Yoga is returning this Sunday at 10am. Steph has been out for months due to some unfortunate health issues and several surgeries. We are eager to have her back with the CFS community, but it will be a little while longer before she can come back full force. We wish her the best in her recovery over the next 6-8 weeks. Tamara Wyzabski is a current member of our community and will be teaching yoga weekly this fall. Please welcome Tamara by introducing yourself when you take her class, and give her feedback on her class afterwards. Tamara is very excited to be bringing yoga to our community and wants to do it to the best of her ability, don’t be afraid to help her out! Here is more on Tamara…
Tamara was born and raised in Cambridge and found yoga at 17. Tamara danced ballet intensively throughout high school, so when her neighbor (a Harvard squash player) asked if she wanted to come to Baron Baptiste’s Power Vinyasa yoga studio in Porter Square for an introductory class, she gladly accepted. Ever since that 102 degree heated yoga class, Tamara’s relationship to her body, mind, and life experiences were transformed. Through college stress and young professional post-college transition in San Francisco 3,000 miles away one thing was always there: yoga. In August, 2012 Tamara completed her Level 1 Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga certification and has become a regular yoga instructor at Boston Sports Club. She has also taught in Mattapan at a family resource center to provide yoga for those who might not get access to it otherwise.
Ironically though, Tamara’s yoga practice fell to the wayside in the fall of 2012. While training for her second marathon, New York City, she was CrossFitting up to six days a week, 
hardly doing yoga, and lacking the time and energy to focus on proper nutrition and hydration. A week before the NYC Marathon, Tamara was hospitalized for three days due to kidney failure; her doctor said if she had attempted running the race she would have done irreversible kidney damage.
“I learned in the most devastating way that more is not always more; and I think athletes—whether avid CrossFitters or marathoners or Tough Mudders or rowers—can use the practice of yoga to remember that less can often times mean more. And, beating your body up through WODs and races can take a tremendous toll on the body. For me, yoga isn’t about contorting your body into a pretzel, but rather about the idea of letting go, dropping your expectations and attachment to what you want to be like/look like, and tapping into feeling. For me, it’s constantly checking in with myself on and off the mat: what does this feel like? Because if I had truly asked myself that question a year ago before I was hospitalized I would have told you I felt like absolute shit. And I would have given my body a break.
Ever since that experience I have changed my CrossFit membership to just three days a week, I practice yoga regularly at South Boston yoga or Baptiste’s studio, and I have re-committed to my mental and physical practice. My goal is to help CFS members work on their flexibility but also spend an hour a week taking care of their bodies. I always tell my students: if it doesn’t feel good you are not doing it right. My Sunday morning class will be restorative, relaxing, and about gearing up for another week of hard work.”
Tamara holds a B.A. in Women and Gender Studies from Bates College and will be graduating in May, 2014 with a Masters Degree in Public Health from Boston University School of Public Health. Tamara has been CrossFitting since December, 2011 at CrossFit Boston and joined CF Southie in June, 2013. She has completed six half marathons, has completed human nutrition coursework at Tufts University, and is currently re-training for the New York City Marathon on Sunday, November 3, 2013.
Strength
Push-press
3-3-3-3-3
WOD
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
Push-jerk (115/80)
Hang Power Clean (115/80)
L2 – (95/65)
L1 – (65/35)
ADV – (135/95)
Post WOD Stretch