I am a classical hatha yoga teacher, registered through Yoga Alliance as an E-RYT 500, RPYT, and YACEP. All that means that I have at least 2000 hours of teaching experience, at least 500 hours of teacher training, am trained to teach prenatal yoga, and that Yoga Alliance considers me qualified to teach other yoga teachers continuing education content.

Yoga practice has had an enormous influence on my life and I am so grateful for the many teachers and students contributed to my personal growth and development. There is no question that I have become the person I am today because of more than 10 years of yogic study.

Yoga is not an ancestral practice for me as a white person with European heritage; I advocate for responsible stewardship of the tradition of yoga. You can start to do this by interrogating your own ideas about what yoga is and being intentional about who you learn yoga from. A good place to start learning about what yoga really is might be yoga’s eightfold path, in which Yamas (restraints) and Niyamas (observances) precede the physical practice of yoga. Not to say that the study of yoga is linear, but rather to say that there is some (a lot) amount of introspection required of a yoga practice.

Classical hatha yoga is a practice of self-discovery facilitated by doing a range of poses on a mat or from a chair as your body allows, with the goal that your body and mind will then be prepared for a meditation practice. The kind of meditation I am most familiar with is what I call “Concentration Meditation.” Concentration Meditation is all about training your mind to concentrate on something you have chosen. Using you breath is often helpful. If you find that your mind can think of other things while you focus on your breath, you might add more elements of concentration to you your routine. Perhaps focusing on your breath and counting odd numbers as you inhale and even numbers as you exhale would be helpful. You can add as many elements as you need to keep your mind engaged and then you can decrease them as you become more comfortable with the practice.

This practice can be enhanced by engaging in yogic philosophy and lifestyle alongside the more physical practices. As with just about everything in life- the more you put into it, the more you will get out of it.

Here are some of my favorite yoga and meditation related resources: