Lisa King: Teacher Spotlight September 2021
by Nicole Chaison, SCY Board Member
This month we’re spotlighting Lisa King, who teaches at My Place Teen Center on Main Street in Westbrook. Lisa’s welcoming energy and enthusiasm draws the pre-teen and teens who practice with her each Thursday at My Place onto their mats for an hour of trauma-informed yoga. She embodies the perfect balance of warm and accepting with playful and fun.
It’s clear that Lisa loves being with this age group. Her work with Sea Change Yoga—for over a year at Maine Stay in Portland before the pandemic and now for about a year at My Place— evolved out of her experience creating and trying to sustain a yoga program at Long Creek Youth Development Center in the early 2000s.
“I had always been interested in bringing yoga to teens in need, and had taught as a volunteer in multiple locations,” she says. “I found this to require a tremendous amount of time and effort to sustain alone. I was happy to hear of Sea Change Yoga and their mission, which truly spoke to me on so many levels. I believe yoga offers many tools for healing and aligning with one’s best self.”
Lisa brings those tools to the teens and tweens at My Place every week. But like any natural teacher, she learns even more from her students: “I have learned that the best way to show up is by being 100% myself. I learned to drop the idea of doing it all correctly, or looking like the ideal yoga teacher. I learned to show up authentically and be completely present with whatever arises within the group. Such a profound lesson, on and off the mat!”
Knowing how crucial it is for teens to be able to develop trust, Lisa makes it a priority to show up consistently, to be present for her students, and to connect with each student in the room. She reflects, “I let them know they are seen, and that each person contributes to the group experience. We always breathe, move, and relax. It doesn’t always look like yoga, but it is! My goal is to guide and encourage my students to connect the mind to the body in the present moment, observe themselves without judgment, and find a sense of playfulness and maybe even peace for a few moments.”
Lisa’s expertise is rooted in 36 years of bodywork: her background in physical therapy, teaching dance, massage therapy, and raising her own children--in addition to being a yoga practitioner. She studied Iyengar yoga exclusively for many years, then began to branch out and study other types of yoga as well, including trauma-informed, Anusara, Kripalu, Bikram, Power Yoga, Restorative, Yin, Yoga Nidra, and more. “I still love to take trainings,” she says, “but for sure I am not a purist of any one form. There are many ways in to center.”
Outside of Sea Change, Lisa is a massage therapist, offering her clients holistic bodywork sessions that include elements of massage, movement, breathing, and meditation/nervous system regulation. Her sessions focus on addressing muscular imbalances and releasing old patterns that no longer serve the client and bringing greater ease to the body/mind/spirit.
Lisa’s love of life radiates out of her: “I love humans, animals, nature, and all the ways we are connected. I feel privileged to be here. I am married and have children and grandchildren. I hike, kayak, garden, forage, dance, and play in many ways.”
When not practicing massage therapy or teaching for Sea Change, one of Lisa’s many engagements is teaching yoga to the boys’ and girls’ soccer teams in Yarmouth. “They love it!” she says. The program started out as injury prevention: their first season practicing yoga, the players reported zero soft tissue injuries.
Wrapping up our conversation, Lisa reflects: “I always want to say all of the fun and positive things, but the truth is that I’ve been through several traumas of my own. I don’t want to be defined by them, but I am happy to share my experiences with others when appropriate or useful. I smile a lot, but I also feel all the other emotions too. I believe the ability to experience deep joy comes from the ability to allow all feelings to be felt completely.” Lisa says that the most important part of her teaching practice with her students is “coming from a place of heart and truly caring about them.”