Borrowing As I Go
Yoga is a creative process. My knowledge and experience started with vinyasa yoga under Jacqueline Heisel.
While living in Seattle, I practiced and taught Baptiste Power Yoga from influential teachers including Lisa Black, Scott Francis, and Michel Spruance. This was followed with the exploration of Ashtanga yoga under the direction of Troy Lucero.
Then, on an unexpected day in April 2013, while visiting NYC, I took a Katonah Yoga class in Chelsea. I was gobsmacked and
four months later, I decided to move from Seattle to Manhattan to study Katonah Yoga with Abbie Galvin and Nevine Micchan.
I teach from my life experiences, very much including my struggles with injury, depression, and addiction.
It's my intention to use the struggle of my past to be the radiance of the future I'm shaping and, to share in the collective experience of humanity through these experiences.
A little story. When I was 10 years old, I skipped out on a sprint work out at track and field to try "Racewalking." There was a teacher who was visiting that day and whomever wanted to learn the mechanics of racewalking, could. In exchange for the sprinters workout....call me lazy, but I thought this was a smart move.
In case you are wondering, yes, racewalking is that funny looking sport where hips move from side to side, arms pump, one leg straight the other one bent. If you get going real fast, your legs look like rubber.
Needless to say, I chose to learn how to racewalk. I was drawn to racewalking because it is a form focused practice. Good form is essential for longevity and speed. In racewalking, you are disqualified for improper form, essentially you are running.
I teach form, becuase form brings freedom. When you are aligned in your body and furthermore, when you know where the parts of your body are in space, you can control what happens. Life is about being in control of your being. How you act, how you react. We are constantly in the labratory of trying, seeing what works, what doesn't, getting feedback, refining.
I teach alignment based classes incorporating pranayama techniques to the series. I teach to the class in front of me, sometimes there is a clear plan, sometimes I veer from the plan. Sometimes there is music, sometimes not. I love incorporating inversions in the practice and giving students as many tools and tricks to understand postures better, ultimatlely to understand themself better. I believe heat is built from doing the work, from the inside out. I aim to balance students nervous systems, being in effort without spiking the sympathetic response, being in just enough ease to ride the calming wave of the parasympathetic response.
My intent is that you are stronger, clearer, and leave joyful in your own body.
Discipline in a spiritual practice is not as important on days when we want to do the work, it proves more powerful on the days we don't want to do the work.