Welcome

Hi. Welcome. I'm Rebecca and I am so glad that we found each other in this online wonderland. Thanks for being here. I'm leaning into my desire to express myself, so here is a little about me and how pure presence came to be: I have practiced yoga for something like fifteen years. I first heard about it from my grandmother, but it wasn't until my super cool older friend from work took me to a class that I actually found myself on a mat. She and I were similar, both of us working on graduate school applications, and she swore by it. The class was at a Gold's Gym in DC with a hardcore bendy person, and I did not return to the mat for awhile. Then a bartender told me about hot yoga during a particularly brutal east coast winter. I practiced Bikram exclusively for many years, before having the privilege of practicing with some of the greatest teachers in San Francisco. My practice became all about getting back into my body - as someone who spent a great deal of time in her mind. My yoga practice was about grounding into my body through the physical postures.

This all changed in 2018. That year, people started asking me if I was a yoga teacher. I told myself that it was because I was wearing yoga pants, but it eventually dawned on me that I was always in a yoga studio when this question arose. Everyone was wearing yoga pants! I laughed it off, as I was not the typical yogi- I was an athlete, I played all the sports, and I sat at a desk all day - so my bits are tight. I don't have a handstand practice and full splits wasn't a thing for me, even as a young gymnast. So no, I wasn't a yoga teacher. But I was incredibly fortunate to be part of a very special yoga community in San Jose, one that was inclusive and focused on social justice and making yoga accessible for all. A space where my practice didn't have to be anything beyond what it is: a practice. Slowly, over time, I opened up to the idea of deepening my practice through a teacher training. Once I committed to it everything changed. All of a sudden, yoga was EVERYWHERE. I remember a class that I took with a lover at the time. He breathed audibly (read: loudly), pushing himself to his limits in a class taught with weights. It was literally the opposite of what yoga was to me. Yoga, to me, was Ujjayi Pranayama. Pushing yourself yes, but not with weights. Not later holding hands in shavasana. And yet, it was yoga. It was union. We got there in two different ways, practicing the same poses, with two different attitudes. I learned more in that class than I had in the years before it. It reminded me of that first class in a gym, before I had any social conditioning around what yoga was. I'll save for another time the story of leaving my career in law and selling all of my worldly possessions to study with a Himalyan Master in India. Then teaching every day and running a yoga studio in Rishikesh. And then deepening into my practice and committing to my inward journey by self-isolating in India during the 2020 lockdown. All of this led me to the understanding that the magic happens in presence. Those moments when you are 100% where you are; in the moment. I spent years cultivating the ability to bring myself to that place, and helping others get there. Pure presence is a state. A feeling. A felt sense that comes over us. Often, we get there by accident; or with a lot of time, attention, and planning that is rarely accessible in the Western world. What I have learned and what I teach is how to get into a state of presence intentionally. How to reach that state on purpose, through breath, movement and wisdom. My yoga and healing journey has taught me that ultimately, I practice so I can heal. I am the healer, and so are you. What I offer as a guide are tools and support to return you to a state of pure presence, so that whatever needs to be felt, seen, or experienced can arise. So we can feel blissful, connected, elevated, and radically alive.