Yoga

While I grew up attending my mother’s Ho’opiopio (Hawaiian for “rejuvenation”) classes, it was while studying psychology and practicing yoga in college that I delved deeper into how the brain and mind work with the body. I noticed that yoga improved both my immediate mood as well as my overall state of mind, well after rolling up my mat. My views on health and wellness began to evolve as I observed the effects of yoga and I began to study a proactive approach to preventing injury and illness, as well the effectiveness of yoga as therapy and medicine.

In 2014, I graduated from West East Yoga, a Yoga Alliance-registered yoga school with a curriculum focused on anatomy and physiology, asana sequencing, and class design with an emphasis on Sivananda, Iyengar, and Hatha yoga styles. Our intensive study also included meditation instruction, the principles of Ashtanga yoga and pranayama (breathing) exercise, as well as the history and philosophy of the thousand-years-old practice.

From this experience, I aim to share how yoga re-educates the nervous and muscle systems to undo the damage of daily misalignment and the anxieties of modern life.  I have been honored to guide my students—athletes, cancer patients and survivors, kids, seniors, and everyone in between—in how to accomplish just that through Hatha, Vinyasa, and Power Yoga classes, focusing on linking breath with mindful movement, ever since.