...to spirit and truth that had been naggingly missing my whole life. On the mat, off the mat, but never far from the practice, I wandered the studios of New York City and then many parts of Asia, searching for what would eventually become the practice that I love. I knew it was out there.  Early on, in the Ashtanga days, I really thought that yoga was this strict, rigid thing that was just what you DID everyday, not something that you LOVED everyday. Then I found bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion and service and love, and all of it made sense! I learned to sing kirtan, to express my heart and prayers on the mat, and to sit with my own noisy mind. It accidentally leaked into my regular life. I was nicer, calmer, and more capable of seeing the beauty in all people. Many thanks to Sharon Gannon and David Life for bringing it out of me at Jivamukti Yoga in New York in the early 1990’s. I would have given up long ago without drenching the practice in the love they awakened in me. And then there was Peter Rizzo, who really brought me face to face with myself time and again, forcing me into more and more honesty in my practice. I am forever grateful for his stern but loving approach to yoga, and to all beings. Dana Flynn of Laughing Lotus showed up for me sometime around 1999, and she literally turned me inside-out. I had never practiced with the freedom, ecstatic grace, and deep soulful connection to all that is before she rocked my world. She first blew my mind with the idea of moving like yourself, and blows my mind on a regular basis to this day. I will, and do, travel great distances to simply be in her wacky, wild, and free presence. My pranams could not be longer, deeper, or more full of gratitude for her wisdom and enthusiasm.

I have been teaching in some form since 1995, and moved to Portland in 2002. I began teaching at the beloved Yoga Shala of Portland in 2003, and loved every moment of my time there. I believe in our own innate wisdom to move and flow with the rhythm of our divine breath, in exactly the way we feel we need to at any given moment. Sharing this colorful and ecstatic practice is what I was born to do, and every day that I get to wake up and breathe love, I am infinitely grateful. I am honored and blessed to share my vision of the ultimate yoga love-shack with you in the bhaktishop. Thank you all for making it a reality, as well as a daily pleasure. Contact me at lisamaema@thebhaktishop.com and for acupuncture visit sassyneedles.com.

Yoga first showed up in my life as a Bikram class during the summer of 1989 in Key West. Life carried on, and while living in New York City and moving through some tremendous personal challenges, I found myself back on the mat. I found a sanctuary at Integral Yoga. After a few years of a dedicated asana practice, I moved to Los Angeles and connected with Center for Yoga, a beautiful studio that housed many lineages of yoga under one roof. Through a more dedicated practice, I began to reveal more of my truth, and soon knew that I wanted the world around me to do the same. In 2004, I stepped into their teacher training program with a hungry mind and an open heart.

I apprenticed with James Morrison, who inspired me with his admirable teaching style, a sweet combination of strength and grace. My first opportunity to teach came from his simply leaving the room while I was assisting one of his classes. My turn. I began teaching at Center for Yoga, and realized that as I found stillness on the inside, my outside environment needed to change. I moved to Portland and, after a few months, walked into Yoga Shala . I knew from my first class with Lisa Mae Osborn, that I had found a Friend on the path.  I am filled with gratitude for my two years at the Shala. I was able to practice with wonderful people and allow my journey as a teacher to humbly blossom.  This is the moment that I bow down to Dana and Jasmine at Laughing Lotus.  And now, The Bhaktishop.  I am blessed to be able to rock it out with Lisa Mae and create a community that nurtures everyone's ability to shine.   I continue to teach what I practice. Inspired by intentional movement with the breath and embracing the freedom of soulful vinyasa sequencing, I believe that our practice is a way for us to reveal what is already there, our truth, our connection to the environment and our capacity for love.

I offer my practice up to my first gurus, my mom and dad. Om Guru Om.

The best and most important activity I do each day is my Yoga practice.  This time I spend alone or in the company of fellow practitioners reminds of me of both who I am and the great potential that lies within everyone’s hearts.  I am an individual with responsibilities as a father, as a husband and as a member of the greater community, but it is the time I spend meditating, chanting or practicing asana that allows me to fulfill those obligations with as much love and generosity as I am capable.

I am indebted to so many people who have helped me during my evolution as a practitioner and as a person since I took my first Yoga class in 2003, but a few people deserve a bit of extra public gratitude.  I was ever so fortunate to decide to drive cross-town a few months after I first started practicing to take a class with a teacher I knew nothing about, Lisa Mae Osborn.  Her enthusiasm for Yoga and her fun-loving asana sequencing helped me cultivate a sincere love for practicing Yoga.  After several years of taking as many classes as I could with her, she began to teach me how to share Yoga with others.  Shortly thereafter she presented me with my first opportunity to teach.  From making a playlist to sequencing with intelligence, her advice continues to be inspiring and helpful.

Matt Huish and Shandor Remete of the Shadow Yoga School deserve special mention as well.  Their stern but caring approach, and their far-reaching knowledge of asana and pranayama served to fine-tune my understanding of Yoga. 

Most importantly, there are no words that can express my gratitude for Swami B.V. Tripurari and all the advice and wisdom that he shares.  Finding him as a guide has been one of the greatest blessings of my life.  His humility, grace and luminosity serve as a beacon, shining the way into ever-deeper depths of service, devotion and love.

Early on I was inspired by the ideas of seva (service) and bhakti (devotion), and I leaped into monastic life at the ripe old age of 20. I lived in ashrams in the NW and India over the next two years and had the great fortune to have bowed my head to, and taken instruction from many saints and sages.

I emerged back in the NW hoping to live a more thoughtful, progressive life centered on the incredibly profound and basic ideas of devotion and service. After eight years of yoga practice I finally knew it was time to begin my amazed journey into teaching. I've spent three years training with beloved local Hatha yoga teachers and studying asana, anatomy, pranayama and meditation.

Teaching yoga has given me new eyes to see this practice and its enlivening nature, each breath showing up as another opportunity to connect to the vast ocean of bhakti. I seek to serve and honor all of the great teachers who have helped me along the way, most importantly my guru Swami BV Tripurari, without whose words of wisdom I would be lost.

I have always possessed an unfaltering faith in the Divine nature of the world.  Although I haven't always been able to put it into words or quite know how to celebrate or express my beliefs, it has always been there, glowing like a flame within my heart and soul.  At times it has grown dim, and at times it rages beyond belief, but it never goes out. 

The first time that I experienced the yogic practice of kirtan, tt felt like coming home.  Coming home to myself, my community, my practice, my worship.  This was a huge turning point in my life.  I have also always maintained an intense fascination with movement and the human body, hence my participation in a variety of athletics, yoga asana practices, and a B.A. in Dance.  This is when it all started to truly come together for me, and things that I hadn't understood in the past became more clear. Everything began to merge and blossom within me, and within my life; my physical human expression and experience of this world, and my search for the path to go beyond that, and for the first time it seemed, I had found my path.  I realized that I can utilize my love of movement, community, music, stillness, quiet simplicity, everything in life really, as my expression of, appreciation for, and connection with the Divine nature of all things. 

The common thread that connects all of these things is Love, and that is the practice of Bhakti.  Yoga has truly presented itself as Union in my life with the merging of these qualities into an intensely humbling, yet endlessly gratifying practice. I chose to pursue an in depth study of yoga and my teaching certificate through The Bhaktishop School of Yoga.  Currently, in an effort to further explore the desire to share my passion of the healing properties of movement, I am enrolled in East West College of the Healing Arts which will lead me to become a Licensed Massage Therapist.  My goal as a movement teacher is to guide others in the ways in which I have experienced a deeper connection to my life through yoga, to explore the shapes and movement qualities from within as an expression of the Self, and to apply these things to life beyond the studio doors.  If I can inspire just one person to look a little deeper and find the light within, I feel that I have begun to accomplish this goal.

I believe yoga really CAN change the world.  I see proof of it in every amazing soul I meet at the Bhaktishop!

I am honored and so happy to teach at this incredible pink palace of Love. I have been enthralled with the joys of yoga since the age of 16, when my first teacher told us to get in touch with our auras and chakras. Since then, I've studied with numerous teachers, but found a home at Jivamukti Yoga while living in the crazy frenetic city of New York.

I craved the sanctuary of yoga in the city—the asana, the chanting, and the meditation all felt like home to me. I also discovered kirtan and Bhakti yoga while studying there and fell in love with every Ma, Shiva Shambo and Hanuman uttered in the presence of Bhagavan Das, Krishna Das, Jai Uttal, and other kirtan wallahs.

When I moved to Portland, it took a few months to find the right "yoga home", but finally the Yoga Shala appeared in my life. I studied with some incredible teachers while there and finally decided to answer the call of teaching. I have been teaching since 2005, after a two-year teaching training at the Yoga Shala, in which I studied Asana, Sanskrit, Anatomy, Philosophy, Pranayama and Meditation. I continue to study and learn something new each day about practice, patience, and most of all, love!

My classes are inspired by my love of nature, poetry, music, life and singing Kali Durga to the full moon. I find absolute joy in teaching beginners and watching their beautiful curiosity and excitement for this practice unfold. I am also so blessed to sing and lead kirtan with Mala every second Sunday!  I offer unending pranams to my many teachers, students and yoga family for their support, blessings and inspiration.

Upon returning from living abroad in Europe, I came back to my last year of college searching and yearning for more, something more than I already knew. I was bored and yearned for the passion and love for life I had experienced abroad. Something awakened in me while traveling, and I truly needed more in my life.

Sensing this, a dear friend of mine invited me to a yoga class at the tiny dance studio at my college. As foreign as the language was and the movements felt to me, I left feeling so peaceful and alive. This practice was what I was missing! Slowly from there yoga became my focus and commitment. The same woman that taught me that first class became my teacher for the next 5 years. Each day that I practiced I felt more alive. I didn’t need to search any more, because the practice had found me! I had no idea how passionate I was to become and how deeply this practice would be ingrained in me. I still am amazed, every day!

I though I was going to “exercise”, and yet again that mentality quickly shifted as I realized yoga was becoming my way of life.  And as life is constantly changing so did my practice. I found myself shifting from this strict physical practice to a practice infused with love and devotion. I learned that the real yoga was done outside the studio. It was how I related to people, and how I functioned in my everyday life. I soon found another beautiful teacher who introduced me to Kripalu. Here I found a new intense depth and relationship to yoga. This was what I wanted and needed to be sharing with others. Upon completing my training I moved to Portland from the east coast.

As everything felt so unfamiliar, I was able to stay very present and open to whatever showed up in the moment. With very little searching I found a studio that was already teaching Kripalu! From there sweet Sarah Pagliaro helped get me in the doors at the Yoga Shala of Portland, where my path has become so much deeper and clearer. And now, this journey that has been so amazing continues to be, as I am blessed to be a part of this new and beautiful yoga community, The Bhaktishop, alongside so many other beautiful teachers. Thank you for being a part of it.  

I thank God for the little sandwich board sign on the sidewalk that read "Orlando Yoga: First Class Free". That was enough to lure me in, and towards the end of class I remember having the strangest realization that I hadn't really TRULY been breathing…my whole life! Initially, I was attracted to the physical benefits of the poses and how relaxed I felt after class, but my practice waxed and waned for several years. Then in 2003 I was blessed to cross paths with teacher Jeannie Laslo, who alluded to the deeper aspects of Yoga in her classes. The more committed I became to a regular Hatha yoga practice, the more curious I was to find out about Yoga as a way of living. In 2004 I completed my teacher training with Jeannie at Red Door Yoga in Winter Park, Florida in the Integral yoga lineage. I began teaching at the studio right away, and am forever grateful to Jeannie for her support, guidance, and love.

In 2005 I moved to Portland, and have taught in Milwaukie, at Portland Community College, and through the Living Yoga program. It makes sense to me that in this beautiful city, so full of life and outside- the-box living, my own practice has grown in ways I never could have imagined. This evolution is due in large part to Lisa Mae Osborn. Lisa Mae showed me that yoga doesn't have to be a somber, serious matter. At the same time, I've never been more serious about this practice. Lisa Mae's soulful, creative style has influenced my own practice and teaching; she and the rest of the Bhaktishop crew continue to be my guides in transformation. I am forever indebted and grateful to them.

For many years I thought something was missing from life. Through my practice I've come to understand that there isn't anything missing, we've all just become really good at covering ourselves up, at getting lost. For me, Yoga is the path back home. It is this personal experience of reconnecting with Self, breath, spirit and love that informs my teaching.

In spite of an extremely rocky courtship, yoga has ceaselessly wooed me over the past years.  I now find myself smitten by a practice that continually evolves and surprises me.

The particulars of landing in my first yoga class are blurred. My initial reasons for practicing yoga were more for a gym-style work-out than a spiritual practice.  Halfway through that first class, I remember feeling annoyed that I hadn’t broken an earnest sweat and was “wasting” (yes, that honestly was the word I used in my head) my time. It became even worse when savasansa rolled around.  As if the last hour-plus wasn’t enough, I was now being instructed to, “Lie down, watch my breath, and peacefully, let go.” The over-achiever in me balked, “Why would I want to lie there when I could be doing something—like abs?” So I crunched, while the others relaxed.

Interestingly enough though, I found myself back at that yoga class, and many others as the months passed. I admit that I was still doing abs during savasana, but other changes were beginning to occur:  I became interested in my breath and how it affected me—physically and emotionally; I reactivated my relationship with the divine; and started listening to my heart (instead of just that over-achieving, pile-driving mind of mine.)

Eventually, I was led into an early Sunday morning class with Char Rice at the Portland Yoga Shala.  Char exhausted my physical body, and in turn, allowed for the lightness of my spirit to emerge long enough to guide me into that first scary but sincere savasana. Soon thereafter, in 2004, my dharma spun me into a practice with Lisa Mae Osborn. I do remember the particulars of that class. Especially the realization that, as the Reverend herself says, “I had stopped doing yoga, and it had started doing me.” My whole life was about to change.

A large part of that change culminated in taking a sabbatical from teaching writing and literature to at-risk youth and heading to India. There I began an Ashtanga practice and also completed a 250-hour classical Hatha yoga teacher training. From those polar ends of the asana spectrum, and the nitty-gritty yoga of daily life in between, I truly felt how the breath of it all pulsed love, sweet love.

Near or far, my practice is incomplete without a big bow down daily to Lisa Mae Osborn and Diana Hulet, both of whom show me how bright the love-light shines. But like the wisest of teachers, they know that a student’s path is unequivocally her own, and support me through both the joys and footfalls mine bestows. I also extend my ongoing respect to my teachers in India: Vijay of Universal Yoga, Ajay Kumar of Sthalam 8 Mysore, and those at Yoga Vidya Gurukul. I am honored to continue learning and teaching at The Bhaktishop.

“All day I think about it, then at night I say it.  Where did I come from, and what I’m I supposed to be doing?  I have no idea.  My soul is from somewhere else, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.”
-Jelaluddin Rumi

My yoga journey began 7 years ago in a small crystal shop in Pittsburgh, PA, appropriately named “Journeys of Life”.  This new age magical retail store exposed me to a community of people who were active in their spiritual quest and day to day connection to the divine.  I had been pulled towards mysticism and Asian philosophy since I was a young girl in middle school, and later, I began my self study in nutrition and yoga, buying any videos and books I could get my hands on. 

Movement with breath is innate within all of us.  It is what our body wants to naturally do.  I finally experienced my first real exhale as a young adult.  One yoga class a day was not satisfying my thirst, so I left my life in Pittsburgh and ended up at the Himalayan Institute.  I received so much direction and knowledge in my short visit with solitude and silence, that I decided to go back to school, and moved to Flagstaff, AZ. There I enrolled in the Anthropology and Asian Studies department at NAU.  Yoga and dance were my saviors during that time of academia overload.  My practice was the only stability I had in my life and the mat became an extension of my Self and my thoughts.  It was, and is, a sacred place for expression, excretion of unwanted baggage, and creation. 

I became attached to my teachers as well as the community there, which made the move to Portland very difficult.  After a few weeks of searching Portland yoga studios I was about to give up, and then I went to Lisa Mae Osborn’s class at the Yoga Shala.  After class I said to myself “Thank God!”  and immediately began to study with her and the lovely Diana Hulet. 

With their grace I was able to complete the first Bhaktishop Teacher Training program in 2008, and Jai Ma! I’m forever grateful for their open hearts and words of encouragement this past year.  Thank you both for asking me to pour myself empty and for sharing the light.  Many offerings up to my father, my first guru.  I feel you in every breath, and I’m blessed by your daily guidance.  Also to my grandmother, a true bhakti yogini.  I finally caught a glimpse of the love and devotion you had cultivated for God on this earth.  All memories of you bring a huge smile to my face.  Finally, thanks to my family and friends for giving me the freedom necessary for this awesome journey of self discovery and life……

Om shanti shanti shanti 

Not long ago, I was visiting with my mom on her couch when she handed me a few pages from a journal she used to keep when I was young. I was three years old on the day of this particular entry, and we laughed as we read the probing questions I was asking, such as this one that would drive my life for many years: "Mom, when I grow up, will I make sense?"

Though posed with all the depth a three-year-old can muster, not much has changed in terms of what I'm still asking and am interested in understanding. I have always been drawn toward spiritual practices and have explored a variety of spiritual traditions along my way. I spent many years being inspired by the teachings of Dr. Marilyn Sewell, who encouraged me to develop my own understanding of life and the driving force of Love as the source of it all. I was simultaneously taking yoga classes at the "big gym," but yoga didn't become a main part of my spiritual practice until stepping into The Bhaktishop in 2008.

It was here that I first encountered the idea that becoming who you are isn't always a process of adding on, but is often a process of letting go. That everything already makes sense, and my task is to discover and release all the obstacles I have put in the way of experiencing this truth. I LOVE this.

In the following months I began to change my trajectory, to make room in my life for practices that help me to turn inward, to open outward, to stay inspired, and to be of service. I was especially inspired by the use of music and mantra in class and began exploring how to integrate these into my own practice at home. I applied to The Bhaktishop’s Yoga School program to further develop and deepen my understanding of all the practices of yoga, and to study the texts from which they originate.

Following graduation from teacher training in the summer of 2009, I began teaching level 1 and 2 asana classes as well as the restful, quiet restorative class that is offered on Thursday evenings. I have also been offering classes in sign language to the Deaf community, and have so much appreciated the enthusiasm and support that has surrounded this teaching and learning experience. I am so humbled, honored and blessed to have been welcomed into the teaching family here at The Bhaktishop. I am forever grateful to Lisa Mae, Diana, and the many amazing people I have met in this community; there is no part of my life un-touched by what you have shared!

For me, yoga is the practice of aligning ourselves with a universal vibration, the energy and movement of experience. I have realized that this is inherently loving. These practices give me the language to communicate that which I see as indescribably beautiful in all things.

I have always felt better able to express myself through the physical language of movement. When I found myself with my first yoga teacher, Alvina Haverkamp, in New Orleans in the summer of 2004, I knew that I was onto something. Winds and rain washed me over to Austin, TX where I was fortunate to spend some great time with a handful of lovely teachers, including Brigitte Snyder. There I deepened my asana practice, but still felt perplexed as to the mysteries of true Yoga. What was this Love she was always talking about? Riding the wake all the way out to the west coast, it was in my dear uncle's bizarre workout room, walls lined with mirrors, that I looked and saw, this is what I want. I want to do yoga, I want to be yoga, I want Yoga! Still very unclear as to what this meant, my path led me to Portland, OR, and grace landed me in the hands of my most wondrous teachers here at The Bhaktishop. Their luminous guidance has cleared the way for my practice to open so wide, flooded with love and devotion. This has left me with the need to humbly offer it back out. What else could I do?

A 200 hour RYT certification from The Bhaktishop, a grand community of family and friends, and so much more, has helped me make my way.

When I first stepped onto the mat more than six years ago I was convinced that yoga was going to help me gain flexibility in my overuses muscles. I had no idea that it would stretch my mind, and more importantly my heart, wide open.

An avid and competitive athlete, serious outdoor enthusiast, and mother to two young children, I surely didn’t need anymore activities or hobbies in my life.  But the more yoga classes I attended, the more I felt the need to explore this practice.  Yoga complimented my athletics, giving me better recovery time and the flexibility I was seeking. Then a few years into a somewhat steady practice, most likely deep and flat-out in some painful hip-opening pose, I was so moved by what was opening in my body that I felt tears on my face. Not tears of sadness or even joy, but of relief…or release. A release of old stuff I was holding onto for years. I realized that yoga was not going to be another workout for me, but truly a work-in. I saw insight to my true nature that I could find nowhere else.

After practicing for a few years under the competent eye of Jody Kurilla at the Yoga Shala, I then found the graceful and amazing Char Rice also at the Shala, and spent even more time with her.  Then shortly after her arrival in Portland to the Yoga Shala from New York City, the woman that would really offer her hand out to me in so many ways, showing me how to find my true path, Lisa Mae Osborn showed up like a rockin’ beam of light into my life. Her love of yoga and deep devotion were infectious to me, as they are to any student that crosses her path.  Thanks to her encouragement and guidance, as well as that of Diana Hulet and other teachers, I took on the Yoga Shala’s teacher training program. Currently in my third and final year of that intensive program, I am apprenticing with Lisa Mae and beginning my teaching for The Bhaktishop with great enthusiasm and joy. A deep bow to Matt Huish, the director of teacher training at the Yoga Shala, for really making me “do the work” needed on myself to further my journey on this yoga path. He continues to influence my teaching and practice daily.

Yoga has made me a better wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, student, teacher, athlete, and all around human being, all by showing me that ultimately we have all we need inside our own hearts. Once we are no longer afraid to spread the love that lives within us to all beings, we are able to walk through our lives with true compassion, lightness, and contentment.

I am so grateful to be part of this amazing Bhaktishop family, and humbled to be able to begin my teaching journey among such great teachers. I will forever be a student of yoga, but truly look forward to be sharing what I love as I am blessed to lead the way for others.

I found yoga as a teenager, rifling through my mom’s drawers, where I discovered line drawings of yoga poses. I was immediately drawn to the images and practiced shoulder stand and plough tirelessly in my attic room. I knew from that first spark that I was to have a long and fulfilling relationship with yoga.

A college yoga class set me off on a peripatetic yoga journey taking classes on and off for the next decade. I began to study in earnest after arriving in Portland in 1996. Over the years, I have studied Iyengar, Anusara, Ashtanga, and Vinyasa traditions. Although I had met yoga on a physical plane, I got to know it on richer and deeper level as I stepped closer. Each tradition and each teacher offered a unique gift and a discrete way to translate the graceful physical movements into equilibrium of heart and mind.

Practicing yoga during my pregnancy was a godsend, keeping morning sickness at bay and bolstering my confidence in the ability of my body to give birth. I apprenticed with my teacher and found I enjoyed sharing the multi-layered practice with others and went on to teach prenatal yoga and an outdoor class at a local park. Fortuitously, I came upon Lisa Mae and Diana’s classes at Yoga Shala, where I was delighted to discover yet another way to “do yoga” with music, chanting and stories imbued with a joyful and playful flavor I found downright indulgent.

 I happily followed Lisa Mae and Diana to Om Traditional Arts and, finally, to the Bhaktishop where I was a member of the inaugural 2008 Bhaktishop Teacher Training class.

You will find me subbing at the Bhaktishop, where I enjoy imparting the joy of physical movement and that thrill, fleeting as it might be, of clarity and peace.

 I completed The Bhaktishop School of Yoga in 2009, and every day that I am able to share in the practice is a blessing, and a lesson, and it is only just the beginning. I am continually humbled by the community of such great teachers around me and feel a true sense of fortune that I have the opportunity to practice with such beautiful people. 

I look forward to sharing what I have to offer up but more importantly to continue to study, seek and love ever more deeply everyday…. Steady, continuous practice for a very, very long time. 

Om shanti shanti shanti 

I discovered yoga and was discovered by yoga starting with the amazing teacher Uma Elizabeth McNeill from the Breathing Project in New England, which then in a  roundabout way led me to my inspiring teachers Lisa Mae, Diana, Heidi and Tasha at the Bhaktishop's inaugural School of Yoga voyage in 2007. I was fortunate to apprentice with Lisa Mae and Heidi after Yoga School ended, and continue to study and practice at The Bhaktishop. Yoga makes sense to me, but mostly it makes sense of me.

As a full time Social Worker, I am well aware of the power and spirit of personal wellbeing.  Also as an avid yoga practitioner, I fully embrace how a yoga practice can bring fullness to our mind, body, and soul. 

After six years of practicing Hatha Yoga I completed 200-hours of yoga teacher training through Core Power Yoga in Portland Oregon.  A year later I found myself teaching yoga to children at the Woodstock Wellness Center with additional training from Yoga Calm.  In 2009, to balance my physical practice, I participated in the Yoga Philosophy and Theory portion of The Bhaktishop School of Yoga Program. 

To return the favor of love and learning The Shop gave to me I now offer the teachers there some time away by substituting classes when needed.  My continued desire to deepen my own practice makes me emphasize process, presence, but not perfection.  I enjoy teaching a strong Vinyasa Flow class with an emphasis in releasing tension and stress through breath work and fluid movements. I look forward to sharing opportunities to move through transitions with freedom, independence, and grace with an upbeat and inspirational musical soundtrack.