As a yoga teacher, I am deeply influenced by the personal journey that brought me to the yoga practice. Serving the natural environment and helping to recover endangered species was my way of giving to a greater good. This is a concept that I carry daily into my yogic lifestyle, both in teaching and in practice, seeking to serve my communities in a way that supports strength, healing, and sustainability. I also bring my science background to my students through yoga retreats in locations that provide the incomparable forces of nature as a backdrop to our yoga journeys. My retreats incorporate hikes through nature, identifications of rare species, and meditations on the privileges and responsibilities of living in a world that will go on for millennia past our natural lives. I am equally influenced by a key life event that brought me most directly to the practice of yoga. After a serious car accident requiring multiple knee surgeries demanded that I transition away from a lifetime passion of participating in contact sports like soccer, I found myself drawn to the safer, deeper, and more sustainable practice of yoga. From this experience, I developed a keen interest in human anatomy as a guide to offer a safe and grounded space for my students, endeavoring to help them explore their physical boundaries with a focus on intelligent alignment, awareness of breath, and a steadying relaxation of the mind. Rather than merely sequence asanas, I seek for every student to emerge from practice with me with a deeper understanding of his or her own body. In class, I often say "as you are." I say it in a wide variety of contexts, but at its core, it means that whatever physical or emotional energy you bring to practice on any given day, let's work with that together. With this gentle, self-acceptance, an awareness of breath, an understanding of the body, and some mental focus, we can find harmony both on and off the mat. I am a continuing student of Iyengar yoga, vinyasa, and meditation and have studied with Nikki Costello, Nikki Vilella, Magi Pierce, and other influential teachers. I am an Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher (ERYT-200) and a Registered Yoga School (RYS-200) yoga alliance certified teacher with additional specialized trainings in anatomy, meditation, and yoga nidra.
