Engaging the Community: TBM Journal Editorial Board

Over the past few months, members of Toronto Body Mind (TBM) have been brainstorming means to encourage further involvement and development from the community, in addition to enhancing our content. After such rumination and planning, TBM decided to implement a Journal Editorial Board (JEB), with the primary purpose being to provide guidance and direction for the publication of journal content on the TBM website. The process has been an exciting and informative experience.

In order to provide high quality content on the TBM website, we reached out to a broad range of individuals within Toronto, who have a diverse range of knowledge, skills, and expertise. TBM’s editorial board therefore consists of a representative cross-section of leaders from Toronto in the area of yoga, meditation, and wellness, as well as from various academic, journalism, and professional writing/editing disciplines. The core objective of the TBM Journal is to inform, promote and inspire members of the Toronto yoga, meditation, and wellness community. Through the JEB’s dedication and innovative ideas, we plan to bring you exciting, informative, and engaging content on a weekly basis. With that, we’d like to introduce the members of our JEB.

Tama Soble

Tama Soble began practising yoga with Esther Myers and Monica Voss in 1984, and is a graduate of the Esther Myers Yoga Studio Teacher Training Programme. She has done additional training with Donna Farhi, Judith Hanson Lasater, Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen, Thich Nhat Hanh and Edward Espe Brown. She earned an interdisciplinary BFA in dance and theatre from York University, and has trained in Body-Mind Centering, contact improvisation and various other movement techniques. As a professional dancer and choreographer, Tama had the opportunity to tour and teach across Canada, in the United States, in Mexico and New Zealand. She has taught yoga to children, teens, adults, students with cancer, students with anxiety disorders, and individuals with special needs in classes and privately.

Her background in movement is a rich source of inspiration for her teaching. She finds the interplay between imagery, breath, and the physical experience of the asanas particularly powerful in deepening the mind/body connection. Tama teaches classes, teacher training, advanced teacher seminars, and offers retreats in Ontario, Costa Rica and Italy. She co-owns and directs Esther Myers Yoga Studio and Teacher Training Programme with Monica Voss.

Mariellen Ward

Mariellen Ward is a Toronto-based freelance writer with a BA in Journalism, a certificate in yoga teacher training and a passion for sharing the beauty of India’s culture and wisdom. She has traveled for more than 14 months altogether in India, writes for magazines, newspapers, and many online travel sites, and publishes an India travel, culture and yoga blog, Breathedreamgo.com. Mariellen recently published her first book, Song of India: Tales of Travel and Transformation.

Mariellen has worked full-time as a public relations manager, managing editor and copywriter; and freelance as a writer, copyeditor, proofreader, blog editor and blogger. She takes pride in professionalism and writes clear, concise copy to budget and deadline. 

Yumee Chung

YuMee Chung is a former securities lawyer who left behind a busy practice to engage more deeply with life. In 2002, she opened what would become the first Jivamukti Yoga studio in Canada and co-directed the studio for five years. In 2005, she conceived of and launched the Passport to Prana, which now operates in more than 20 North American cities. Named in Yoga Journal's February 2008 listing of yoga’s “who’s who,” YuMee is an advanced certified Jivamukti Yoga teacher who holds an E-RYT 500 designation. Today, she is a yoga teacher, entrepreneur and spiritual seeker. Her work and teaching take her around the globe, but she is happiest at home on the shores of Lake Simcoe with her musician husband. Listen to her free yoga podcasts at http://www.padmani.com.

Vincent de Tourdonnet

As a writer of musical drama, Vincent de Tourdonnet has always sought to put ideas at the forefront- connecting passionate words to music since 1985.  His epic historical musical Pélagie, about the Acadian deportation, advanced to the main stage of the National Arts Centre, and then de Tourdonnet directed the eastern Canada tour in English and French. His Joan of Arc musical Jeanne, also performed in both languages, was one of the largest-scale musicals ever produced in Quebec. de Tourdonnet’s Snappy Tales, received 7 Dora nominations for the Toronto premiere, and his satire on the medical profession, Strange Medicine, was both a critical and public hit in his native British Columbia, attracting appreciation and alarm from doctors for highlighting challenges within their profession. Vincent taught musical theatre writing at Long Island University in New York City. 

Current projects include a new revised rock version of Jeanne, the Joan of Arc Musical, and The Real McCoy. He is also collaborating on a new rock musical -Spark City- with Marko Pandza and David Yenovkian.

Vincent advocates for cycling and clean transportation. His chapter on recumbent bicycles was published in On Bicycles, 50 ways the New Bike Culture Can Change Your Life. (New World Library, September 2011).  A contributor to Momentum Magazine, he serves on the board of directors of Transportation Options.

Gary Justice

Gary (Empty Book) Justice is a Western practitioner of meditation yoga and chanting  from the worlds of Buddhism &  Sanatana Dharma.  Since the early 1980’s he has maintained a professional career  as a musician, singer and music producer, since 1990 focusing on coaching music artists from a spiritual/musical perspective. He took his Buddhist precepts with Korean Zen Master Venerable Samu Sunim in 2003, as a lay member if the Zen Buddhist community followed by five years of Zen practice.

Since then has broadened his approach, taking trainings with Bhagavan Das, H. H. The Dalai Lama, Molly Swan, Paramahamsa Sri Nithyananda, Phillip Starkman and others.  For the last five years Justice has studied Indian classical dance with Kathak master Joanna Desouza. He is currently undertaking Shambhala Warrior trainings with Chogyam Trungpa’s  Shambhala International.

Justice has identified two main paths of positive transformation: insight or devotion, and two main approaches: formless or personified. His finding is that once experienced in the spiritual heart, all paths lead to a common truth. Based on this, Justice co-creates artistic works, writes articles, gives talks and facilitates chanting and meditation sessions within various communities in the Toronto area.

Ram Vakkalanka

Acharya Ram Vakkalanka is a Yoga philosopher, Sanskrit expert, Sitar artist, Kirtan leader and professional speaker. Based in Toronto, Ram travels all over North America sharing his knowledge of ancient philosophies, Sanskrit and Nada Yoga. He conducts workshops on a variety of topics at Yoga studios, Retreat centers and Yoga festivals. Ram’s explanation of ancient philosophies is deep, lucid and very engaging, interspersed with relevant examples and humor. His passion is to present authentic Yogic wisdom in a way that’s relevant and easily accessible to modern practitioners.

Ram’s articles on Yoga philosophy are published in print as well as on-line publications; his talks are broadcast on Radio as well as cable and on-line TV channels. To date, his discography includes 5 CDs: Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, Darshana Upanishad, Japa Yoga, Sitar by the ocean and Nada Kusuma. Please visit www.aksharayoga.com to find out more about Acharya Ram and see samples of his workshops.

Jivasu (Pradeep Kumar)

Jivasu’s (Pradeep Kumar) teachings are named as Naturality, which is to ‘to live according to our innate nature’. 

Jivasu is a meditation teacher and a faculty in McMaster University Acupuncture Program in Canada. Born in 1956, Jivasu completed his medical training as a pediatrician from Lucknow, India. For the next 13 years he along with his wife Dr. Karen (whom he considers his teacher) served as voluntary medical doctors, in Sivananda ashram, Rishikesh and later on in the remote villages of Garhwal Himalayas. 

While living in Sivananda ashram he experienced his first awakening which came to full fruition twelve years later in the experience of  ‘wholeness’  and ‘freedom from psychological fear of death.’

He conceived Expansiveness meditation (Braham dhyan) and Breath of dissolution (Kalajayi pranayam), two elements of Naturality teachings. In order to spread the practice of meditation and teachings of Naturality, Samagra was founded. Samagra in India is involved in the voluntary programs for the well-being of poor women and children in and around the city of Dehradun, Uttarakhand.

Jivasu is the author of many books including: Meditation: A Path of Wellness, Authenticity and Freedom, Chakras: Centres of Evolution and Involution, Freedom from Fear and Naturality.

Hugh McBride

Hugh facilitates Toronto Meditative Inquiry, a group he co-founded early last year. He began meditating in 1989 at the Zen Buddhist Temple. He lived at the temple for a time, and participated for two and a half years in a training program for lay teachers. After leaving the temple in 2008, he attended a retreat at the Springwater Center in upstate New York, was introduced to the work of the center’s founder, Toni Packer, and was inspired to establish a like-minded group in Toronto. Hugh makes his living writing proposals for a professional services firm. He is currently on a six-month leave of absence with Hart House at the University of Toronto, providing assistance in the areas of communications and strategic planning as they work to manifest a new Vision Statement emphasizing self-knowledge and self-expression. In the simple act of watching and observing thoughts, feelings and related physical sensations as they arise and fall away, he says, we may find ourselves at home -- wondrously softening and opening up to our moment-to-moment experience.

There you have it. We’re extremely excited to be working with such knowledgeable and passionate people from the Toronto area. This being said, we’d love to engage the community even more! Therefore, you will have the opportunity to provide your input in next week’s article, where we will be featuring some of the JEB’s top article proposals. As readers and members of Toronto’s yoga, meditation, and wellness community, you have the opportunity to tell us which article proposals you’d like to see in TBM’s weekly journal content. Subsequent to this voting, we’ll let you know which article proposal gained the most votes, and will therefore be featured in our weekly journal, complete with insightful text, photos, and of course, a media component. 

Stay tuned for more community involvement opportunities. We love hearing your feedback!