Interesting Tidbits 

I was born in the Midwest, Dodge City, Kansas where I lived until I was eight years old. The winter before my 9th birthday my family moved to “always sunny and 75 degrees” Vista, California.

I lived in California with my parents and my younger brother until I went away to college. I received a full scholarship to pitch for the Boston University Softball team. I earned my degree in Human Movement to become a Physical Education teacher as well as my Master’s in Health Education. During my softball playing years, I was named to the All-American team and held two top records for pitching nationally. I was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame at Boston University.

After college, I had the opportunity to go overseas and teach in Rabat, Morocco. That experience literally opened a whole new world for me. I did not expect to love living overseas and learning about other cultures as much as I did.

After three years, I moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where I found the two loves of my life; my husband, Tony, and yoga. We found our shared passion for travel, new cultures, and adventure leading us to continue our teaching careers overseas to three more countries; Guatemala, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia where we adopted our three cats; Leroy, Cica, and Midnight.

My Journey

I have always been active and athletic but have never been an athlete to whom skills came easily. I had to work hard every day in order to build and maintain my skills. That hard work helped me become a successful softball pitcher in high school and college.

When I was 18, I was involved in a car accident that caused major issues with the lower lumbar of my spine. I went through many months of rehab with a therapist and chiropractor to be able to play softball again. As I continued to play softball, my low back pain stayed with me. I coped through weight training and running, but I was never pain-free in any of my activities until I happened upon a yoga class.

Fast forward a few years to when I was living and working as a PE teacher in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and happened upon my first yoga class. It was nothing fancy, I did not even have a mat just a sarong that I laid on the floor.  After a few classes, I was hooked and looking to do more yoga. I wanted to learn as much as I could about it in order to get better. My journey led me to the Ashtanga yoga practice, which I loved because of the set sequence that let me see my progress from week to week. I went to workshops and took as many classes as I could. The more yoga I did the less pain I had in my lower back from the car accident. While I might not ever be pain-free at least yoga was helping me manage and be able to become more active than ever!

I understood that it was a practice and I looked forward to it daily and eventually started to convince others to join me. In the following months, I talked about yoga so much that a few colleagues asked me to lead them in classes. I was hesitant because I was not trained to teach yoga and did not feel I knew enough.  I was already teaching kids how to do various sports through teaching Physical Education and coaching, I figured I could share what I was learning in yoga too!  

I soon realized I loved teaching yoga and helping people develop their own yoga practice. It was several years before I was able to get my 200-hour yoga teacher training certification in Ashtanga yoga with Paul Dallaghan at Samahiti Retreat, but I always knew being a yoga instructor was part of my yoga journey. I have enjoyed every minute of it and never looked back. Over the years I have branched out from my Ashtanga roots to learn as much as possible about this beautiful practice. I studied Vinyasa Flow with Jason Crandell for my 300-hour advanced certification, Mindfulness Meditation and Restorative yoga with Cyndi Lee, Yin Yoga with Bernie Clark, and Yoga for All with Dianne Bondy.

As I continue this online yoga journey, I am enjoying creating new videos and writing blogs to share. It still gets a bit breathtaking at times, but then I remember that I am passionate about what I have to offer. I continue to look forward to connecting and sharing my love and passion for yoga with people from around the world through this space. Thank you for joining me on this journey.