Where has Yoga taken you?Yoga has brought me a kind, generous, caring and intensely passionate community; Yoga has cultivated my strongest body yet; and Yoga has expanded my mind in ways that I never knew possible, handing me tools to cut through negative, destructive or just too many unnecessary thought patterns and even behaviors.
How did Yoga teacher training influence your life?
It made me switch careers. It opened my heart; it made me a better listener, more compassionate, more patient and in awe of the human body and mind. It made me redefine hard work and dedication; its teachings hold me up when certainty in my life turns unsteady and it offers me inspiration and hope when I think I have run all out.
What was your first yoga class experience?
The Shakti dvd by Shiva Rea. At Sonic? Keith Partington’s Flow 3 class on a Friday evening in the middle of July in 2018 where he kept me in a four minute downward facing dog. I had never been in down dog for that long and wanted to drop to my knees so badly. I clearly recall him saying: “If you can’t even hold yourself up for a few minutes in downward facing dog, what does that say about your Yoga practice?” Little did I know that I would soon after that class come to apply that question to almost every obstacle I would encounter, either physically, in practice, or mentally. That question reminds me why I practice Yoga and it inspires me to keep applying it to every aspect of my life.
