By My first real introduction to yoga was in Hawaii, one summer during college. I quickly picked up a two-times a week routine and loved how great I felt! When I returned to school for my senior year, I wanted to share what I had learned with my swim team. At the time, our team did very minimal stretching so I saw yoga as a solution for myself and teammates who struggled with constantly tight muscles. That year, I taught Sun As and modified Sun Bs before practice and regularly during our training trip. It was fun, not to mention pretty comical, to see 50 swimmers practicing yoga on the pool deck in their speedos! I saw that I was helping people and enjoyed sharing something that I was just beginning to fall in love with. 
After traveling for a year and a half I landed back in Hawaii and re-started my practice. This time with Bikram and then power vinyasa yoga. I became more focused on the studios, heat, and challenge of certain poses rather than the accessibility of yoga. The fact that yoga is available for everyone is something I truly forgot about until beginning TEP, my teacher training program. Through this program, I’m happy to say, I have full and complete knowledge, confidence, and tools that a powerful Baptiste Journey into Power sequence can be taught anywhere and to anyone.
One of my favorite parts of my journey to become a yoga teacher, has been practice teaching. And with practice teaching, you have to get a little creative! I taught in gyms, by the pool, in my office, at Buffalo Bayou Park, and Memorial Park, and regardless of the location I watched my students have a powerful and inspiring experience. In fact, it’s these diverse locations that made teaching the class even more fun, and it’s brought me back full circle to the moment, standing on a pool deck in a speedo, that I first knew I wanted to teach yoga.
As I continue my journey as a yoga teacher, I know that through the practice and the tools, I can teach anyone, anywhere. That’s the beauty of this practice. I’m ready to teach and empower the people in my life, and strangers I haven’t even met yet, in places that inspire me. With that in mind, I’ve come up with a list of people and places that I want to teach yoga to and a visual of what my Instagram feed might look like!
Top 5 Places I Want to Teach Yoga this Year*:
- On the beach in Hawaii
- At the Houston Marathon (before/after)
- On a mountain in Colorado
- At MMI Agency
- At Discovery Green
*Excluding studios
Top 5 People I Want to Teach Yoga to this Year:
- My mother (and her tennis friends)
- Marathon runners
- My bridal party
- My coworkers
- Stressed out MBA students at Rice
Loving life on the run. 