I believe in the ways that yoga & a consistent yoga practice (whatever that looks like for you) can be transformative. It’s changed & improved my life.
Soon after graduating from college, I tried my very first yoga class. It was a lovely class that offered a calm, relaxing environment but not much physical challenge. I wasn’t sweating. About twenty minutes in, I decided yoga wasn’t for me. And at class’ end, I rolled up the mat, thanked the teacher, and decided to keep running and hitting the gym.
About a year later, I’d just moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts and was preparing to begin my first year in a highly stressful job. I was feeling a lot of anxiety, and sensing this, a good friend encouraged me to come to yoga with her. And so we went. The studio offered heated vinyasa classes. Zero idea what that meant. I was unprepared and a slippery mess—a shirt that kept flipping over my head and no towel of any kind. Wiped my face on my pants in every single downward-facing dog.
Daily work.
In savasana, as I lay in a silly amount of sweat trying to piece together what I had just experienced, the teacher said something that’s stayed with me:
Whatever you feel right now…this feeling will go away. Feeling how you want to feel becomes daily work.”
Her words resonated, so I decided I’d give yoga a chance.
I tried out more vinyasa yoga classes at this very sweaty studio in Central Square.
I began to learn that the very nature of yoga, as a daily practice, can become therapeutic, can and should lead to compassion for and greater acceptance of one’s self, body and mind. And whether you’re sweating or not.
From what I could tell, a practitioner is never actually done with yoga. Didn’t take long before I was hooked.
Even so, years of soccer and running and months of constantly standing on horrendously hard floors (…my friends out there who are teachers—you know…) made the ideas of ‘open hips’ and ‘strong arms’ feel improbable and impossible. Resting half-pigeon felt much more like torture and much less like a small, innocuous bird.
I kept showing up to my mat.
In 2011, I moved to Washington D.C. where I practiced primarily vinyasa yoga at a number of great studios: Flow, Yoga District, and Epic Yoga. And in 2012, following another move out of DC-proper and into Loudoun County, I found a studio with incredible teachers and community: Inner Power Yoga in Sterling.
Although the idea of becoming a yoga teacher seemed fairly ridiculous, I decided to do it to see what I could learn about yoga and about myself. In the fall of 2013, I began a 200-hour teacher training with IPY’s founder, Ursula Cox.
Many years have passed since “graduating,” and it’s only more recently that I’ve been able to articulate why I worked through teacher training and what it’s given me.
What kind of experience do I want students to have?
I want students to become their best teachers.
I want them to feel they have space to experiment and discover, to try new postures and transitions, and to learn their bodies (and maybe learn to love their bodies) in a safe and supportive environment. As students increase strength and flexibility through a physical practice, the real hope is that they soon seek the practice’s mental benefits.
I love practices that are challenging and energizing just as much as they allow me to reset and find some quiet—to actually listen—and so these are the classes I try to create.
These yoga classes incorporate key elements of vinyasa yoga; a little bit of Rocket; balance hard work with learning how to soften and find space; and always link breath and movement. Classes are playful and also feature (…no bias here…) great music. I spend a ton of time creating playlists. Here’s a taste.
Best self.
The practice of yoga encourages confidence, grounded-ness, self-worth, and love of body. The practice is daily work. And it teaches me to pay better attention and listen to myself, thereby making me a better version of myself to all the people in my life.
Lastly, I have found (and I want students to realize) that your practice will change and evolve, and yoga can be whatever you need it to be at different moments in your life. Yoga is for every body and everybody.
My practice shifted tremendously after having a baby, and it’s changed again during the past two years as I’ve moved into new career territory managing a large team and experiencing (always) limited time thanks to #toddlerlife. I used to practice four to five times a week in a studio, each class 75 to 90 minutes in length. Now, I strive for something every day from my living room, from 5 to 30 minutes, if I can manage it.
I have great teachers.
I have studied vinyasa yoga extensively with Ursula Cox; have practiced and led workshops with Michele Trufant; completed 50 hours of Rocket training with David Kyle; attended workshops and yoga classes with Mimi Rieger, Jessica Howard, Kathryn Budig, David Robson, Tiffany Cruikshank, Maty Ezraty, Jason Crandell, Tiffany Coombs; and practice regularly with many wonderful teachers at IPY (like Jayme Sekel, Jonathan Cronin, and Gretchen Schutte), at Easy Day, at Five Peaks and other studios around the county and across the country.
So happy you’ve stopped by. I look forward to practicing with you!