{"id":7986,"date":"2016-06-21T21:27:36","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T21:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idsunmedia.com\/?p=7986"},"modified":"2016-06-21T21:27:36","modified_gmt":"2016-06-21T21:27:36","slug":"megan-downey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2016\/06\/21\/megan-downey\/","title":{"rendered":"MEGAN DOWNEY"},"content":{"rendered":"

Loves yoga and the great outdoors<\/i><\/span><\/h2>\n

BY JONATHAN KANE<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"IMG_3844\"
Sage School senior and yoga enthusiast Megan Downey. Photo courtesy of Megan Downey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sage School senior Megan Downey loves to blend her passions for yoga and movement with her affinity for the great outdoors.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first time I attended a yoga class I was 15 and didn\u2019t know how or what to expect,\u201d Downey said. \u201cThat was a class for Vinyasa or flow yoga and I was amazed. It\u2019s a fast-paced form of yoga where you move through a series of poses almost like dance. I thought it was beautiful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough the movement, it really calmed my mind, almost like meditation, which I was never able to do. My teacher is Beth Stuart and she is really inspirational and her classes are phenomenal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started one day a week in between gymnastics and it really helped heal my body,\u201d Downey said. \u201cEventually, I just started doing yoga. It\u2019s become an amazing part of my life in the way that it makes me feel mentally and the way that physically helps my strength and flexibility. I can connect to myself and the world around me.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring my time on the mat, I am fully present; therefore, the more time I spend on my mat, the more present I am in my whole life. When you are present, you experience everything more fully.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, I can\u2019t just sit there and meditate,\u201d she said. \u201cMovement gets me into the mindset where I can achieve that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Downey said that yoga is something that everyone can do at their own level.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI love it because it\u2019s so personal and everyone can adapt it to what works for your own body,\u201d she said. \u201cI try to go to a couple of classes a week, but every day I do my own practice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Downey put her passion for yoga into play this year with her senior project, which at The Sage School they call an \u201cindependent trimester.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI love the outdoors and adventuring as well, so I put them all together,\u201d Downey said. \u201cMy goal was to explore how wilderness and yoga affect my sense of place.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to define what a sense of self and a sense of place meant to me, not through words or on my mat, but in the wilderness. I did this through a weeklong solo backpacking trip in Utah and then I attended an intense yoga teacher-training course in Hawaii.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe solo was amazing and I learned that I\u2019m really comfortable alone surrounded by wilderness and I wasn\u2019t scared or lonely,\u201d Downey said. \u201cIt\u2019s such an important thing to experience and know because we are all so disconnected by social media. If you can learn to be truly lonely, you won\u2019t feel lonely or disconnected when surrounded by other people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was such a cool experience for me because I was a small part of the bigger picture,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

As a footnote, Downey was born at Galena Lodge when her parents were operating the lodge. She said she was the first person in 100 years to have their birth certificate list Galena as their birthplace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Loves yoga and the great outdoors BY JONATHAN KANE Sage School senior Megan Downey loves to blend her passions for yoga and movement with her affinity for the great outdoors. \u201cMy first time I attended a yoga class I was 15 and didn\u2019t know how or what to expect,\u201d Downey said. \u201cThat was a class […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,38,41],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7986","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-schools","8":"category-sponsored","9":"category-student-spotlight"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}