Why I Started Teaching (And What I Want My Students to Know)

I came to yoga through the backdoor of philosophy and stayed for the embodied wisdom. Twenty-two years later, I finally started teaching. Here's why I waited—and what I want you to know if you end up in my class.

The Circuitous Route

My academic journey was nothing if not winding: I started in psychology, veered into geology (because rocks don't have feelings and I was exhausted by feelings), landed briefly in religious studies, and finally found home in art history. Looking back, I was circling around the same questions: What does it mean to be human? How do we make meaning? Where does beauty intersect with truth?

I wasn't looking for yoga when I found it. I was nineteen, exhausted from untreated mental health struggles, and someone handed me a book about meditation. Then another about Hindu philosophy. Then I found myself in a yoga class, not because I wanted to exercise, but because I wanted to understand what the Bhagavad Gita meant when it talked about "skill in action."

So I was that student—the one who cared more about the philosophy than the pose, who wanted to know the why behind every instruction, who stayed after class to ask questions about the subtle body.

I'm still that student. I just happen to be teaching now.

The Metalsmith Years

For years, I worked as an artisan metalsmith. I made jewelry—raw diamonds wrapped in gold, geometric forms that honored both precision and organic flow. People ask me sometimes why I left that work. The truth is, I didn't entirely. I just found a different medium.

Metalsmithing taught me that transformation requires three things: heat, pressure, and time. You can't rush alchemy. The raw material doesn't become something refined overnight.

It taught me about the marriage of structure and creativity—how you need to understand the properties of metal (its tensile strength, its melting point, how it responds to different tools) before you can shape it into something beautiful. Freedom comes through technical understanding, not despite it.

And it taught me that "elegant with unruly" isn't a contradiction—it's the sweet spot. Polish too much and you lose the character. Leave it too raw and it lacks refinement. The art is in finding the balance.

This is how I teach yoga: with the precision of a craftsperson and the reverence for both structure and wildness.

Why It Took Twenty-Two Years

People are often surprised when I mention I've been practicing for over two decades but only started teaching in 2024. "Why did you wait so long?" they ask.

The simple answer: I wasn't ready.

The more complete answer: I needed those twenty-two years. I needed to practice through depression and anxiety. Through grief and joy. Through injury and healing. Through periods of obsessive dedication and periods of barely-making-it-to-the-mat. I needed to understand—in my tissues, not just my mind—that practice isn't linear, that showing up imperfectly is better than waiting for perfect conditions, that the body holds wisdom the intellect can't access.

I also needed to become someone who could hold space for others without needing them to validate my own worth. Teaching isn't about performing expertise—it's about creating conditions where people can discover their own.

"I don't teach to show you what I know. I teach to help you discover what you already are."

What Yoga Gave Me

I want to be honest about this, because I think the wellness industry sometimes oversells yoga as a cure-all, and that's not my experience.

Yoga didn't cure my depression or anxiety. Therapy did the heavy lifting there, along with medication, community, and time. But yoga gave me something therapy alone couldn't: a way to inhabit my body when my mind was telling me to escape it.

It gave me:

• Embodiment - A sense of being in this body, not just piloting it like a machine
• Regulation - Tools to work with my nervous system instead of being held hostage by it
• Discipline and space - A practice that required showing up, and paradoxically, created spaciousness
• Connection - To myself, to something larger, to community
• Spiritual curiosity - Permission to explore the mystical without abandoning the rational

Most importantly, yoga taught me that I could be trusted. That my body wasn't the enemy. That sensation—even uncomfortable sensation—was information, not threat.

This is what I want to offer my students: not transcendence, but trustworthy arrival in themselves.

What I Want You to Know If You Practice With Me

You Belong Here, Whole

You don't need to leave parts of yourself outside the studio. Your intellect is welcome. Your questions are welcome. Your doubt is welcome. Your body—exactly as it is today—is welcome.

I teach for people who want both grounded physicality and philosophical depth. If you're the kind of person who likes to understand why you're doing something, if you're intellectually curious and spiritually open, if you want to think and feel your way through practice—you'll fit right in.

I'll Explain the Why

I'm particular about alignment, not because there's one "perfect" way to do a pose, but because alignment is the language the body speaks. When you understand why we externally rotate the back leg in warrior II, why we engage the core in plank, why we ground through all four corners of the feet—you're not just following instructions. You're developing discernment. You're becoming your own best teacher.

Every week, my classes include a dharma talk—a brief exploration of Sanskrit philosophy tied to the peak pose and to everyday life. This isn't performative spirituality; it's an invitation to consider how ancient wisdom translates to your commute, your relationships, your moments of doubt or clarity.

Modification Isn't Failure

In my classes, you'll always hear options. Not because some people "can't do the real pose," but because there is no single real pose. Your body today has different needs than it did last week. The shape that serves you depends on your unique structure, your energy level, your injury history, what you're working with right now.

Using a block isn't a compromise—it's intelligence. Choosing child's pose when everyone else is in downward dog isn't giving up—it's listening.

This Isn't Just a Workout

You'll absolutely get stronger, more flexible, more capable in your body. But if that's all you're looking for, there are more efficient ways to exercise. What I'm offering is transformation through understanding—of your body, your patterns, your capacity for presence.

I'm interested in how asana practice becomes a laboratory for being human: How do you respond when something is hard? Can you be both strong and soft? What does it feel like to be fully present in this moment, in this body?

These aren't just yoga questions—they're life questions. The mat is where we practice answering them.

I'm Still Learning

Twenty-two years in, I'm still a student. I still work with foundational poses. I still have days where the practice feels mysterious and days where it feels like coming home. I still get things wrong, lose my balance, need to back off.

I'm not teaching from a place of having arrived. I'm teaching from a place of deep curiosity about the journey—and I'd be honored if you join me in it.

The Students Who Changed Everything

Here's something they don't tell you about teaching: your students will transform you more than you transform them.

I've watched students arrive frenetic and scattered, and over months, become grounded. I've watched people discover strength they didn't know they had. I've witnessed the moment when someone finally understands a cue from the inside out, when their face lights up with that recognition: Oh. This is what you meant.

But more than that, I've learned from their questions. From the ways they see things I've stopped noticing because they're so familiar. From their struggles, which remind me that what feels simple to me now was once impossible.

One student told me recently: "I actually learn something in every class—about myself and about yoga. It's not just moving through shapes."

That's the teaching I'm trying to offer. And if that resonates with you, I'd love to practice together.

What This Practice Can Be

At its best, yoga practice is an act of archaeology and architecture simultaneously. We're excavating—uncovering the patterns held in our tissues, the habits that no longer serve us, the wisdom that's been there all along. And we're building—creating new grooves, new possibilities, new relationships to ourselves and each other.

It's science and spirit. It's ancient and immediate. It's structured and wild. It's elegant with unruly.

And it's available to you, exactly as you are right now.

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If this way of practicing speaks to you—where clear instruction meets philosophical depth, where you're welcome to bring your whole self—I'd love to see you in class. No perfect poses required. Just curiosity and willingness to explore.