I began this journey at Tisch School of the Arts at the age of 19 when I was studying Theatre at the Stella Adler Conservatory in New York City. Our day would start with a warm up class, followed by vigorous lessons including voice, classical text, movement and musical theatre to name a few.
I would dread our warm up classes and particularly yoga warm up. I was focused on memorizing text and thinking about all the characters that I would have to embody throughout the day. A friend of mine saw my distaste in our yoga warmup sessions and said to me that this was not really Yoga. That she would take me to a “real” yoga class if I was interested and seeing as I looked up to her, I agreed.
My first class was at Jivamukti Yoga Center in 1996. I don’t remember my first teachers name but I do remember what I felt. It was so long ago but I recall sweating from only the first breathing exercise. I felt light pouring into my bones and I believed I silently cried, relishing in this pool of abandonment from myself, my thoughts, and who I was.
This is how my practice began and boy did I practice! As much as I could. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. For 5 years I galavanted around NYC taking classes from different teachers, dabbling in a few different styles, but Jivamukti classes were my main love and I recall my favorite teachers at the time were Kelly Morris and Uma Saraswati. I deemed them yoga angels who were floating on this earth, waving their wands of wisdom and transforming our lives with chanting, words and silence. I mention them both because they were the teachers that brought me back to yoga class. At that time in my life I honestly did not concern myself on what my postures looked like or how deep I needed to go. I was mesmerized by their teachings. I was deeply impacted by their the knowledge and by the ease of how they taught class.
I consider myself quite an extrovert but I became a mouse every time I stepped into a yoga studio. I felt like I was too small of spirit to be recognized under the extreme beauty, grace and confidence of these teachers I was being led by. This was the start of my deeply introspective reflection of questioning my confidence, my body and began to explore the elements that governed the nature of my mind.
I yearned to have the presence that these teachers held in the palm of their hands. It was not Jivamukti that helped me discover my SELF. It was my discovery of Bikram yoga.
One day in 2000 I stepped into a Bikram Yoga studio and that day forever changed my life. I absolutely hated the actual class. It was a complete 180 of Jivamukti. The class was a genuine mixture of people from all walks of life and immediately you could feel the rawness of the group energy. Very different from the flowing yoga garbs, incense and chanting of Jivamukti. The teacher (whose name I also don’t remember) was just starting her yoga teaching career and I even though I didn’t like the first class, about 2 hours later it felt as if I had just come out of the most magnificent waterfall with 10 cups of caffeine pumping through my veins. I couldn’t believe that this 90 minute class would have me feeling like Mary Poppins. I was hooked. There is no other journey one can take that is so deeply nurturing, healing and transformative.
My life took me to LA in where I worked for Bikram for 3 years and became a Bikram Yoga teacher in 2003. 9 weeks of training that peeled away layers and layers of who I thought I was, to come out pretty raw and almost reborn. I will share more of that in posts to come.
In 2011 I opened Bikram Yoga Mountain View in California and re-branded to Bomitra Yoga Mountain View in 2017.
This is how it all began. I never thought the little girl who wanted to be Audrey Hepburn and win an Osacar, would up teaching yoga and help people transform their lives. It has been the most richest journey in body, mind and spirit.
