My background in Ashtanga and Kundalini yogas set the foundation for my practice years ago. When I first began practicing yoga in 1999 with Ashtanga instructor Larry Shultz from It's Yoga of San Francisco, I had no expectations of where the practice would take me.

I continued a regular daily practice and supported it with group classes at various studios including Oakland's Monkey Shala Yoga, Berkeley's 7th Heaven Yoga, Yoga Studio Mill Valley, and Petaluma's BodyWorks Yoga. After a car accident in 2001, I discovered Kundalini and other yogas and began practicing the therapeutic aspects of yoga more and more. Kundalini has helped me to strengthen my nervous system and strengthen my capacity for life and its challenges. The Happy, Healthy, Holy Organization (3HO) has, since then, become a part of my life and practice.

Each summer i journey to Espanola, New Mexico for an annual summer solstice celebration of peace, prayer, yoga, and meditation. May 2002 brought the completion of Integrative Yoga Therapy's certification for yoga instruction with Joseph La Page and soon after, I registered with the Yoga Alliance to teach Hatha Yoga. Since that time, Vipassana and Mahamudra meditation, massage, acupuncture, and bodywork have also brought a significant awareness to my practice.

Now in my sixth year of yoga practice, i can say that the most fundamental lesson i've learned is the one of change and transformation. Someone once said to me "yoga is not what happens on the mat, what happens on the mat is yoga practice." I now understand this. From day-to-day and year-to-year, the river of life sculpts our worldy visions of practice and procedure in many realms.

Practicing yoga helps us to be a hand in that creation. Its discipline develops our own inner principles (ethics, morals, etc.) while its art develops patience, fluidity, and grace. Over the years, my practice has certainly changed a lot. At times it has harnessed the strong yang energy found in Ashtanga yoga. At other times, my practice has surrendered to the softness of the yin energy found in restorative yogas and deep meditation. For me, the cumulative benefits of practicing yoga have included reduced anxiety, increased calmness and clarity of mind, healthier eating and sleeping patterns, a stronger body, and a deeper understanding and appreciation of the self.