My Journey to Yoga

Hey all! Welcome back to the blog ✌️ Many of you have asked me over the last several months about my journey to yoga. Many of you assumed that I grew up in a household of devoted yogis and meditators and while that thought is lovely that’s not exactly true. I have however been taking yoga classes on and off since I was 12! So that’s..about 18 years now (holy cannoli!).

Many of you already know this, but for those that don’t, I used to be a professional dancer! I explored many styles of dance but found myself always looking forward to ballet classes. I started taking it more seriously when I was around 11 or 12 and began training in the prepatory program at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. This was a program for dancers interested in auditioning for the school with hopes of being accepted. I trained with them for a little under a year, had private lessons with the director, and auditioned. The Alabama School of Fine Arts had 6 programs (dance, visual arts, theatre arts, music, creative writing, and math/science). The year I auditioned, the school only had 6 spots available across all 6 programs combined. (Imagine the pressure!!) And imagine the joy in finding out that I was one of six students accepted into the school 😊

The summer before I started, I attended a 6-week dance intensive with American Ballet Theater. It was that summer that I took my first yoga class. Now, it’s important to note, that I hated that first yoga class 😂

Ode to the dance days ♥️

After 8 hours of dancing every single day, the last thing my little 12 year body wanted was a vinyasa yoga class. However, I can remember feeling this state of euphoria every time savasana came around. This perfect moment of silence in a dark room (lights were turned off). And for the first time all day, I had permission to fill my belly up with breath. (ballet dancers breath ‘upwards’ into the chest, instead of ‘outwards’ into the belly/diaphragm)

There were moments when it almost felt like an out of body experience. Like I was watching myself breathe and at the same time it felt as if I was submerged in water. I felt free. But my 12 year old mind didn’t have a connection to my internal wisdom yet to know that that was what I was feeling.

So for 6 weeks, three times a week, I would somber to my yoga class,(hating the vinyasa flow) and looking forward to that final resting pose.

Once the school year started, I attended the Alabama School of Fine Arts (and lived in the dorms) every year until I graduated in 2014. Yoga was still apart of our curriculum in the dance department. (We had all of our academic classes before lunch and then after lunch we had dance curriculum until about 7pm)

At 18, I still didn’t care much for a vinyasa flow class (haha) but I had grown to love the deep stretch aspect of the practice and had even learned a thing or two about meditation. The art of simply sitting still with eyes closed, and observing the breath. Yoga really does compliment the dance world.

A month after I graduated, I moved to California and started college at the American Musical Dramatic Academy of Performing Arts (AMDA College & Conservatory). I completed a 4 year bachelor of fine arts program in 2 1/2 years. (Looking back, it seems like I’ve had both feet on the gas pedal since I was 12 years old 😂 )

At college, yoga was offered in the mornings and evenings. There I discovered other forms of the practice like restorative yoga and yin yoga. I began to appreciate the practice a bit more and even began to (slowly) like vinyasa yoga more and more. (Maybe I was just against chaturangas, I don’t know why I was beefing so hard with vinyasa 😂)

I graduated college and went on to dance for music videos, theater productions, and dance companies. I even choreographed my own productions for Highways Performance Space, NACHMO Film Festival, Hollywood Fringe Festival, Peter Strauss Ranch in Malibu, and much more.

One day, I randomly started a google search for yoga studios near me. To this day, I still don’t really know why I did it. But I remember I had contemplated it for about a week and finally decided to search. Something within me just kept nudging me to do it. (Intuition). It’s important to note that at this point - I would dance professionally for about three more years before that intuition was strong enough for me to realize it was time to switch gears.

I found a studio in West Hollywood, CA called YogaVibe WeHo(they also have a location in Los Feliz and the valley). I was hired as a work trade yogi. I worked a desk shift in exchange for a free yoga membership and continued dancing with my company and freelance dance gigs.

I remember taking a beginner yoga class as my first yoga class back and for 60 minutes the teacher was just nagging on me! Everything I did was wrong. I leaned WAY to much into my flexibility so my alignment was all off. I just remember hearing ‘no, no, no, NO’ over and over and over again. However, it didn’t scare me off. Instead, I felt an insane amount of curiosity. All my life, the only movement I’ve known were ballet. Ballet alignment made sense to me. Stretchy hip flexors, extreme external rotation, insane lumbar spine flexibility, double jointed shoulders…..that’s all I’ve ever known! And Yoga required none of that.

My intense dance background fueled me with motivation to never back down from a challenge. It taught me to fall down 9 times and get back up 10 times. It also fueled my ego into always needing to be perfect. (yikes) Which meant I kept going back to that beginner yoga class and discovering more about proper alignment. I wanted to master these poses.

After a few months, I became more courageous and took a level two vinyasa class with who I talk about now as ‘my teacher’. Benjamin Gettinger. The class was intense. I could only do about 70% of the poses. What I liked about his teaching style though was that he offered hands on adjustments. Which actually allowed my to use my flexibility while finding better alignment for my joints. Instead of feeling like I was doing everything wrong Ben would say stuff like “wow you’re really flexible and that’s awesome but let’s see if you can try it this way too”. So there was always an option of doing something a different way. His class also introduced me to breathwork like breath of fire, chanting, and zen meditation. He also challenged me to trust my body. Letting me realize that my body was not my enemy. And that muscular strength was something to celebrate. So I felt brave to try arm balancing and inversions for the first time.

For two years, I exclusively took Ben’s yoga classes. I followed him around to all of the studios he taught at. He even hosted donation based 3 hour classes at his house on the weekends where we dove deeper into yoga, chanting, meditation, and breathwork. I attended all of his retreats in the mojave desert. I was hooked. And I even fell in love with vinyasa yoga because I found Ashtanga Yoga. A practice full of discipline and discernment which allowed me to view my practice as a mirror into my daily actions and reactions. (I also wanted to be able to do all the cool stuff 😉 ) I could feel my body gain strength. My muscles shifted. And suddenly, I had never felt stronger in my life. Not just in my body. But in my mind as well. Those intrusive thoughts began to not feel so intrusive. Somewhere along the way, I decided to take a 200hr yoga teacher training. I did NOT want to be a teacher. Ben’s classes opened my perspective to what yoga actually is and through him I learned that these practices have been passed down for more than 5,000 years. I learned that it was all a practice of liberation. A life-style choice. Liberating the mind, the body, the spirit.

Here we are at one of Ben’s retreats in the Mojave Desert. Sunrise OM Meditation.

Ben, actually encouraged me to teach. Perhaps he saw something within me that I couldn’t see yet for myself.

Shortly after, my YTT, I learned that Ben was moving away from California. I was devastated. I thought that meant that I was also going to have to give up my practice. But it pushed me to explore these practices on my own. My dance background gave me the discipline to continue practicing yoga with breathwork, chanting, and meditation. I never did find another teacher that resonated as deeply as Ben did. However, I did continue to practice and grow with Ben virtually. I still, to this day, take classes on zoom with him and he did my Reiki levels 1-3 certifications. We still keep in touch and I will always hold such gratitude for his presence in my life when I needed it most.

I am the teacher that I am, because of the teacher I had.

I’ve since gone on and completed more certifications. 100 hours of meditation, 20 hours of trauma-informed practices. And Reiki Healing and soundbath facilitation.

I would say that my classes are rooted in trauma-conscious yoga and mindfulness-based neuroplasticity techniques to help my students feel empowered to rewire patterns of stress and reconnect with their innate capacity for calm and clarity. When your body is aligned, the heart and mind gain clarity, and from that clarity arises spiritual strength and expansion. Through this expansion, liberation, and deep presence, you will find a deeper union with yourself, with others, and with the world 🙏

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu ❤️

-Chas