A Wisdom School located in the foothills of Arkansas’ Ozark Mountains.
We offer exquisite in-person programs that enhance longevity, vitality and personal evolution. Our offerings include
RYT200
RYT500
Visheshya: Performance Training
Yoga Therapy Training
“Lost Ways of Knowing” podcast
Affiliate Yoga School
Ayurveda Cooking Foundations
“Yoga in Action” Quarterly Magazine
Enneagram Course
Seva
Retreats
03/13/2026
The ancient yoga texts often compare the mind to a lake. 🌊
When the lake is disturbed — wind on the surface, mud stirred up from below — the water becomes cloudy. The surface breaks into ripples and waves. You can’t see very far into it. And you certainly can’t see what lies at the bottom.
The sages said the mind works in the same way.
When it is constantly stirred by reaction, desire, fear, memory, and imagination, our perception becomes distorted. We see through agitation rather than clarity.
But when the wind settles, when the mud slowly falls back to the bottom, the lake becomes still.
And in that stillness, two things happen.
1️⃣ The water becomes transparent — you can see all the way down.
2️⃣ The surface becomes reflective — it begins to mirror the sky.
This is how the classical yoga tradition understands practice.
Not as adding more things, but as gradually allowing the turbulence to settle, so that what is already true can be seen clearly.
Stillness is not emptiness. It is clarity. 🕉️
What is your relationship with stillness?
Let us know in the comments if it's a struggle or a relief.
03/12/2026
Your body is incredibly smart 🧠✨. When something isn’t moving right, it finds another way to get the job done.
That’s called compensation — and it’s actually an incredible adaptation 🔄.
The problem is that over time, those workarounds can lead to stiffness, fatigue, or recurring pain 💥.
Here are 3 signs your body might be compensating:
1️⃣ One side always feels tighter or more sore
If your right hip, shoulder, or hamstring is always the one bothering you, your body may be relying on that side more than the other ⚖️.
2️⃣ You feel tension in places that shouldn’t be working that hard
Neck feeling tight in Shavasana? Lower back working overtime when you bend over? 😬
Often it means another area isn’t doing its job.
3️⃣ Movements feel different on each side
Lunges, twists, or reaching overhead may feel smooth on one side and awkward on the other 🤸♂️.
That’s often a sign the body is finding a workaround.
Your body will always choose the most efficient path, not necessarily the most balanced one.
The first step to moving better is simply noticing how you move 👀.
Have you noticed one side of your body doing more of the work?
03/12/2026
How much salt should you add to your food? 💎
Matt shares a tip from his years working in the kitchen.
If you’re interested in learning more, join us this summer. We’re offering a small Ayurvedic Cooking Retreat held at 🌲
📅 June 26–28, 2026
🌿 Early bird ends May 28
📍 SW of St. Louis, MO
You can read more about the retreat at the link in bio.
We hope to see you there.
03/11/2026
We just completed another intensive of our 200hour Yoga Teacher Training at in Jonesboro, AR.
This training delivers authentic teaching, not scripts.
Our method equip you to understand, integrate, and express the teachings in your own voice. 🪷
You won’t leave sounding like anyone but yourself, and this group proves that!😍
Keep an eye out for 2027 dates at Eastern Livity, or invite us to bring this training into your community.
03/11/2026
Over the years, we keep coming back to the same question:
How do we bring the principles of Ayurveda into everyday life?
One of the most natural places is the kitchen. 🍲
Cooking is where we learn to work with taste, spices, and digestion. It’s where food becomes something more than fuel. 🔥
And yet for many people, it’s also where things begin to feel complicated or overwhelming.
This summer we’re offering a small Ayurvedic Cooking Retreat hosted at Kindred Forest. 🌲
Located just over an hour southwest of St. Louis, Kindred Forest is a serene woodland setting and we’re excited to partner with them for this weekend experience.
Over the course of the retreat we will:
🔪 Cook vegetarian meals together
🔪 Learn how the six tastes appear in food
🔪 Explore how spices support digestion
🔪 Taste dishes as they evolve through the cooking process
Participants will prepare the ingredients themselves — chopping, washing, organizing — while learning how flavors build step by step.
Matt, as usual, will handle the stove. 👨🍳
To keep the experience hands-on and personal, the group will be intentionally small (about 9 participants).
📅 June 26–28, 2026
🌿 Early bird ends May 28
You can read more about the retreat at the link in bio.
We hope to see you there.
03/10/2026
Is your regular yoga practice or workout creating balance… or imbalance?
Most of us repeat the same routine every week.
🪷 The same yoga class.
🪷 The same gym routine.
🪷 The same route for a walk or run.
But while consistency is great, repeating the same movements over and over can actually, over time, create imbalances in the body. 🔥
Here’s why:
Your body adapts to what you do most.
If your practice or training emphasizes certain movements (like pushing, bending forward, or external hip rotation), those patterns get stronger and more dominant...and the others get neglected.
This doesn’t mean your yoga class or gym program is “bad.”
It simply means our bodies thrive on variety of movement.
A healthy movement practice includes:
🌀 Different directions of movement
🌀 Different speeds and loads
🌀 Both strength and mobility
🌀 Opportunities to explore unfamiliar patterns
Because the goal isn’t just to move a lot.
It’s to move well — in many different ways. 🪷
03/09/2026
Most of us grow up assuming the mind is one thing. 🌀
A single voice in the head.
A stream of thoughts.
Maybe something located somewhere in the brain.
But the ancient yogis observed the inner world very carefully. 🪷
Over generations of practice and contemplation, they began to notice that what we call “mind” is actually a system of functions.
1) A sensory mind that gathers information.
2) An identity principle that organizes experience around “me.”
3) And a deeper faculty of discernment capable of recognizing truth.
Understanding this changes how we approach practice. 🔥
Because yoga was not about stretching the body or calming the nerves.
It was about clarifying perception. Knowing ourselves more fully.
03/08/2026
What did posture practice look like in the ancient texts? 🪷
If you open the Yoga Sutra, you might be surprised.
There is no list of poses. 😳
No sun salutations.
No standing series.
No arm balances.
Instead, posture is defined very simply:
Stable and comfortable.
Because the ancient yogis weren’t primarily concerned with what the body could do.
They were concerned with what the mind was doing.
Posture was meant to reduce disturbance.
To quiet unnecessary effort.
To allow attention to rest.
In other words, posture wasn’t the centerpiece of yoga practice.
It was the support structure for meditation.🧘
03/07/2026
Cooking is a skill. 🪷
And, like any skill, it becomes easier with practice.
Many people assume they are not good at cooking, but often they’ve just haven’t spent enough time in the kitchen to feel comfortable.🍃
Once you learn a few principles — how to organize ingredients, how spices behave, how flavors build —cooking becomes much more natural. 🧑🍳
Confidence grows quickly. 🙌
To see what we’ve been cooking, check out the link in our bio, for an exciting new retreat, and retreat spot!
03/06/2026
The Kitchen Is a Place of Learning 🍃
One of the most interesting things about cooking is how flavors evolve.😍
A dish tastes different:
• when spices first hit warm oil
• when vegetables release their moisture
• when salt is added
• when everything finally comes together
In Ayurvedic cooking, tasting throughout the process is essential.
You begin to understand when something should be added, not just what should be added.
Cooking becomes less mechanical and more intuitive.
Go to the link in our bio to find out what we’ve been cooking! 🍳
03/06/2026
We have two 200 YTTs in session this weekend!
@ Ambient St Thomas and
You can host a training, too!
Reach out to set your calendar ✨
03/06/2026
Why Cooking Matters in Ayurveda 🪷
Modern life has made cooking feel optional.
Many of us eat standing up, between tasks, or from containers that came from somewhere else. It works for a while, but something gets lost along the way.
In Ayurveda, the kitchen is one of the most important places for health. Not because cooking has to be elaborate, but because it creates a relationship with food. You see the ingredients. You smell the spices. You taste as things change.
Cooking slows the process down just enough for digestion to begin before the first bite.
It reminds us that food isn’t only fuel — it’s part of how we care for ourselves. 🌿
For a sneak peek at what we’ve been cooking, go to the link in bio ;)
PS. How many times do you cook for yourself each week?
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Circle Yoga Shala is a School for Yoga, Creative Movement, and Self-Inquiry in Arkansas’ Ozark Mountains. We are a Member School of the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT) and a registered school with the National Yoga Alliance.
At the heart of all we do is contemplation, self-observation, and service.
We offer yoga teacher trainings in our 200-hour, 500-hour, and 800-hour Professional Yoga Therapy programs. We teach principles and methods that are grounded in somatic inquiry, and not inherently limited to a style of practice. To take a posture that is filled with one’s attention, ‘sensing’ what is happening (seeing and recognizing rather than thinking about), and then responding intelligently is to move with reality rather than projecting onto it. This somatic inquiry is taught in asana (movement and stillness), in meditation (sitting and walking), and in a felt relationship to the three centers: head, heart, and gut. This method lays the foundation for self-inquiry and contemplation.
Join our Seva program available each June for an opportunity to immerse in practice, community and nature without enrolling in a formal teacher training.
We also specialize in developing movement strategies from the simple to the complex to the spontaneous. We work with professional athletes and are consultants on Team Slukova' and Hermannova', Czech Republic's Olympic Women's Beach Volleyball team.
The philosophical basis for our teaching comes from 'East meets West': the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the Pancha Maya Model, the Five Elements, the Kleshas, the Gunas, Ayurveda, and the Enneagram, as well as evolutionary theory, neuroscience and bio-mechanics, and Integral Psychology.
The school is also a living farm. The property consists of approximately 1/2 acre organic vegetable gardens, edible flowers and herbs, an orchard, chickens and horses. The Shala is an approved farm with the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms Organization, WWOOF.
We focus on sustainability practices, including composting and water conservation. Life here is a living example of the inter-connectedness of all things.
All meals are served in part from the farm and constructed with an understanding of Ayurveda, and the most current scientifically backed practices in nutrition.
We can accommodate up to 20 people residentially at the Shala for scheduled activities only. There are spaces available for couples.
