MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH YOGA
I first encountered yoga as a teenager, through a VHS tape my sister, Marybeth, and I procured and jointly owned. From that time on, yoga was a 1-day/week kind of thing. I took my first Bikram yoga class in 2001, sweating profusely and wondering why all of the people in the class were so intense and serious. I dabbled in Bikram yoga for years, but it wasn't until Marybeth started practicing Bikram yoga religiously that I gave it a solid try as a full-time "physical" activity. Trading in my gym shoes for a yoga mat, I took my own intense and serious path with Bikram yoga, eventually leaving an unfulfilling law career and completing a 200-hour teacher training in the Barkan Method of Hot Yoga.
I met Ashtanga Yoga in 2013, not long after I had already started teaching hot yoga. Scott Harig, my first Ashtanga teacher, blew my mind open in such a beautiful way as to what the physical practice of yoga was and what possibilities it held. Honestly, more than anything, it was the breath that sucked me in. I walked into Scott's Mysore classroom in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, heard 20+ people breathing and practicing at their own pace, and I immediately knew that I had found my yoga asana path.
Not long thereafter, I completed a 100-hour Ashtanga training with Scott, soaking in all I could about the practice with which I was so awestruck and enamored, and assisted Scott in his Mysore room until I moved back to Pennsylvania.
When I moved back to York, I quickly met my teacher Maegan Bowling and some other teachers that were heavily influenced by Nancy Gilgoff. During a 4-month travel stint, I was fortunate enough to meet a lot of the "old school" Ashtanga teachers at a conference in Bali, including Nancy, and it was there that I knew I wanted to learn more from her. I took my first trip to Maui to learn from Nancy in early 2016; after that, I completed both Primary Series and Intermediate Series Adjustment clinics with her, and I returned to Maui again in 2019. I have also continued to learn from Maegan, including completing a 1-on-1 Intermediate Series training with her.
I met Angela Jamison in March 2021, and began practicing with her at a deeply transformative season in my life, just after opening Sattva and just after losing a pregnancy. She has been a beautiful, grounding presence in this practice and in my life. I am in awe of how much I have learned from her, as both a student and a teacher, in such a short time.
I am so incredibly grateful for all of the teachers that have ushered me into and guided me in the practice of Ashtanga Yoga. I feel inspired and grateful to step on my mat each day, and to offer space and guidance for other students to do the same.