Welcome to the website & blog of a Detroit-bred, California-seasoned yogini trying her best to squeeze the juiciness out of life. I hope to inspire people to connect to the pulse of life and practices that help create balance of mind, body, and soul. Your yoga practice might be bicycles, rock ‘n roll, art, food, babies, knitting, or bowling like the dude. For me, it is keeping a balance between my inner yogi, techie, teacher, math nerd, and karaoke loving roxtar. I am currently chief of inspiration at Smiling Dog Yoga and also offer Consulting Services to clients of MINDBODY. It is my personal mission in life to get people to practice yoga and to love spreadsheets. Other interests? I love riding my bike instead of driving a car, queso dip, wine, friends, efficient compromises. Thank you for honoring my little website, my forum for sharing thoughts on yoga and life and everything in between.
My Yoga Inspiration Statement
I practice yoga because it hurts so good. It makes me feel at home in my own skin. It helps me stay in the now moment. It is one of the few practices in life where I can turn off my overactive mind, stop living in the past or future, stop thinking about coulda shoulda woulda. Yoga has made me stronger than I knew I could be and at the same time has made me softer, more accepting, and nicer to myself, my family, and everyone around me. It has taught me how to find more joy in my life no matter what my external circumstances seem to be. It makes me want to be a better version of myself. It makes me smile. It holds me when I need to shed a tear. It welcomes me back, no matter how long I’ve been away from it. It makes me love better. It is teaching me how to be more authentic and honest in my life. It has helped me realize that I am truly blessed. It has shown me the difference between conversing and authentic listening. It has given me the opportunity to gaze into the eyes of one hundred complete strangers and feel complete compassion and love for them that I didn’t know was possible.
Bio of a Roxtar
Originally from Downriver Detroit, Michigan, I (Roxtar) have been practicing yoga of various styles and frequencies since 2001. It has been a slow, yet steady love affair, starting with beginner’s classes once a week until I migrated to California in 2004 and discovered Bikram’s Yoga. The repetition of the sequence and low cost helped me realize that maybe this was more than a short term love affair, maybe yoga was more than a phase or a trend for me. It changed my body, my relationships, my mind, and I found that my favorite place was at the yoga studio, whether I was sick, tired, broken-hearted, struggling with grad school, or struggling with life in general. I eventually ended up in my first teacher training in 2007 where I studied Iyengar and Purna Yoga with Camille Thom in Boise, Idaho. I have also practiced Power Vinyasa Yoga with Baron Baptiste and Prana Flow Yoga with Shiva Rea. I enjoy fusing together the many styles I get inspired by for an all encompassing class that challenges your body, teaches you to breathe and slow down, moves your stuck emotional energy, clears your mind, and inspires you to seek and live in truth, all while jamming to some rocking tunes. I believe that yoga is one of the answers to good mental and physical health, whether you practice it once in a while, once a week, or once a day (of course, the more the better). It has complemented everything else I do in my life, physically and mentally, and I believe it can do this for anyone. I teach Vinyasa Yoga at Smiling Dog, and some free yoga classes to my fellow desk jockeys at MINDBODY, Inc.
