I began practicing yoga in 1996, in my last year of college. I was a saxophone performance major, and while I was good at many things on the saxophone (still am, I hope), I often sounded like a dying quail when I played. One of my mentors, Michael Cain, had started taking yoga, and thought it might help my sound, so I went. I enjoyed classes, my saxophone sound improved tremendously and I was generally more flexible, but I didn't quite "get yoga", and drifted in and out of a yoga practice through my twenties.
After grad school in Boston my practice was reignited when I found the Baptiste yoga studio and its excellent teachers, and my wonderful teacher David Vendetti. David sometimes describes his teaching as the Body Awakening; Baron Baptiste talks about personal revolution. Either set of words works. I found in yoga a new connection to and appreciation of my body and what it could do. I feel now that at 32, I'm physically in the best shape of my life.
More importantly, yoga opened me up to what an old teacher calls "the possibility of possibilities", an idea that I've always liked but had only given lip service to in the past. By breathing and moving and stretching and twisting and balancing, we are able to find out just how big we really can be, just how beautiful and capable and exciting we really are, no matter what we look like or how we are judged. And we really do control our own circumstances; our destiny is controlled not by what happens to us but by how we react to it, breathe through it, question it, embrace it. Not by forcing or manipulating, but simply by being.
Taking this path has led me into teaching yoga; in 2007 I received Baptiste Level One teacher training and assisting/adjustment training, and continue to work with Baron and other Baptiste teachers, as well as David and other wonderful teachers in the Boston area and beyond to hone my skills as a yoga instructor. My classes draw on their wisdom, as well as my extensive experience as an improviser and teacher in other realms, to create a unique and holistic experience each time students land on. I don't ever want anyone to have my experiece- that wouldn't ever be appropriate. My classes are challenging, certainly, but also light and fun. Hard work is a great thing, and it isn't so hard when you're laughing. My hope is that my students are able to access a piece of themselves- physically, emotionally, spiritually- that they weren't aware of when they walked onto the mat, just as I've been so blessed to do through the practice of yoga.
Some of this may sound really "out there"- it did to me ten years ago, despite some eastern studies and an open mind. And I don't often use this language when I teach a physical yoga class; where your hands and feet and breath go are usually far more important in that moment. But I wanted to use this space to explain why I do what I do; for me it's much deeper than getting into a handstand or putting your foot behind your head. What's possible is bigger than what we imagine, and yoga is one delightful way to begin to discover that for ourselves.