Beginning Again

I remember the day clearly… Jo and I… Andrea Ross and her husband: we walked into the space that is now Heart of the Village Yoga… office cubicles, exposed telephone and computer cables running everywhere. It was the Autumn of 2013. My father had recently passed. It was another important turning point in my life, and in our lives together. I suggested a studio layout and a name for the studio. Jo took it from there, and has led the way now for almost 13 years now.

I would soon resign from my position as Director of Mountain Sports at Stratton Mountain; I continued the journey of being a caregiver for my mother in Burnt Hills, NY (until her post-pandemic passing in 2023), and while also continuing to design timber frame homes and coach adaptive snow sports at Mount Snow. in 2016, I retired from engineering and snow sports management positions, and became a full-time yoga teacher and personal coach. We had some very wonderful years, Jo and I, working together, leading retreats and teacher-trainings, and welcoming so many special guests to the Studio and into our home. Jo has always been very much in the leadership role; I’ve always been allowed to take a supportive role and just teach and coach.

The pandemic shifted things for us. I became married to my roles and responsibilities, at work and at home (which in a quiet way had become the same thing for me). With the exception of my aerial classes, I worked at my home studio, and became a bit of a post-pandemic recluse. I was trying my best, but I was exhausted, and in some very meaningful ways, had lost my way. I was working hard, usually teaching at least 25 classes per week (while making one or two trips each week to care for my mom), doing what I thought I needed to be doing to keep things going with our home and with our livelihood, the Studio. As much as I tried, my effort to save things was not sustainable for me, nor for our very-intertwined married life.

Fast forward to 2026… another important turning point: At Jo’s urging, we stepped out on our own beginning in January, at work and at home, and we have been learning to disentangle our lives so that we might each grow more freely and more energetically into our separate futures. As friends, still pledging to support each other, we have agreed to avoid working together, at least for the foreseeable future.

You all still see Jo every week at Heart of the Village Yoga bringing her compassionate smile to our Manchester community. I have found a small studio space in the center of town (across from the Manchester Center Post Office at 3429 Richville Road), where I continue to teach and coach private students, online and in-person, and online classes, as Perspective Coaching, LLC. I will continue to lead workshops somewhere, and host our annual retreat to Costa Rica (which I led alone last December). In my own way, I hope to share my ever-opening-again heart with each of you too, wherever we meet again.

Of course, with every door closing, new ones are opening. Throughout the last two decades, I have developed a deeper spiritual practice; I am now aware of the more constant healing-energy of love flowing through all of us, and I have felt empowered to share a more authentic and sacred expression of my own compassionate nature with my students and friends. And with the growth of Zoom after the pandemic, I am now blessed to be able to reach students all around the world.

I am still learning all of the online, social media, website, and technology-driven marketing work, with which Jo is so capable. I am 68 years old now! Remember, I went to high school before calculators!! But, I’d love to connect with you, one way or another. Look for me walking on the Rail Trail when I have the opportunity to spend time with our dog, Rumi, who all of you know well, or come visit me at my new Perspective Coaching studio!

To see what I am up to, visit my home-made website and join my email list at www.perspective-coaching.com (you can message me there), email me at bob@perspective-coaching.com, or follow me @bobspeck_perspectives on Instagram, where I try to be creative and inspirational and share some personal perspectives and “Baba” (elder) insights everyday. I’d love to have your support. Thanks!

Thanks to Jo. I have had the gift of a lifetime, for 30 years, sharing adventures with Jo all around the world, and being a step-father for Alex and Natalie (and now grandfather for Oliver, Jack and Gigi).. 

Thanks to all of you. It has been my gift, for 13 years, to share special moments with you at HOTV Yoga.

I’d like to especially thank each of you who have reached out to me personally to remind me that I am okay, indeed special, just the way I am. You continue to remind me that, through it all, I remain a gentle, caring soul. My students have indeed been my teachers, helping me find my way on this long and winding road with a sense of presence, purpose, power, and of course perspective!

I am here. If you need me, please know that I will always stand present for you, to protect, shelter you, and provide a space where you can exhale and safely be yourself again.

As I enter my sage-ing years, I will quote John O’Donohue:

“In out-of-the-way places of the heart, 

Where your thoughts never think to wander, 

This beginning has been quietly forming, 

Waiting until you were ready to emerge….

Though your destination is not yet clear,

You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;

Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;

Soon you will home in a new rhythm,

For your soul senses the world that awaits you.”

Things Can Change in an Instant. The Lessons Can Last a Lifetime.

One moment, I was as high as a kite, feeling complete and uninhibited joy as I sailed through the air on my skis… sky blue, air cool and crisp, a student on my tail… We departed the summit tram hoping to get one more run after a day of many.

The next moment, I was sliding down a hill not sure where I was or even who I was. I recognized a chairlift nearby. I recognized that I was trying to stop the slide.

The next thing I remember was as I skied up to a ski patrol standing at the bottom of the mountain, and said, “I think I need some help.”

I do not remember how I got into the base first aid office in the tram plaza after that… but I do remember my wife and a couple of the mountain school supervisors coming into the office afterwards, with fear in their eyes, and asking, “Are you okay?”

Things can change in an instant. It took me years to understand the magnitude of that day. I didn’t want to acknowledge the symptoms of TBI and the changes to my cognitive abilities. 

My career as a structural engineer ended soon afterwards as I questioned my own abilities to make engineering decisions clearly.

I blamed my lack of focus, my memory lapses, and my failing eyesight on my age. I had just passed the 50-year-old threshold.

But in ways I didn’t understand at the time, my patience and my zest for life had faded. I was more anxious, more stressed, and had lost my sense of who I was and where I was going.

I resigned from a couple different leadership roles in the ski industry when I felt like I was going to explode. Unfortunately, the timing wasn’t good, and I made these decisions knowing that I would be leaving a ski teaching career born when I was sophomore in high school.

Of course, I kept most of this to myself. Yes, there were the public displays of sudden job resignations, but what was going on inside me was private. It wasn’t clear to me what was going on, I just knew something wasn’t right. I wasn’t me. And because I wasn’t me, the confident and clear me, it was easy to just place blame elsewhere.

Fortunately, I had a yoga practice. Fortunately, I was working at the time in an adaptive sports organization, often times leading programs for veterans with PTSD and TBI. The growth of my work at Heart of the Village Yoga was probably due to my perspective that everybody could have something going on in their lives that they keep private, hidden, protected, and it was my role to offer them a space to feel safe… a space where they could be themselves, however they were or whatever they had going on… and a space where they could heal, whether they knew it or not.

It has been many years since that fateful day, but looking back now, and understanding now the nature of my injuries, it is clear to me that my work has been my therapy. Helping people find ways to be centered, balanced, inspired, powerful, and patient with themselves… through the persistent and insightful practices of yoga, meditation, and intentional relationship-building workshops and retreats, has allowed me to finally feel like myself again. And it has allowed me to know what it is like to walk the walk of a person needing help, but not realizing it. Helping others has ultimately been helping me. My empathic nature has been re-wired and re-invigorated.

Maybe this whole path has been the result of that one day. Maybe not. Maybe it is has just been a result of the yogic practices of realizing our higher potential or our true nature as humans.

Anyway, soon I will be landing at Snowbird again… 15 years later. My memory intact.

That day, my student said I skied from the top of Snowbird to the base on my own. I do not remember a thing. He said that I just kept asking, “Where am I?” Ten years later, we shared a good laugh about it all when we met up in Escalante, Utah. He actually shared how he felt satisfied after taking care of me that day, and was inspired to pursue work as an outdoor educator himself.

Now, all these years later, as a yoga teacher and a personal coach, I try to make sure that I never take life-experiences and personal relationships for granted. So, I ask similar questions of myself every day: Who am I? Why am I here? It can all change in an instant, but there is some aspects of being me that do not change. I try to remember those aspects, and bring those aspects to life as best that I can. And I work towards helping my students do the same. It’s an adventurous ride.

Maybe my life nowadays is more about continuing to heal than I realize. Maybe it’s an ongoing, lifelong process. Maybe it’s just about accepting that this is the life that I chose… and my path is just to live it fully, to experience as much as I can, all the bumps and bruises, all the joys and celebrations, as a means to keep considering expanded possibilities of who I am.

The helmet that probably saved my life.

Introductory Livestream Class at HOTV Yoga

This. video is intended to introduce potential students to a. livestream class I will be teaching twice per month at Heart of the Village Yoga. Class passes can be purchased HERE.

Another Morning Sequence From Costa Rica

This sequence is a little longer, just over 18 minutes, but it is narrated to guide the practice. Turn the audio on in settings to commentary if you want to listen.

A 12-Minute Morning Water Flow

Every morning while on our Heart of the Village Yoga retreat in Playa Grande, Costa Rica, as the surfers were arriving at the beach at dawn, I went outside and practiced before our 7:15 am guided beach meditation. I captured a morning or two on video. Here is one:

Poolside in Costa Rica