Yoga Warrenton

I got interested in yoga as a teenager and tried to teach myself yoga stretches from reading and imitating pictures in books.  I always felt better, both physically and mentally, after stretching, but I didn’t really know what I was doing.

I took my first “real” yoga class at Unity Woods in Bethesda, Maryland in the early-1990’s.  At Unity Woods, I learned that there is so much more to “doing yoga” than imitating a picture in a book.   I became intrigued with the personal development aspects of yoga,  and that led me to enroll in and complete a one-year training in Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy in 1994.

Eventually I found my way to Betsey Downing at the Health Advantage Yoga Center in Herndon, Virginia, and completed a one-year hatha yoga teacher training under Betsey’s supervision  in 1999.  I have been teaching classes in Warrenton , Virginia ever since.

I started my yoga teaching career at the Old Town Athletic Club from 1999-2000, then opened my own small studio, the New Life Yoga Center,  in June of 2000.  I expanded to a larger space in the Oak Springs Plaza, next to Domino’s Pizza,  where I taught from 2001-2006.  Due to ever-rising overhead costs, I closed the studio at the end of 2006 and have been teaching classes through Fauquier Hospital’s LIFE Center wellness program ever since.

I have honed my teaching skills and understanding of yoga by attending trainings and workshops led by nationally recognized teachers in the Iyengar and Anusara styles of yoga, including:  John Shumacher (owner of the Unity Woods Studio in Bethesda, Maryland);  John Friend; Erich Schiffmann;  J. J. Gormley (former owner of the Sun and Moon Studios in Fairfax and Arlington, Virginia); Barbara Benagh, Roger Cole and Sandra Pleasants of Blue Ridge Yoga in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I have experienced  “yoga nazi” teachers who pulled, pushed, pried, tugged, berated and taunted me and other students in misguided attempts to force us into poses our bodies just weren’t ready for.

And I have experienced the opposite as well –  instruction so vague that I would have done better on my own, in the privacy of my own home.

From these experiences, my teaching style has evolved into one that is pragmatic and realistic, not dogmatic.  I eat meat, indulge in sweets, and don’t look anything like those trim, svelte, stylishly attired yoginis you see on the cover of Yoga Journal.  I am a 53-year-old woman who misses the body she had when she was 20 and 30 and 40 years old.  I don’t take yoga too seriously and I enjoy a good laugh in class.   I attract students who, like me, are doing their best to find a balanced way to live a good life and practice healthy habits while living an American life in the 21st century.

I love yoga because I feel better when I do it, and I miss it when I don’t.  Yoga helps me be a kinder, calmer, better person.  My students feel the same way.   I feel blessed to have a stable clientele that have been coming to my classes for years, and a steady flow of new clients coming through the LIFE Center.  It is a joy to be able to contribute in my own way to others’ well being and happiness.  And isn’t that what life is all about?