Who I AM
I was born and raised in Massachusetts. As a kid, I used to spend all of my time outside. I feel most at home on a mountain, either skiing down in fresh snow or hiking up on a warm, quiet day. I'm a fiercely curious person who is always open to new experiences--in particular what I can learn from them. I am inquisitive, analytical, and realistic; I value freedom, exploration, and continuous growth. I strive to be accepting and open-minded to all people and ideas while remaining firmly rooted in reality.
Some of my earliest memories involve playing with a massive collection of Legos. I've always been fascinated with exploring how things work by deconstructing, rearranging, and recombining pieces. Growing up, this exploration morphed into a love of computer science and mathematics, which I studied during high school and college. From my studies (and from Legos) I learned how great complexity arises out of elegant simplicity. In that spirit, my journey in life has been a search for truth in simplicity--to understand the elegant core concepts that explain the human condition and govern our experience of the world. This eventually led me to yoga, where I'm exploring how the simplest ideas--ones that each of us carries deep within--can have the most profound impact on our lives and our societies.
Why I Practice
I took my first yoga class in college as a joke with friends. I'd heard a lot about it and wanted to see what all the hype was about. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it. It was challenging and completely engaging; it required balance, strength, resilience, and focus. Most importantly, I felt fantastic walking out of every class regardless of how I felt walking in. It didn't matter if I fell or if I 'failed' during class, there was always excitement in playfully exploring my potential. When the semester ended, I forgot about yoga for almost five years.
After graduating college, I moved to New York City to work as a software developer at an investment bank. As I struggled to adjust to the city and my job, I rediscovered yoga and soon began practicing daily. With regular practice, I learned more about myself than I ever thought possible from a (seemingly) physical activity. Over time, yoga helped me rediscover who I am and redefine the parameters of my life. I was able to find my place in the city and (more importantly) a comfortable place within myself. The practice is always changing and always challenging; it never fails to deliver insight and stimulate personal growth. It pushes me to constantly re-evaluate my assumptions, shift my perspective, and test my 'limits' while maintaining equanimity, clarity, and focus throughout the process.
Why I Teach
Yoga is a personal practice to which each individual brings his or her unique experiences, goals, and obstacles. It means something different to everyone, and there is no single 'correct' interpretation. While it is important to me that yoga practice has roots in an authentic historical lineage, it is not my mission to preach a single system or a particular worldview. Rather, I encourage my students to practice yoga in order to discover their own path to personal liberation.
Yoga gives each of us a framework to explore and understand ourselves--which I've found translates directly to deeper understanding of others and the world around us. When we are able to see ourselves clearly, then we begin to understand our habitual patterns and reactions. Once we truly understand ourselves, we start to see pieces of ourselves in others--leading to deeper understanding of the people in our lives. With all of this understanding comes clarity about who we are, where we fit in our lives and our relationships, and how we experience the world around us. But don't overthink it too much...it all starts simply with breath, movement, intention, and awareness.