How I Went From the Track to the Mat

Becoming a yoga teacher was never part of my plan. When I was nineteen, running was all I was. I ran distance at UCLA. I was the girl out on 6 a.m. loops around Drake Stadium, racking up miles on Sunset while most of Westwood was still asleep. Then, midway through my sophomore cross-country season, my body made the call for me. A hamstring strain that wouldn't quit turned into a hip problem, and I spent that spring in the bleachers watching my teammates race. Our athletic trainer recommended yoga for mobility. I showed up skeptical and a little resentful, expecting an hour of stretching. Instead I got my first class in years where no one was timing me, and I walked out feeling like I'd finally exhaled.

It began as rehab, but I soon couldn't stop thinking about it. I started slipping into early classes at a tiny studio on Gayley Avenue called Marigold & Moss. It was candlelit and full of plants, and the teacher knew everyone by name and always closed with a short reading from her journal. By senior year I was running again, faster and without pain, but I'd fallen harder for the mat than for the track. The summer after graduation, I did my 200-hour teacher training at Saltwater Sangha in Santa Monica. It was a month of sunrise practices on the sand, anatomy sessions that finally made sense of everything my body had been through, and long conversations about breath, patience, and listening to yourself before you push.

Since then, I've taught at yoga studios, music festivals, and events all over the country. Music festivals and corporate events are my favorite rooms to teach in, and these days I work with a number of private clients too. I'm 24, and I teach the practice I wish someone had shown me sooner. It can be strong and sweaty when you want that, and it can also be soft and restorative, built around caring for the body you live in. Running taught me how to push. Yoga taught me when not to, and that's the lesson I try to bring to every single class.