About
Hi, I’m Christy.
I am a health and wellness coach and a yoga/movement teacher. I work with lovely women who have lots of responsibilities with their families and careers. They often push their own needs to the side as they care for their loved ones. They work important jobs and are involved in their communities. They are physically active and some extremely active, but struggle to find an efficient way to take care of their bodies in a softer way.
Many women I work with didn’t understand at first how a less forceful, more inquisitive approach to their movement could leave them feeling so energetic and strong. Often, they are disconnected from the softer, playful parts of themselves, and may not realize the toll it is taking on their health.
They, like you, have tried many different fitness/yoga options that often leave them feeling like they have another chore to do. Or, it doesn’t genuinely reach them or truly match their needs. In the end, they are left feeling disconnected or bored by whatever regimen they were following.
I know you want to maintain a sense of adventure and continue to pursue purpose in your life. You’d like to be the best you can be, both for yourself and for your family and loved ones.
I understand what it is like to feel like you’re slipping in the aging process. I understand the huge changes we go through during the transitions of life and the inevitable ups and downs. After a childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood of striving, following all the rules, meeting all the expectations, and pushing hard in a high-powered career as an investment banker, I uncovered the gentle practice of yoga. It was the opposite of all I thought I was “supposed” to do to move forward in life. It encouraged me to slow down. And by evolving my practice and my relationship with yoga, I improved my relationship with myself and my body. I learned how to truly give myself what I needed and meet my own expectations without external validation or pat on the back.
I can help you value and maintain a connection to yourself, ignite a fascination for what you are able to do, and fuel a dedication to improve yourself every day. If you want to make a meaningful contribution to your family and community, you may already know that valuing yourself comes first. I can show you how to appreciate and develop your body for the better every day. In the meantime, you will make many gains to your health and physical well being.
Curious?
Working with me, women like you have:
- * Developed a great relationship with their body
- * Improved their outlook on life and what is possible for them
- * Grown taller and acquired better postural awareness
- * Are able to participate more fully in activities they love
- * Reduced nagging aches like sciatica, back pain, neck stiffness, etc.
- * Uncovered physical freedoms like the ability to turn their heads with ease
- * Experienced child-like joy
- * Developed core strength that sustains their balance
- * Become more graceful in their movement
- * Felt a strong sense of community
- * Felt cared for by someone who wants the best for them
Here’s how it works:
I get to know you. There is an intimate, personal aspect to our work that is simply not present at other virtual movement studios. I want to know more about you, your goals, your dreams, your body stories, and medical conditions.
We gather in monthly coaching conversations to talk about meaningful change you will experience and how you are actualizing your vision.
We gather in twice-weekly 75 minute classes where you will love to feel your body and what it can do. Every single class will bring out the very best in you, as every class is uniquely and intelligently sequenced. You may be surprised to learn that getting stronger and more balanced can be a light and fun internally focussed adventure.
We gather for a monthly class with a special theme, such as
- Yoga on a Chair
- Restoring Poses to Boost Immunity
- Dance Party
- Unwreck your Neck
- Mindful Strength - Work with Weights
- Have a Ball (Hand-Eye Coordination with Juggling Balls)
- Get Loose and Get Ready with Martial Arts Warm-Ups
- Exercises to Improve your Walking and Running Technique
- Inversions: Getting the Head Below the Heart for Profound Calm
- Partner Yoga
You have access to me as your guide and your coach. You will learn how to work with various props to stimulate more engagement and increase body awareness. You will move with me to feel grounded, engaged, and even joyful. Expect to develop greater strength, flexibility, and balance. You will experience mobility in your body that has laid dormant for years. You will experience deep calm and learn how important it is to take care of your nervous system. You will feel better in your own skin! You may even develop six-pack abs-- we seriously get stronger. You will acquire more agility and challenge your brain, too.
This list of props I work with can be found in the Resources tab.
A bit more about me:
I am a wellness coach and a yoga/movement teacher dedicated to helping women who feel they’re missing a meaningful connection with their bodies find a new, empowered relationship with themselves. I help women become more graceful, stronger, agile, and vibrant at every age.
Because I come from a high-achieving family, I grew up pushing myself in every way I could. Academics were important to me so I soared through school and graduate business school and landed in a high-powered career. I took up all kinds of other activities too. I was striving to do the right things and following the path before me. Though I was married to the “right husband” and set up well early in life, I was unfulfilled and aware of a hollowness inside. I found this deeply confusing.
Triathlon training helped me channel my energy, but I sought more to help soothe my nerves. I discovered yoga, by videotape no less, and felt immediate results. Finally, I knew how to access deep calm within myself. I kept pursuing my practice, while simultaneously working in the business world and found a teacher when I moved from New York to Virginia. He validated my teaching potential and I delved fully into it, with his support.
After a few years of practice, I was teaching in a country club. After my students had left class, I stared at the bouncy diving board which I could see through the window and fixated on the possibility before me. As a child, I had desperately wanted to be able to do a jackknife dive and longed for the secret of how to do it. I wished for a coach or a teacher when I was growing up, but I didn’t have one. I would always succumb to feelings of self-doubt and unworthiness and that inner longing for someone to believe in me.
With all the recent training I had been doing with yoga and martial arts, I had integrated better coordination of my mind and body. Maybe I could do it. Instead of swimming laps after teaching yoga, I climbed the ladder of the diving board and practiced the one-step, two-step, and three jump, bouncing into the air. I walked back to the beginning of the board. Young divers awaited my move. The warm morning air soothed my skin.
At that moment, I did what I could not do in my youth. I proceeded with doing a perfect jackknife dive. Even the children thought so. It was so exhilarating that I joyfully repeated it many times more. It was a huge accomplishment of self-validation. No one I knew was around.
I then began diving headlong into yoga as much as was humanly possible. I got divorced, moved to the Bay Area for advanced yoga training, and became a yoga “groupie”, supporting my next teacher in his “rock star” classes around the United States. In these years, I devoted myself fully to practice and teaching. Still, I was haunted and insatiated, often depressed.
Over time and through support of my Christian Bible study group, I developed a sustainable and fulfilling relationship with movement, my body, and yoga. I was blessed with a new husband and two daughters. I began surfing and running and all kinds of adventures, with yoga as my stable practice.
For the past 15 years, I have been in a loving relationship with my husband and also with myself. I never say no to adventures like climbing the Grand Teton, taking up mountain biking, and surfing around the world. Yet I also am loyal to my practice of “working in” with yoga. I have discovered how to take care of myself and how yoga can support me.
I have created a gentle, soft-landing-place for high-achieving women who want to reconnect with their bodies, embrace functional movement and exercise, and find community with other like-minded people.