Stand up paddle board yoga.
The late Jacques Yves Cousteau once said: “Sometimes we are lucky enough to know that our lives have been changed, to discard the old, embrace the new, and run headlong down an immutable course.”
Yoga saved my life, but stand up paddle board yoga made me a better advocate, teacher and person.
I found yoga one day by accident and my life changed forever. When I look back seven years, the life I was leading was not gratifying. I was unhealthy, overweight, making the wrong choices and as a result resorted to blood pressure, cholesterol and many other medications. I was not even thirty years old at the time. I graduated law school,passed the bar exam and started my own legal practice, but something was missing.
An indispensable legal intern in 2009 got me to run a half marathon as a dare. I trained for the race and completed it. I took up running, lost over 70 pounds, gradually stopped taking medications and things slowly started falling into place. I still felt unaccomplished and unhappy, something was still missing.
One day I stepped into my local yoga studio by accident and found the missing link. After a rigorous yoga class one winter day, while in Savasana, I connected with my grandmother in the other realm. I don’t remember exactly what she told me, but that was my affirmation to complete a 200 hour teacher training and share my passion. I found myself through yoga, and I finally found satisfaction in my life. My calling became to share this experience, which is why I teach yoga almost daily.
People become amazed when I tell them that I teach yoga, but seem perplexed when they hear that I teach yoga on stand-up paddle-boards. That’s just it! confusing, exciting and amazing at the same time.
Teaching SUP yoga requires not only the projection of your voice, but the visualization of the poses you are teaching while navigating around your students. The serenity of being on the water, in nature, and teaching what I love gave me confidence not only as a yoga teacher, but as an advocate and attorney.
Recently I was defense counsel at a very complex criminal trial. As I asked questions of witnesses, I pictured myself on a board, navigating very choppy waters. Projecting my voice in a strong but kind way. I did my job practicing kindness and compassion rather that anger and frustration.
Being a trial attorney is difficult, but being a yoga teacher who happens to be a trial attorney is simply my calling.
Jacques Cousteau ran headlong down an immutable course in the ocean, his inspiring calling. My immutable course is not only to find beauty where it sometimes cannot exist, but to promote kindness, health and compassion.