What have you learned most from teaching yoga?

I think the biggest connection that I’ve learned about teaching yoga is how to build relationships with people and community. Because to me, the whole point of teaching is about coming together and doing this kind of virtualized practice to raise the vibration. I think that’s my better answer than the first. It’s a good question.

Describe the connection you have with your students.

Oh, OK. Well, you know, some of my students, I only have once. And then some of my students I’ve had for almost 20 years. So I think my students come to me because they know I’ll give them a challenging class. But at the same time, there’s probably going to be a couple of laughs and, you know, some funny moments here and there.

What do you love most about New York City?

Gosh, I love this town. I’m from North Dakota. So for me, what I love about New York City is just the impressive, not so much the size or the top, the height of the buildings, but just the magnitude of the energy that New York City contains as an international hub that represents the United States. I think that we do an excellent job of representing what the United States can strive to be is a melting pot of people from all over, all colors, all shapes, all sizes, all genders, you know, and everybody can do whatever they want. There’s so many, there’s so many people here in New York and everyone’s so busy that if I just took off my clothes right now and walked naked down 8th Avenue, I don’t think anyone would even care. It’s like that, not that I would do that, well maybe someone would notice. But do you know what I mean? Like everyone’s just minding their own business. So people are on the phone, people are doing things. You can have this feeling of being free. And then when you’re like in a small town, you feel like there’s a spotlight on you and everyone’s pointing at you and talking about you behind your back. What’s that? So New York City, way better than North Dakota.

What is the funniest or weirdest thing that has happened to you while teaching?

The funniest thing that ever happened to me once is I was a beginner teacher and I was teaching a community class at Sonic. And I had laryngitis. So what I should have done is I should have found a substitute teacher like any normal person, but for some reason that callous, you know “gotta you know, climb every mountain, explore every valley”  – ‘I’m gonna teach.’ So I showed up without a voice and I whispered to everyone and then I said when you hear this sound (click of tongue) because I could click like that. So then I said when you hear that sound that means we’ve changed positions. I was like, I’m not talking for an hour. So I would just go. I would teach. I go “click” like I wait for everybody to look at me to see the pose and then I go “click” and then I go to change the pose. It was that way for an hour. It’s actually nice because I didn’t have to talk (laughter).

Photos: Caroline Alarcón Loor