I went to my first yoga class on the invitation of a passing acquaintance right after I first moved to New Orleans. Having grown up a dancer and finding myself in the adult world where there are not so many outlets for non-professional dance, I was hungry for the opportunity to move my body in that kind of way again. What I immediately liked about the practice was placing my awareness so methodically in the body and feeling the way it shifted over time. Being a bit of a slow learner and having quite a bit of negative mental conditioning to overcome, it took my several years of steady but not particularly intense practice to realize that through the gentle guidance of my first teacher, Georgia Sears, I was actually becoming a nicer and happier person. I came to understand that I felt more nurtured in yoga class than I did at any other time. While I had always had a good deal of spaciousness in my body, I was becoming more spacious in my mind as well. The moment that realization sunk in, it was off to the races!
After about seven years of a one-day-a-week practice, I became a more serious student of Iyengar yoga under the tutelage of Becky Lloyd at Audubon Yoga. This practice appealed to me because it focused on alignment and was taught in levels, so it would be possible for me to learn more advanced postures in a methodical way. I admire the Iyengar system for its precision and excellence in teaching, and I grew very strong under that practice.
One fateful day in spring of 2005 one of my other teachers, Tricia Lea, who had taken over for Georgia when she left, asked me if I had ever considered teaching yoga. After nine years of practice, that thought had never occurred to me, but it was clearly time. I pursued my first general hatha yoga training through the Living Yoga Program in Texas. I came back ready to teach, and then grace stepped in as life took a decided twist during the fall of 2005 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
It was during these four months away that I was introduced to Anusara Yoga, the system that has captured my heart. The first time I walked into a class and heard my now dear teachers, Sommer and Paul Sobin, say that life at its core is good and that our very nature is perfection, I knew I had found home. To me the teaching that this practice invites us to reveal beauty and perfection from the inside out rather than attaining something from the outside is freedom itself. I am so grateful to all of the teachers I have had in this system, as well as its founder, John Friend, who has so skillfully created a style of yoga which marries sound, skillful technique with the uplifting philosophy that we are all artists, co-creating the beauty of our lives. I have found that this system helps me cultivate more discipline, freedom, and joy each time I step on the mat, and it is my honor to share this with as many students as I can.
