2. Tell us about your NYC experience and journey to Vermont. I moved to NYC in 2000, thinking I’d try city-living for a couple of years to pursue some dance work, and ended up staying for a decade.  The years in NYC were rich:  I joined forces with five other choreographers (including Susan Cline Lucey!), and co-founded VaroomGroup, a collaborative dance collective which self-produced 4 shows, performing in venues ranging from traditional theater spaces to a window on 42nd street.  It was also in these early years in NYC that I became enamored with yoga and decided to enroll in a teacher training program.  Following my initial certification at OM Yoga Center, I began teaching privately and at studios in Manhattan & Brooklyn, and branched out into further studies in the Iyengar tradition as well as with Rodney Yee and his senior students.  In 2007, I was one of twelve yoga teachers selected to work with the Urban Zen Integrative Therapy pilot program, developed with Beth Israel Medical Center, and aimed at enhancing the care of cancer patients through complementary healing therapies.   The training and practice of yoga therapy within the hospital setting was an incredible experience of how the essence of yoga and meditation can be distilled into easily-accessible practices with profound healing benefits.  And if I needed any more convincing that yoga is for EVERYONE, my introduction to and training in CircusYoga – a playful, multi-generational practice – was and continues to be a wonderfully inspiring gift for cultivating community and fostering a spirit of learning through play, something we can always use reminding of!  It was also during my recent years in NYC that I began to practice in the tradition of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, whose teachings on mindfulness continue to be a source of joy and inspiration on how we can find peace in every moment.

Last fall, after ten productive years in the Big Apple, I felt it was time to move on to greener pastures, but wasn’t sure where I wanted to land.  Completely out of character, I packed up my things, left my jobs and took off for five months of solo, unplanned traveling through New Zealand, Australia, Bali, and Thailand, also having no plan for where I would live when I returned.  After an amazing journey, I returned to the U.S. in May 2010, bopped around staying with friends and family through the summer, and finally landed in Burlington in early September.  The sense of homecoming (I was born in Vermont), a great community feel, and being closer to friends and family have all helped as I transition to this new home, and I feel huge gratitude to have also been embraced by the warm, welcoming arms of Evolution!

3. What’s most memorable during your OM Yoga Center Teacher Training? In 2001, I joined the yoga teacher training program at OM Yoga Center in NYC, mostly because I was inspired to delve deeper into the practice.  The training’s blend of instruction in the graceful flow of Vinyasa coupled with a grounding in Buddhist meditation practices really set the groundwork for my teaching and ongoing studies.  Both the training and the practice of being a teacher have been instrumental in my own personal growth, in trusting that I have valuable information to share, in practicing lightheartedness, and in continually opening my heart wider to  see how much I have to learn, both from my teachers and my students.  And to have fun all the while!

4. Where would we find you playing when not at the studio?
Visiting with friends, out for a walk, listening to live music, and hopefully doing some dancing soon!

5. Share a mantra or piece of wisdom that makes your spirit smile. I am always inspired by the words of Thich Nhat Hahn, whose simple teachings on interbeing have a way of cutting right to the heart of things.  One of my favorites is “No mud – No lotus”, which he uses in his teachings on suffering.  I find it so relieving to be reminded that just a beautiful lotus flower must grow from mud, the same is true for us.  What freedom there is in knowing that all of our yummy, blossoming beauty is right there in our crazy, mixed-up neuroses and suffering, just waiting to bloom!  I especially like Thay’s comparison to garbage (or compost) and flowers:  ”For someone who has wisdom, insight, when she looks into the heap of garbage, she can already see the flowers in the garbage.  If the flower is on her way to the garbage, the garbage also may be on her way back to the flower.

Join evolution Physical Therapy & Yoga teachers at the monthly teachers meeting this July.

July’s theme of the month is chanting. What is your favorite chant so far?

Learn more about Evolution Physical Therapy & Yoga

Specific sounds can add focus to class, improve concentration, and even help to clear the mind and heart.  Our throat chakra contains or ability to speak truthfully and receive truth.  Opening the throat and voice can aid greater self-acceptance and confidence.

When practicing yoga with your child consider integrating laughter, lions roar (lions breath) to table pose or lions crawls, practice OM, the words “Shanti,” “Namaste,” and even some mantras (which encase special meaning)- like “Loka samasta sukhino bhavantu,” which means, “May all beings everywhere be happy.”

Most importantly- smile!  Then make some noise!

“The fish in the water is silent, the animal on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing.  But the man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the nusic of the air.” -Rabindranath Tagore

visit http://www.globalfamilyyoga.org for more on this topic.

The only real control I have is the choice of my own thoughts, my own words, my own actions

Borrowed from Living Your Yoga, by  Judith Lasater.

May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life, contribute in some way, to the happiness and freedom for all.