Yoga, for me, is everything. By which I mean it is pure bliss, it is heartbreaking, it is confusing and hard, it’s essential and rooting, it’s connection to lineage and ancestors in a way that is blurry and felt, it is energizing and exhausting in all the realms - mind, body, spirit. I come to yoga, and to my teaching, as a South Asian person, as a person of diaspora, more specifically as a Hindu, Mayalee person, as a mixed person, an Eastern European Jewish person. As able-bodied. As queer, genderfluid. As a survivor. My journey with the practices and teachings of yoga is intimately linked with these identities and experiences. I’m so grateful to my guides & teachers, and especially my ammamma, for always celebrating the importance of this path and my exploration.
I approach the practices of yoga with an acknowledgement of their oppressive layers, both those inherent to yoga and the way it has been codified for centuries, and those created through co-optation in service to racial capitalism, genocide, colonialism, and casteism. At the same time, I feel and believe in the liberatory power and potential of yoga. In its capacity to move us deeper towards individual and collective healing, into true interdependence with each other and with the earth. In my personal practice and in my teaching, I strive to center this potential in all its complexities, and to create a trauma-sensitive container that facilitates curiosity, rest, stability, ease, play, connection, and release.
