentucky in just a few short weeks), I already use the principles I was taught to enhance the beginning vinyasa classes I do teach.  I know that one day I will share Buti with a tribe of Appalachian Kentucky butisattvas, and we’ll be badass.  

July 2017 - Buti Certification in Nashville

The first time I landed flying pigeon!

​I stopped talk therapy and completed Bizzie’s BREAK Method.  I find myself able to reframe negativity and pull myself back from the brink when I’m there.  I experience more joy.  In this process, I decided to come off, with the supervision of my doctor, four daily medications, including two for depression and anxiety.  For the first time in over ten years, I only take my thyroid hormone pill and no other prescriptions.  In case this story doesn’t sound too good to be true yet, I’ve also improved the tendinitis and bursitis in my right shoulder enough to no longer need cortisone shots.  I even comfortably practice arm balancing poses I never dreamed I’d be doing! 

The most important thing in all this is the fact that I’m ok with my body for the first time in my life.  I appreciate its strength and its intrinsic healing powers.  I see beauty in its flaws.  Even those, like my stretched tummy, that still gives me pause when looking in the mirror.  I’m in the best physical shape, at age 39, of my entire active life.  I’ve taken my yoga practice to places I could not have without the aid of Buti.  I know what it feels like to stand in my worth and know I work hard.  I trust that I am strong enough to make it now.  I questioned that before.
​Yoga means – “union” or “to yoke.”  It is the connection of mind, body, and spirit through breath.  It is learning to be fully in the body in order to spiritually transcend its limitations.  I have practiced yoga for fifteen years now.  I taught yoga before Buti, but Buti taught me yoga.  This year has brought me away from a daily desire to not exist.  I’ve reached a degree of healing that I had given up on finding.  I’m pursuing dreams, taking risks, finding inner confidence, learning to be grounded, and showing my daughters what it means to live life out loud.  There’s still so much room for growth that I get scared sometimes.  How much more wondrously real can it get?  What I know now, because I found Buti, is that I have what I need to move forward with grace, supportive sisterhood does exist, and my body is not to be a shamed object.  I know that I am fierce.  I am strong.  I am awakened.  I am Buti.