bio

I took my first yoga class in 1993. It wasn’t bliss. I wasn’t hooked. I didn’t even like it, an alleged intro class full of pretzel-twisting poses that were way beyond me. I did find other classes I loved, and yoga’ed off and on. In 2003, I completed a 200hr teacher training to improve my practice. I admit that I didn’t see myself as a yoga teacher at all, but I walked into a job in spite of myself (in January 2004) and I’ve been teaching ever since. Teaching yoga makes me happy.

My training began as an undergrad at UC Berkeley in courses on nutrition, phys ed, and the psychology of human movement. I finished my bachelors at Barnard, concentrating on religion coursework, including Bob Thurman’s Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. I later did graduate work in South Asian Studies, also at Columbia University, and finished my masters there in Health and Behavior Studies/Health Education.

I completed my 200hr training at Integral Yoga New York and my 500hr training at ISHTA Yoga with Alan Finger. Over the years, I’ve also studied with Genny Kapuler, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Leslie Kaminoff, Jon Kabat-Zinn (meditation/Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction), and with various teachers at the New York Shambhala Center (Tantric/Buddhist meditation) and Insight Meditation (Vipassana meditation). I now practice Mysore/Ashtanga with Evan Perry.

Teaching philosophy

I want you to come in, leave your life outside, find your breath, work hard (which for many, means being gentle), meet your body, relax, and have fun.

I want people to get into their bodies and be honest with themselves. We neglect and abuse ourselves constantly, and we numb ourselves to life. Yoga can reverse this habit, and it isn’t all relaxation, or love and light, because often we open to the pain we’ve been taught all our lives to avoid. Better to be real and move through the pain (and the joy), than to be rigid and constantly defensive, or bubbly and fake. Or anxious. Or depressed. I’ve found that coming into the body is a remarkable way to do this.