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.

Now that I have settled in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, I've embraced the sense of community that I loved overseas in this town. After years of traveling and teaching around the world, it feels wonderful to be in a place where I can begin to plant new roots. While I'm still leading online classes and connecting with students from all over the world, there's a feeling of belonging about rolling out a mat in a beautiful shared space and guiding the community through a practice. Teaching in Beaver Dam has allowed me to combine everything I've learned along my yoga journey so far, and given me the opportunity to serve the community I now call home. Whether online or in-person, I'm grateful to continue to share this practice that has helped me grow and connect. I look forward to this next phase of my journey and I hope you will join me!