How Yoga Found Me, From the Track to the Mat

Becoming a yoga teacher was never part of my plan. At nineteen, running was all I was. I ran distance at UCLA, the girl out at 6 a.m. doing laps around Drake Stadium and clocking miles up Sunset while most of Westwood was still asleep. Then, midway through my sophomore cross-country season, my body stepped in and chose for me. A stubborn hamstring strain became a hip problem, and I spent that spring in the bleachers watching my teammates race. Our athletic trainer recommended yoga for mobility. I showed up skeptical and a little resentful, expecting an hour of stretching. Instead I got my first class in years where nobody was timing me, and I walked out feeling like I'd finally exhaled.

What began as rehab quickly became something I couldn't stop thinking about. I started slipping into early classes at a tiny studio on Gayley Avenue called Marigold & Moss, a candlelit space full of plants, where the teacher knew everyone by name and always closed with a short reading from her journal. By senior year I was running again, faster and without pain, but I had fallen harder for the mat than for the track. The summer after graduation, I did my 200-hour teacher training at Saltwater Sangha in Santa Monica. It was a month of sunrise practices on the sand, anatomy sessions that finally made sense of everything my body had been through, and long conversations about breath, patience, and listening to yourself before you push.

Since then, I've taught at yoga studios, music festivals, and events all over the country. Music festivals and corporate events are my favorite places to teach, and these days I also work with a number of private clients. I'm 24, and I teach the practice I wish someone had shown me sooner. It can be strong and sweaty when you want that, but it's also soft, restorative, and centered on caring for the body you live in. Running taught me how to push. Yoga taught me when not to, and I try to bring that lesson to every class I teach.