Who’s That Yogi? Meet Margo Sorum and the power of 'Spinal Floss'

By Mieha Marie

Editor’s Note: Mieha Marie is a 200 hour certified yoga teacher with over 10 years of dedication to yoga practice. Through her personal journey, Mieha has learned that yoga teaching and learning is an individual path for every person. This is her attempt to share with the Anchorage public what these journeys look like for yoga teachers in the community.

At the start of 2020, Margo Sorum is a 500-hour experienced and registered Yoga teacher, Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider, a Yoga Therapist, co-owner of Yoga Therapists of Alaska, LLC with her friend, Shelley Christopherson, as well as Director of Yoga for Anchorage Radiation Therapy at Regional Hospital for cancer patients and survivors, and has been an integral part in the University of Alaska Anchorage and Anchorage School District yoga curriculum.

As a yoga therapist, Margo pays homage to the traditions of yoga teachings.Yoga therapy is a holistic application of yoga for any individual seeking to learn more about themselves through yoga practice. Using asana (posture), pranayama (breathing), and dhyana (meditation) the yoga teacher guides an individual to their place of calm and health through integration of the body, mind, and spirit. Margo was attracted to this branch of yoga because of the therapeutic access to healing it can provide.

“I learned I could assist people on their individual journey of life through yoga teaching.”

However, Margo did not become a yoga therapist overnight. Nor did she know this was the path for her even during her college years. In 1997, Margo was attending Sheppard School of Music at Rice University in Houston. Her intentions were to complete her degree and find a job in the corporate grind.

“[I was] pursuing a music degree in oboe performance and one of the string players invited me to go to yoga because it would be good for my breathing,” she said. “I wasn’t convinced. I didn’t know my right leg from my left leg and the instructor kept coming over to help me as [if] I didn’t know what I was doing. This left me not loving my first yoga experience, and it took awhile for me to go again.”

It was not until a conversation with that very same yoga instructor at the conservatory that Margo’s dedication to yoga practice began.

“He [the yoga instructor] was invited to the conservatory to talk to the wind ensemble about how yoga would enhance our ability to perform—physically, mentally and emotionally. He looked directly at me and said that I needed to open my heart in order to overcome some of the musical obstacles I was having.”

I have been able to take several weeks worth of training with Margo. I remember the first time I heard her relay this story to a group of teacher trainers. Her smiling eyes and laugh as she expressed, “I had no idea what that meant, how would ‘opening my heart’ help me in oboe? How the heck would I even do that?”

That challenge to understand is what started her dedication to yoga practice.

After graduation from Rice, Margo began teaching some yoga classes on the side while simultaneously completing her 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training (200-hour YTT) with Robert Boustany, while still in Houston. In 2001 Margo moved to Anchorage with a group of friends to perform in the Anchorage Symphony. It was here in Anchorage,that Margo completed her second 200-hour training with Lynne Minton. Shortly after, in 2002, Margo met Jean Couch while at the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. Jean drastically influenced her teaching style and passion for natural posture.

“I realized that without cultivating the inner proprioception of good posture and the ability to move gracefully on the axis during everyday movements, yoga could be a breeding ground for injury,” Margo said. “For this reason, I focus on teaching the fundamentals of good posture as the basis for all asana practice.”

Margo sets her intentions in natural posture through healthy movement and uses this as the foundation in all of her teachings.

Margo’s love and dedication to natural posture has not changed. She investigates every movement and works within herself to ensure she is moving as healthy as she can to avoid injury and honor her body. The most unique part of learning with Margo, is her honor and dedication to the proprioception that is required for good posture.

In a class with Margo, you will begin, 98 percent of the time, supine, with your back to the ground. Margo loves to equate infants to being our greatest teachers for natural movement and posture. By exploring the body, twisting and turning, surrendering to the exploration of your bodies natural movements she teaches you how to play in these movements through a ‘Spinal Floss Sequence’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qtpxcw7RR0, which involves exploring all directions of movement for the spine in a supine position. This helps to prime the body for a full asana practice, and encourages a deeper understanding as a microcosm of the macrocosm of yoga asana. Closing in a guided meditation while in savasana, Margo likes to seal the overall feeling of balance and calmness, while encouraging the trainee to harbor a mantra to carry with them through the rest of the day.

Margo’s plan for her future in continuing to teach yoga and certify new instructors is simple, she believes, “Yoga needs to be in all schools, businesses, and office buildings; there will not be enough yoga instructors until it is a complimentary service in doctors offices.”