Teaching Yoga

In college, I found myself as a wilderness guide leading wilderness trips and backcountry, backpacking trips, and I worked as a whitewater raft guide in the summers on the Kern River, and so I was sort of thrown into the deep end into a leadership role, but it was really in the process of learning to, and it's still an ongoing process of learning to communicate the teachings of yoga, but it helped me find my voice as a human being. It's been incredibly beneficial and has touched every single kind of branch of my life, being in the world and in relationship with people. I find myself in the role of really listening, and I feel more comfortable one-on-one in like intimate settings and relationships, so I remember when I was first starting to teach yoga, it took a while to actually look up and see a room full of bodies. So it's been this process over the last 10 years, I would say, of like really looking up and looking out at the horizon and connecting with people and seeing people and being seen. So early on, I found myself working with beginners and with elderly students.

It's different than starting in a level two, three vinyasa class where you say downward dog and everyone just goes into it and you say, you know, plank, and you see these beautiful plank poses, but to really start with bring your attention towards your breath back into the body and starting with these very deliberate instructions and very detail-oriented working with beginners and elderly. It allowed me to really learn how to slow down and to articulate my instruction and attention to detail. I just feel so grateful for having discovered yoga at such a young age or having it discover me that I feel compelled or responsible to share what I've received and what I'm learning and to be able to share that with others for the benefit of everyone, for the benefit of all. Really, I think ultimately in the spirit of service.