I began studying Sanskrit and practicing yoga āsana in 2001. I’ve been teaching full-time since 2010. I have 1,500+ training hours and 8,500+ experience hours. I’ve taught yoga history and philosophy, Western anatomy and the Eastern subtle body, course planning and sequencing, and beginning Sanskrit pronunciation and vocabulary in over 20 yoga teacher trainings over the past decade. I’ve studied movement and dance modalities as diverse as Body-Mind Centering®, Haitian folkloric dance, tap, ballet, contact improv, modern dance, Afro contemporary, and Butoh. I recently began DJing to add an ecstatic, booty-shaking dimension to my guided somatic explorations, allowing more explosive possibilities for communion, integration, and resolution.
My facilitation style reflects my deep enthusiasm for exploring and expressing consciousness through touch and movement. I believe that feeling strong, expressive, present, and comfortable in your body is your birthright. Movement is the foundation of everything we are, including the mysterious processes we call “our bodies,” “consciousness,” and “thought.” I ground suggestions of spirituality in felt-sense and whole body inquiry rather than relying on abstract, dualistic dogma. My ongoing project is articulating nondual philosophy, which can seem heady or abstract, through the laboratory of embodied research. Embodiment is the fundament from which all spiritual practice and self-transformation emerge, and these are not separate from exploring ourselves through movement.
My yoga lineage is that of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, often called the grandfather of modern yoga. His students include BKS Iyengar, Sri K Pattabhi Jois, and TKV Desikachar. While I’m not a direct-lineage teacher of these schools of yoga, my approach nonetheless bears their influence, and I’ve spent years immersed in each style with direct-lineage teachers. Above all, what I’ve learned from these diverse approaches, as well as from my studies in anatomy, somatics, embryology, and developmental movement, is an emphasis on following present-moment-felt sensations including the breath, and supporting the individual student’s experience.
I received my 200- and 500-hour certifications in January 2010 and February 2011 in the Krishnamacharya lineage at Yoga Sutra NYC (now The Yoga School NY). There I studied with Guta Hedewig (a student of TKV Desikachar), Rachel Lynch-John (a student of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen), and Edwin Bryant, and had the privilege of assisting Amy Santos (a student of Sri K Pattabhi Jois and Sharath Jois) in the Mysore Ashtanga classroom. I completed four years of advanced studies in Embodied Anatomy and Practices in Embodied Teaching with Amy Matthews and Leslie Kaminoff at The Breathing Project (now Babies Project) from 2013 - 2017. I am pursuing multiple certifications in Body-Mind Centering®, a developmental, experiential, and somatic approach to movement repatterning, with Amy Matthews, Sarah Barnaby, and Mary Lou Seereiter including IDME (Infant Developmental Movement Education) and SME (Somatic Movement Education) at Moving Within Oregon and Sonder Movement Project. My current āsana practice is primarily Iyengar Yoga under the mentorship of Nikki Costello. I study Vedic and Sanskrit chanting with Guta Hedewig, and have studied the Sanskrit language and Devanagari script for 15 years with Boris Marjanovic, Jo Brill, and Jyoti Chittur. I have 5 hours of training with Gil Hedley on Nervous System anatomy, and 20 hours of training in trauma-sensitive yoga teaching methodology through TCTSY.
I’ve taught yoga, foam rolling, somatic movement, and conditioning and active recovery classes in a wide variety of settings, including yoga and dance studios, gyms, private homes, corporate offices, parks and city rooftops, universities, festivals, psychedelic medicine circles, retreat centers, eldercare facilities, and residential therapeutic communities for folks surmounting substance use disorders. I’ve taught yoga for people ranging in age from 8 - 94. Working in so many ways and in so many places with so many different people has taught me again and again just how much my students have to teach me. Teaching is a profound way of setting a container for others, supporting them and offering expertise without determining or overriding their experiences. In this way being a teacher, like anything else we undertake, can be practiced in integrity as yoga.
