Yoga changed EVERYTHING. I was looking for answers through thinking my way through every challenge. Yoga connected me to my body, spirit, and beyond, and has supplied frameworks for understanding life that don’t involve just the intellect. I think I’m much more aware now, and more integrated with all aspects of myself.
Describe your personality in three words.
Intense, Warm, Grounding
Where are you from and/or where do you live?
I’m “from” Madison, Wisconsin, but New York City really raised me. This is where I live.
How long have you been practicing yoga and why did you start practicing yoga?
I’ve been practicing yoga for 16 years. I began because I was looking for solutions for my adult-onset migraine headaches.
What is yoga to you?
Yoga is an opportunity and a way to get to know ourselves. Once we know ourselves better, then we begin to have a different relationship with the people and the world around us.
How did you feel after your first yoga class and how do you want students to feel after they practice with you?
I felt connected to my Self–her pain, and hopefulness–in ways I didn’t know were possible. I want my students to feel safe in themselves, and at home in their bodies. When people feel safe in their bodies, they have a high chance of showing up fully and authentically as themselves.
What impact has yoga had on your life? Who were you before you started practicing and how have you changed, evolved and transformed?
Yoga changed EVERYTHING. I was looking for answers through thinking my way through every challenge. Yoga connected me to my body, spirit, and beyond, and has supplied frameworks for understanding life that don’t involve just the intellect. I think I’m much more aware now, and more integrated with all aspects of myself.
Why did you decide to start teaching yoga and what makes a good yoga teacher?
I decided to teach because, honestly, I didn’t have a better plan! What makes me a good teacher is my capacity to quickly assess people’s physical abilities and to work with them where they are at. Whether in a class, or 1-2-1, I’m swift in this regard, and as a result my students feel seen and are able to grow in ways that might not otherwise be available to them.
What style of yoga do you practice and what makes that style most effective? Do you have a teacher in your style of yoga?
I’m a Forrest Yoga Guardian (lineage-holder), and I teach this practice as well as a hybrid Forrest/Vinyasa blend. I find Forrest Yoga to be a very effective style for beginners, injured people, as well as advanced practitioners. It’s effective because it teaches people to feel the truth of their bodies, as they are now, and the postures are emergent from that reality. Ana Forrest is my teacher.
What has been your biggest struggle and your biggest milestone in the practice?
Like any relationship, my relationship with yoga has its ebbs and flows. After so many years, sometimes we think it’s “over.” The biggest struggle has been to “stay in it.” Meaning, stay in the relationship. To keep the faith. To look for new depths. To ride out the periods of dissatisfaction and communicate in good faith. To return again and again. My biggest milestone has been healing my back from an injury I sustained in high school: spondylosis and spondylolisthesis. Without my yoga practice, I’m certain this injury would have gone from bad to worse. With my yoga practice, and over more than a decade of work, it’s gone from bad to stable.
What is yoga favorite yoga pose and why? And what’s your least favorite yoga pose and why?
My favorite pose is the pose I’m in at the moment. My least favorite pose is the pose I’m in at the moment that offers me great resistance.
What has been the most inspirational moment you’ve experienced as a yoga student?
Honestly, almost every moment with my teacher, Ana Forrest, is an inspirational one!
And how about as a teacher?
I think seeing my students become great teachers in their own right is an inspirational moment that happens again, and again.
Practice with Erica Mather on Omstars
Why do you practice? Why do you teach?
I practice to keep my finger on the pulse of the evolving being that is me. Yoga encompasses the WHOLE human, including the body, and for me is an effective discipline for staying in touch with myself. I teach because I LOVE to teach. It is my original skill, the one I was set on this planet to use.
What’s your favorite yoga quote or mantra?
The success of yoga does not lie in the ability to perform postures but in how it positively changes the way we live our life and our relationships. ~T.V.K.Desikachar
What is the single most defining issue facing the global yoga community today?
I don’t know! I’m not sure what’s happening in Africa, or South Asia! I feel like I can only speak to what’s occurring in North America…
What’s the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you as a student and as a teacher?
Clothing malfunctions always rank high…
Do you have any recommended yoga reading?
I think everyone ought to read The Heart of Yoga by T.K.V.Desikachar. I also recommend my teacher’s book, Fierce Medicine, by Ana Forrest.
What is your dharma, your life mission?
To help people feel good in, and about their bodies. When people have compassion for their own tender, animal selves, it has a ripple effect into the world, increasing compassion exponentially. It touches the people around us, the four-legged ones, the winged ones, the finned ones, the trees and EVERYTHING. I think it is very hard to find compassion in our lives when we are cruel or violent to our own physical manifestations. I have written a book on this subject, specifically to help women improve their relationships with their bodies. It will be published April 2020!
What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out on their yoga journey?
Cultivate curiosity. It is the single most powerful tool you can take with you into any interaction, with yourself, and with other people.
Are there any current projects you’re working on that you can tell us about?
YES! My book! Coming soon! It’s the culmination of so much of what I’m talking about here. The title is F*ck Your Beauty Standards: Stop Wasting Time Hating Your Body and Start Living Your Life. It will be published in April 2020 (New Harbinger).
Aside from your fantastic course on Omstars, do you have a favorite class that you’d like to share?
I recommend also checking out Dianne Bondy’s work. She is forging ahead tirelessly, working to make yoga accessible to all people.
