About Sarah

From a young age I have always been very curious. If I wasn’t outside collecting leaves and playing with worms in my grandparents’ garden I was under the kitchen table listening to the grownups talk. I wanted to figure out how the world worked. It wasn’t much of a surprise that I ended up studying biology at university and in graduate school. Biology is the study of life and pursuing this line of education taught me so much about how to observe, interact, and learn from not only what I was studying but my larger environment and relationships.

One of my hypotheses from a young age was that to have a fulfilling life was to have varied experiences. This meant I needed to be willing to try most things. My parents encouraged dance lessons that gave me body awareness and control. Later on I found Shito Ryu, a style of karate that was much more for me than a movement practice. While learning this style of martial arts, I was introduced to meditation and the idea of flow state. I enjoyed the physical demands of this practice, but the sense of calm that I could access while practicing meditation and kata (a sequence of movements not unlike what we do with yoga asana sequences), was life changing for me. I didn’t always have the most stable upbringing so having this space of calm and safety right inside of me was very powerful. I was able to develop and strengthen my ability to regulate not just my mind and emotions but how they effected my body as well. I practiced Shito Ryu intensely for about four years until I sustained an injury training for my black belt. With my torn ACL I needed to shift the focus of my physical practice to rehab.

This is how I came to the yoga practice. I didn’t know much about yoga but I was told that I could build back my strength and range of motion. I thought of it as exercise, not knowing how much more there was to the practice. With some great teachers I was introduced to the 8 limbs of yoga of which the physical practice is just one. I began to meditate more and to feel the flow state (or absorption, as we call it in yoga) that I felt when practicing Shito Ryu. I had missed this so much! I felt an awakening to who I really am, and an excitement about life possibilities.