I began practicing yoga in 2009, on a whim, after a year’s gym membership had expired, a year of basically paying and not showing up.  I was going through some hard times, and I was looking for a new physical challenge. I remember feeling an unexpected and almost wondrous sense of calm as I first stepped on the mat and began to move through the series of unfamiliar poses.  In those early weeks of my practice, I felt like I was rebuilding myself from the ground up and reconnecting with something essential. Over the years, yoga has continued to provide me with a foundation for the rest of my life, both physical fitness and the tools to navigate life’s ups and downs.   As an English professor in the other part of my life, I am drawn to the embodied metaphors of the asanas (poses) – the sure-footedness of the Warrior poses, the balanced grace of the Dancer, the soaring power of the Eagle. When we step onto the yoga mat, we reconnect with who we are and discover what we can become.

I completed my 200-hour yoga teacher training with Baron Baptiste.  The Baptiste method, with its combination of attention to physical alignment and focus on personal growth, continues to inform my practice and teaching.  My power yoga classes are inspired by the Baptiste sequence, starting with a high-intensity, invigorating flow, followed by a series of balancing, strengthening, and twisting poses, and ending with a calming savasana.  My Inner Fire Flow classes explore the subtle points of this slower, yet also intense, sequence.

TRAINING l CERTIFICATES

• Level 1 Baptiste Yoga Teacher Training, October 2010

• Level 2 Baptiste Yoga Teacher Training, May 2012

• Workshops with Theresa Murphy, Sadie Nardini, Talya Ring and Steve Emmerman, Gregor Singleton