Warrior Wellness

Warrior Wellness is NOT a fitness studio!  

However be prepared to shed weight, trauma & drama.

Yoga’s roots are from the eastern world.  A practice of creating balance in both strength and flexibility in all three bodies; physical, mental and spiritual (emotional).  Here in the west, a melting pot of culture, we have stripped away where we came from and forget who we are as we attempt to find “sameness” with our fellow neighbours.  Evolving to a point it is nearly criminal to recognize our differences.  As a white biologically female, I receive constant reminders that I am privileged as well as repressed.  This is what my neighbours in society reminds me.  I do not accept their labels, I am a warrior!

Here in the western world we adopted the practice of yoga like we do everything else.  We have stripped it down and forgot about what we can not see and focus almost completely on the  physical accomplishments obtainable.  We practice yoga in studios designed to sweat, shed fat, increase flexibility with the help of outside forces and not what is natural growth.  Bigger, stronger and faster in as little time as possible.  I am guilty of this too, and will openly admit I started yoga over a decade ago with a lot of post pregnancy weight to shed.   I found the studio and teachers I needed at the time, and over the years my practice has evolve as my life changed.  One of my Ayurveda teachers, Katie Silcox, thought using a beautiful metaphor which helped me understand the magic that would happen if Eastern and Western knowledge worked together.

Let a farmers field represent the human body.  Over time the soil changes from use, as well as environmental factors.  The soils ability to grow what is needed decreases, and becomes more ideal for less desirable plants.  Thistles, and dandelions for example start to appear at an alarming rate if conditions don’t change.  Western medicine is amazing at diagnosing what these unwanted “plants” are, and treating the “plants” as they surface.  However the plants never stop, and the longer the treatment for the “plants” take place the soil absorbs yet more elemental substances.  Which could over time result in additional “plants” appearing.   I praise the west for buying the field time through the diagnoses, as well as helping to control the unwanted “plants”.   Western treatment is just a bandaid.  It is not designed to treat the underlying reason for the unwanted  “plants”.  Eastern approach is to look at the soil and what makes the soil desirable for these unwanted “plants”.  What makes the dandelions, and thistles grow, then through addition or subtraction bring the soil back to what is needed to grow what is desired.

Western medicine recognizes the same three pillars that are the foundation of Eastern medicine; physical body, mental body and emotional body.  Most treatment plans you receive from a family doctor will include changes to diet and exercise (physical), or fall under mental health (mental & emotional).    Religious groups also bring awareness to these pillars (Father, Son, Holy Spirit).  Instead of creating division by the different use of words imagine how powerful people would be as a collective if focused on how we could learn from and help each other.

This is exactly what Warrior Yoga hopes to share with the world.  We are focusing on creating sameness through removal of difference.  When it is our differences that show how much we are the same.  Understand?  See how words can play with the goal? Words are organized in such a way to giving people a false sense of direction or instructions to success.  Warrior yoga goal is to teach people that they have the instruction manual they just have to listen to what their bodies are saying.  All five of them; physical, breath, mental, emotional, and bliss(spiritual).  

My Journey

Crystal Marshall – Owner

“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything.  Maybe its about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place. – author unknown”

Some people are blessed knowing exactly what they want to do and be when they grow up. I wasn’t the girl who dreamed of her wedding day, or even what I would be when I grew up.  I was a child who  always wanted to follow my heart.  I lost that part of myself and its took me almost a long time to start to listen again.  For me, I took the long way, not the wrong way.  

I believe your dharma (life purpose) calls you when you are ready.  I was first introduced to yoga as part of the “get into a sexy wedding dress routine” in 2003.  However, it wasn’t until 2010 that I rediscovered yoga and started practicing it regularly.  I had two boys eighteen months apart, baby boy number two was born in October.  Postpartum, in combination with seasonal depression, resulted in a very exhausted, grouchy, and blue mommy.  I found myself in a yoga studio with a friend one March evening because at that time, “anything was better than being at home”.  

I’ve always been an emotional person.  Life essentially desensitized me.  I went from crying in a healthy way to building walls to hide my emotions rather then releasing them.  These metaphoric walls got bigger and bigger, making me numb.  Behind the wall a cluster f**k  of a disaster brewed.  At moments weak spots would cause cracks in these walls and the garbage I was not dealing with would sneak out in the form of panic, and depression.  Unfortunately, with the mess behind the wall I never knew for sure why I was so depressed or anxious.  When I decided to make a change, and clean up behind the wall, it was the amazing people, and support I found that got me to where I am today and pushes me to keep moving forward.  I want to return the favour and be part of the cure.  Society tries to teach us to treat what makes us different, as if feelings were a disease. If you over think, it will cause a headache, there’s a pill for that.  Over worked tight shoulders, pill for that too.  Are you sad or scared?  Dr. Prozac can help you!  Too much energy, ADHD, let’s get you some ritalin.  Not enough energy? Adrenal fatigue, let’s get you started on some cortone acetate.  There is a time and place for western medicine.  However for me, like many of my clients to date, western medicine hasn’t cured the whole problem.  It has, however, bought us time to do the work on ourself, and get to the root of the problem.    

My relationship with yoga has had many ups and downs.   Fast forward through the years;  another baby, kidney disease and a lot of life in-between.  Yoga was always there to help me get through, or pick up the pieces, no matter what life threw at me.  

“In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step backward into safety.” -Abraham H. Maslow

I chose to step forward!  In spring 2017, I had the opportunity to start my teacher training adventure right here in Medicine Hat, at Yoga You4ia.  I always thought I practiced beyond the mat, no amount of asanas could have prepared me for the journey I was about to take.  I completed my first 200hr in January 2018.  It took me on a mental & spiritual adventure I was not expecting to be so hard, leaving me with the hunger to learn more.  We live in a world where technology has been the death of so many things.  Aside from increased disease, it has caused a decline of the human desire for real human interaction.  I had the privilege to spend a delicate part of my youth in a small hamlet in southern Saskatchewan.  Over twenty years later I returned to show my three boys.  Wow!!!!  Nothing left!  No people, just a few crippled buildings.  Nothing left to the naked eye, but to my soul…MAGIC!!!!”  

Yoga lead me to reiki, reiki flowed into crystals, astrology, psychic/mediumship, sound therapy,  and acutonics, in 2019 was the start of Ayurveda training.   In April 2022, I completed my second year of Ayurvedic studies, receiving recognition as a Ayurvedic Councillor.  Since then I have decided to blend all my courses, and design some programs that will incorporate both logic and intuition.   Stay turned and see what this witch is brewing up.   A wise fish once said, “just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming…”.  

Coming Soon… My first book! The book before the book; Stripping Inherited Karma.

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Drinks with Cleopatra

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t …

How to find Warrior Wellness

I’ve gone mobile!  You’re most likely to find me in and around Medicine Hat, Alberta.  However my goal it to take my circus act on the road in the near future.