How the yoga found me.

Love.

This is the story of how I found the yoga and the yoga found me.

Growing up in a particularly rural pocket of the midwest, my early exposure to yoga came in the form of a Yoga Journal calendar gifted to our family by my aunt and uncle who lived in San Francisco. The images and postures fascinated me as a young girl. My own yoga practice took flight in 1997, when I did my first sun salutation. An active college athlete (cross-country, track and hockey), yoga began as a way to relieve tension in the body as well as the mind during athletic training. As B.K.S. Iyengar teaches, my practice began with the physical study of yoga and naturally extended to a whole-life study and practice of the ancient art. I have studied hatha, ashtanga, vinyasa and kundalini yoga. Meditation came as a natural accompaniment to my asana practice.

I completed my 200 hour teacher training at the Shambhava Whole Yoga School in Denver, Colorado. Shambhava Yoga is yoga from the heart. Shambhava philosophy is that the practices we learn “on the mat” or on the meditation cushion apply to our everyday life. Life’s circumstances are fuel for our spiritual growth. The goal of Shambhava Yoga is to be able to be fully engaged in our life’s arena while simultaneously experiencing the nectar of divinity within.

Becoming a yoga instructor changed my life by allowing me to share yoga with the world. I strives to unite classical teachings of yoga into my asana classes, emphasizing union in its broadest form, while always using the goals or intentions of the students as my guide. Karma yoga (the yoga of action) also influences my teachings. I teach free community classes, including elder yoga.