On the surface I may seem like just another white yoga teacher. But trust me I have done the work.

I don’t just have over 1000 hours of teacher training certificates in my file; I’ve got over 150 months in seven trips in India under my belt (2000-2001, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2010-2016, 2017-2018, 2019-and counting), studying, practicing and living among ascetic yogis and others serious about their sādhana.

Frustrated with the yoga I was seeing in American yoga studios compared to what I experienced among the yogis I met at these melas, I was determined to learn from as close to source as I could.

So I shifted here in 2010, avoiding tourist spots and living mostly in non-english speaking ashrams in small towns and remote rural Himalayan villages. My immersion and study resulted into being now fluent in Hindi, after which I began studying Sanskrit for several years with an 84 year old Sanyasi (whose English is below minimal). I read / write and can even type in Devanagari. I have studied original Sanskrit texts (beyond Patanjali Yog Sastra) with both English and Hindi commentaries by Indian authors. Most of my sadhana was learned via Sanayasi yogis, several vipassana centers and unmarried householder meditation teachers, outside of the teacher training scope (however I have also accumulated over 1000 hours of certificate courses – yet refuse to register for yoga alliance). For the past few years I’ve also been studying with and now assist an ayurvedic doctor with her classes. When I shifted in 2014 to an ashram that catered towards videshi yoga retreats, being bilingual and with my experience, aside from creating the certificate course manuals and tour guiding / translating for our guests, I often got sent to be the one to foreign-explain when one of them did something culturally inappropriate.

Specialties:

• Traditional seven limbed Hatha Yoga system: śatkarma (seasonal and daily cleansing and detoxes), āsana (postures), mudrā (gestures for connecting one’s individual prāṇic flow with the universal or cosmic force), pratyāhār (concentration towards removal of disturbance from sensory input), prāṇāyāma (expansion of the breath and prāṇa / vital energy), meditation (uninterrupted blissful flow of prāṇic energy), and ultimate samādhi (complete balance of the mind in all situations);

• Sūkṣma Vyāyām (subtle pranic exercises);

• Vipassana Meditation (as taught by S.N. Goenka);

• Yogic / Sanātan Dharmic / Buddhist Philosophy;

• Karma Yoga (seva – selfless service towards others, without concern or attachment to the fruits of one’s labor);

• Svadhāya (independent study and introspective study of the self).

If I could offer my best contribution to the evolution of Western society, it would be insights into what has evolved me the most over the years living in the Indian Himalayas:

The techniques I’ve practiced to help me reach contentment, as I work my way towards citta vṛti nirodhaḥ (settling the fluctuation of thoughts in the mind), what has contributed toward Impression Detox: the shedding of my cultural conditioning, the letting go of decades of emotional luggage, the digestion and elimination of many impressions in my mind, the cleansing of (some of) my karmas, as well as (at times) the opening of my cakras.

As a guide along the path of sādhanā, I am looking forward to facilitating the excavation of old emotions and unraveling of the untrue stories we may have repeatedly told ourselves, letting go of false beliefs that have held us back in life, and making way for the light of one’s true self to illuminate their inner guidance system (our inner guru), ie. our intuition.

With me (and my collaborators) as your sādhanā guide, allow us to help you:

• Gain a broader understanding of the ultimate goal of yoga and what it means to spiritualize your life, beyond the mat and yoga studio.
• Design a daily routine that helps one maintain a yogic – stress free – lifestyle, despite their busy career and household duties.
• Understand why it is we have been told throughout our childhood to sit still and learn ways to actually cultivate that ability.
• Develop a heightened sensitivity for and Understand the affects the breath and mind (thought patterns) have on each other and how to control them both.
• Explore the inner workings and various compartmentalized functions of what we call “mind” and become able to distinguish the difference between thinking, concentration and actual meditation.
• Learn techniques to help one cultivate a higher level of mindfulness of thought, speech and action, throughout their everyday.
• Take control of our mind’s remote: learn techniques to calm the mind, lesson the chatter or repeated songs stuck in your head, so that reaching an empty state of meditation becomes a possibility.
• Learn techniques that will enable one to awaken their intuition, become an empty vessel for downloading knowledge from source, and begin to live a life of automatic delivery from the abundant universe.
• Honor the ancient Rishis and Yogis who first navigated this path.