HI, IT'S NICE TO MEET YOU.
My name is Michael. (Yes, that's the common spelling of the typically masculine name pronounced the usual way..., though I am a woman.) I have my 500-hour certification, which I completed with my two primary teachers, Stephanie Snyder (200-hour Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training) and Jason Crandell (300-hour Power + Precision + Mindfulness Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training).
I tailor my teaching of asana and yogic philosophy to the specific needs and desires of my students, whether that entails introducing beginners to the basics of yoga or guiding experienced practitioners as they deepen their practices.
I have practiced yoga — in various forms and many places — for more than fifteen years. I am thrilled to be of service to individuals, private groups, and workplace communities looking to infuse yoga into their daily routines.
I tailor my teaching of asana and yogic philosophy to the specific needs and desires of my students, whether that entails introducing beginners to the basics of yoga or guiding experienced practitioners as they deepen their practices.
I have practiced yoga — in various forms and many places — for more than fifteen years. I am thrilled to be of service to individuals, private groups, and workplace communities looking to infuse yoga into their daily routines.
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A bit more about me....
In September 2012, I completed my PhD in Comparative Literature at Stanford University. The day after I filed my dissertation on 20th-century French and American novels, I began my teacher Stephanie Snyder's 200-hour Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training. It was a step that I had long anticipated taking, and the timing could not have been better. Then, over the course of three months in 2015, I completed Jason Crandell's 300-hour Power + Precision + Mindfulness Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training to receive my RYT 500 Certification.
I have taught yoga in a variety of settings — from small group classes and private sessions in San Francisco, to classes for high school students on a summer study-abroad program that traveled between the UK, Paris, and Tuscany. Having developed my teaching persona and philosophy in mostly academic contexts over the years, I have been grateful for the opportunity to bring my pedagogical training and experience to the teaching of yoga.
I have cultivated my own asana and meditation practice for many years. I came to yoga through dance, which I became enamored of at an early age and studied formally into my college years. In college, I co-founded a meditation group that both fostered a committed sangha and welcomed anyone interested in exploring breath-based meditation for the first time. Other activities that I enjoy — and which energize and inform my yoga practice — include road-biking, running, mountain-wandering, snowboarding, rock-climbing, and adventuring. I also thrive when relaxing with family and friends, or traveling abroad to live in unfamiliar languages and learn my way around new cultures.
I find that yoga encompasses, honors, and reflects the spectrum of qualities that draw me to the other activities and aspects of life that I most appreciate: in addition to being wonderfully kinetic, physically challenging, and emotionally grounding, yoga also distills, in its foundational principles, the varieties of wisdom, creativity, and beauty that have inspired me on my academic path, motivating my research in modern and contemporary literatures in English, French, and Spanish. My personal practice centers on yoga's power to unite physical movement and emotional expression with philosophical thought, loving language, and constructive introspection.
In creating practices for others, I bring together yoga's physical and philosophical components in proportions appropriate to each student's experience with yoga and his or her aspirations for the practice. I strive to help students unlock the particular meanings that yoga might have for them, even as I continue to uncover new ways in which this ancient practice equips each of us with tools to interrogate who — and why — we are.
I have taught yoga in a variety of settings — from small group classes and private sessions in San Francisco, to classes for high school students on a summer study-abroad program that traveled between the UK, Paris, and Tuscany. Having developed my teaching persona and philosophy in mostly academic contexts over the years, I have been grateful for the opportunity to bring my pedagogical training and experience to the teaching of yoga.
I have cultivated my own asana and meditation practice for many years. I came to yoga through dance, which I became enamored of at an early age and studied formally into my college years. In college, I co-founded a meditation group that both fostered a committed sangha and welcomed anyone interested in exploring breath-based meditation for the first time. Other activities that I enjoy — and which energize and inform my yoga practice — include road-biking, running, mountain-wandering, snowboarding, rock-climbing, and adventuring. I also thrive when relaxing with family and friends, or traveling abroad to live in unfamiliar languages and learn my way around new cultures.
I find that yoga encompasses, honors, and reflects the spectrum of qualities that draw me to the other activities and aspects of life that I most appreciate: in addition to being wonderfully kinetic, physically challenging, and emotionally grounding, yoga also distills, in its foundational principles, the varieties of wisdom, creativity, and beauty that have inspired me on my academic path, motivating my research in modern and contemporary literatures in English, French, and Spanish. My personal practice centers on yoga's power to unite physical movement and emotional expression with philosophical thought, loving language, and constructive introspection.
In creating practices for others, I bring together yoga's physical and philosophical components in proportions appropriate to each student's experience with yoga and his or her aspirations for the practice. I strive to help students unlock the particular meanings that yoga might have for them, even as I continue to uncover new ways in which this ancient practice equips each of us with tools to interrogate who — and why — we are.