“Welcome home,” teary-eyed co-owner of Kaiut Yoga Boulder, Kristin Savory, said to a room of about 70 students on Monday, September 9. Kaiut Yoga Boulder, a CO YOGA + Life distribution partner, also co-owned by Craig Heneveld and Darvin Ayre, opened a new location this month at 4800 Baseline Road. Founder Franscisco Kaiut traveled from his hometown in Brazil to lead a series of classes at the new space and at Naropa’s Nalanda Campus.
The Kaiut Yoga community is laced with excitement and nourishment for all bodies in all phases of life. Students at Kaiut Yoga Boulder know each other by name, and it seemed all 70 students present at the class were there to connect, absorb and embrace yoga.
The Kaiut method asks how we can realign with nature, how we can tune into our internal clocks and embrace our adaptability in the natural and modern world.
“Craig, Kristin and Darvin are the reason why Boulder is becoming more and more important in my life,” Francisco shared to the class while hugging his students.
CO YOGA + Life spoke with Francisco Kaiut on the grand opening of the new school space in Boulder and to learn more about the world renowned Kaiut method.
CO YOGA + Life: Give us some background on yourself.
Franscisco: I permanently live in São Paulo, Brazil, but I come to Boulder at least three times a year. I spend probably four to five months in Brazil, the rest of my time is in the U.S. and Europe. While in the states, I’m mainly in Colorado. I have been teaching yoga for the past 30 years, and in the last 20 years Kaiut has been my only work.
Because of a previous accident, yoga came into my life very early at the age of 16 or 17. I opened my first studio in Brazil when I was 18 years old. Along with that, I went to chiropractic school and studied natural healing systems in Europe in the beginning of my career. Yoga for me was because of my pain and my history of accident and trauma; yoga has always been healing and always been a healing tool. Now, over the past 10 to 15 years, I’ve had almost no pain at all. My body literally feels like it’s aging backwards.
I think we’re tapping into something very solid in terms of results and development of yoga. The testimonials from my students are impressive; sometimes we have a hard time communicating with the public because it sounds too much.
My main work recently has been to manage the expansion of my company in order to have the business side reflecting the quality that we’ve been delivering in the teaching room. We have four yoga schools in Colorado: Broomfield, Boulder, Telluride and Durango … and hopefully Denver soon!
CO Y+L: How would you describe the Kaiut method to someone who knows nothing about it?
F: It’s yoga for the necessities for the modern body and the modern mind. Our minds have been super overwhelmed with over stimulation and our bodies have been specialized in certain activities and sort of immobilized in other instances. It’s the translation of traditional ancient yoga to modern necessity.
CO Y+L: Why did you create it?
F: All the forms of yoga are all correct. But, some have been for too long under the influence of the fitness and medical field, and therefore moving away from nature and from the origins of yoga conceptually.
CO Y+L: Why is Boulder, Colorado a special home for Kaiut?
F: I had never heard of Colorado in my life, I had never heard of Boulder in my life. A series of acquaintances brought me here and I’ve been in Colorado for 15 years and in Boulder at least 10 years, visiting regularly. Now I have closer friends and students in Boulder than in my hometown. Boulder is a place that embraced me in the first place. The demand from my students is in Boulder. It’s the reason I moved from my hometown, due the quality of their demand and the rifling success in Boulder.
CO Y+L: Tell us about the upcoming Teacher Training at Kaiut Yoga Boulder.
F: Trainings haven’t only been delivering to the community very good teachers, but they’ve been delivering to each school and to myself, excellent students. Trainings are not only about teaching, they’re also about educating much better students regardless of age and background. That has been the sweetest outcome in the training process.
I’m leading the Boulder Yoga Teacher Training, and it is going to be about the Boulder community, my teachers here (Kristin, Craig and Darvin) having much better students and them learning more about the method and delivering more to their students. Trainings have a lot of different goals. We did it in Telluride and the results were unbelievable. The community and teachers there are fantastic. This is exactly what is going to be happening in Boulder — much better community, demanding more from teachers and teachers offering better tools.
With what’s been happening is Boulder, I feel that I can work and take care of this community because these three teachers represent the work amazingly. I can feel myself teaching through them and that’s a dream. Everything is unfolding beautifully well.
Photos by Mary Pantier Photography.
