What first brought you to yoga?
I first found yoga as a young woman fresh to New York City. The Jivamukti yoga center was the calm at the center of a storm of auditions, rejections, financial struggles, hopes, fears, and all that went with making it in the competitive professional dance scene as I stretched my wings. In addition to grounding me and providing a home, it also was my first practice in the lesson that home is inside of you no matter where you are and what swirls around.

What do you love most about yoga?
What I most love about teaching yoga is seeing people’s faces after class. It is so different then when they walked into the studio. The transformation is literally written on smoother brows, brighter eyes, and a more open face. There is something intimate and delightful about sharing this transformation.

What is your favorite pose and why?
It is tree, for a while it was Trikonasana but for most of my life it has been tree! Why? The simplicity, the presence, the swaying of an entire room of trees, the gentle commitment it takes…you grip and grasp too hard and it is gone. If you don’t commit enough, it is gone… you align and keep aligning and there it is–rooting and growing.

What do you do to stay inspired or motivated in your own practice?
I approach yoga from other limbs (mindfulness practices and Buddhism), read spiritual texts, learn from great teachers, cultivate and guard the space and time I have in my life to practice, and share with others–also doing yoga outside inspires me.

Namasté
~Julianne