My approach to movement comes from my background as an athlete paired with my love of yoga as both a teacher and student. I’m all for a sweaty physical challenge, but I’m also an advocate for movement that invites us to slow down, to move with intention and curiosity, and to tune into our bodies at a deeper level. As a yoga teacher, my approach to movement and exercise is one that opens up space for being receptive to our body’s ever-changing needs, which necessitates working with both effort and ease. 

I believe that when we give up the need for perfecting an exercise regimen to match an imagined ideal, the latest trend, or an insatiable self-improvement project, we give ourselves the opportunity to discover ways of moving that are more genuinely aligned with our own physical needs and sense of enjoyment. From there, exercise can be approached with a more relaxed mindset and incorporated more joyfully and sustainably into our days. Yoga has been my greatest teacher for relating to movement with accountability, but also gentleness, and for intuiting when my body is asking for more of one than the other. 

While the classes that I teach are created with intentionality to serve specific physical benefits for the body and mind, I am passionate first and foremost about creating a space where students feel safe and encouraged as their own best authority within the āsanas. Through my teaching, my hope is to inspire a mindset that allows students to cultivate a healthful relationship with exercise, through which movement can be a joyful and powerful means for cultivating a greater connection within oneself and with others.

VINYASA YOGA

The style of yoga that I teach is vinyasa yoga. My love for this particular style of yoga runs deep for the way that it aligns with my approach to movement. Vinyasa yoga is predominantly known for its emphasis on connecting movement of the breath with physical movement of the body. Like our own changing nature, vinyasa yoga classes can vary greatly from one day to another. Instead of working with a repeated fixed series of postures, vinyasa classes can be designed creatively to meet the changing needs of students. 

Although vinyasa yoga is known for working with flow and rhythm by linking series of postures together with conscious breath and movement, it is intended to be an unrushed practice that can be both vigorous and challenging or restorative and gentle. Vinyasa classes also tend to work with sequences that open and strengthen the body in a balanced way by working through a variety of āsana families instead of focusing on only one specific area of the body. 

My love for practicing and teaching vinyasa yoga stems not only from the way that it offers balance by being able to meet our ever-changing needs across mind-body-heart-soul, but also for the way that it teaches us to be in the practice of presence through the transition of postures, which inevitably translates over into practice throughout our days. Vinyasa yoga teaches us to be in the practice of presence within every moment of our experience, whether effortful or easeful, helping us to see that everything is transition, and that everything is transient. With that understanding, we arrive more fully into our lives. Finally, as a practice that works with both vigour and gentleness, vinyasa yoga teaches us that effort and ease are sustainable only through the intrinsic connection of one with the other. In these ways, vinyasa yoga is a practice that I see as having immense value for tending to our well-being both on and off the mat.