This is love: to fly toward a secret sky,
to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.
First, to let go of life.
In the end, to take a step without feet...
-Rumi

 

My sister introduced me to yoga some 25 years ago, sending Richard Hittleman's yoga book from whatever, far-off exotic place she was living, to me at college in eastern South Dakota. I was 18 and very open to anything my free-spirited sister might suggest. I liked the book and from it made my own little yoga practice which I continued with on and off for a long time. I lost the book somewhere along the line and it seemed as though I never even heard the word "yoga" for many years. It was rarely spoken in South Dakota in those days, much less practiced. And if anyone was teaching classes, they certainly weren't advertising.

Summer 1997, I began the process to renew my SD Teacher's Certificate. To my amazement, a yoga course was offered not only for certificate renewal, but also college credit. I realized at my first real yoga class with a real, live teacher, that I'd been doing yoga, my own Hittleman-inspired practice, sort of, all along. (Did I come back to yoga or did yoga come back to me? Or did we finally recognize each other?) In that real yoga class, on the floor of the high school auditorium, I discovered some life-changing things - ujjayi breath... and savasana... and the sticky mat...

Suddenly yoga classes, or things called yoga classes, began to spring up here and there, at health clubs and gyms. When the spa I belonged to jumped on the yoga bandwagon and offered classes, I became a regular and faithful student. I enjoyed attending class with a real, live teacher, but I found that I was enjoying my home practice even more. It took me awhile to figure out why... In December 2000, when my spa yoga teacher told me she was leaving and asked if I'd like to take over for her, a new spark was ignited, though my initial response to her was a definitive "no."

Much meditation and inner listening later, I realized that I truly did want to teach yoga, but in a more yogic environment. On March 1, 2001, I opened a small studio space in my home and started to teach 1 weekly class with 3 students. I took that first step without feet. . .