Yoga During the Pandemic

I started my yoga practice with my mother at the age of 18 and from there my journey with yoga has had many phases. There were so many times where my mother and I couldn't stand each other. We would be driving to class in absolute silence. But, as soon as we would come out of Shavasana we would gaze at each other with love and gratitude. I fell so deeply in love with this practice. It gave me peace and for the first time, I experienced a feeling of self-love. A feeling of wanting to discover myself. I wanted to get to know my soul.

Yoga was the perfect gateway to a whole new world.

I started teaching ashtanga yoga classes at various gyms. In this environment yoga was more geared towards making sure your people got a good sweat or they would be upset and not come back. Your greatness as a teacher stemmed from how many people you could fit in a class. The pressure was not yogi like at all. But, I was young and it was fun and a great way to stay fit.
After many years of teaching yoga I needed to stop. Teaching wasn't bringing me peace. It was stressful and I had completely overstretched my body and was absolutely not practicing self love with myself. I needed to get back into my practice and completely change the way I was doing yoga.

I began to learn about different healing modalities like Reiki and Access Consciousness. I noticed that as I was going deeper within myself I was feeling an urge to teach yoga again and incorporate everything that I've been learning to heal myself and share with others what has worked for me. I felt that it is my duty to teach yoga again especially at this time of unrest.

This Pandemic has gifted me with such beautiful students, friends, and community. We have all been deeply affected by this worldly event in many many ways. We are experiencing anxiety, loss, fear, and so much uncertainty. Therefore; I've noticed that people's commitment to themselves right now has increased. They wanting to go deeper within. They are more open to receiving. It's amazing because I just want to give. I want my students to have a safe space to express and to release all that is not serving them.

Our studio space is limited so my classes are small which I love because I can really focus on each persons needs. As soon as I greet my students, I'm tapping into their energy. And as they are sharing their lives with me my mind is putting together a yoga sequence to support them. I see visions of what they need and how we should move. I really feel that my students are the ones who create the classes. I'm literally just following instructions, and therefore my yoga is evolving - and so am I.