The Team

Growing up as a home-school kid in rural Washington state, I spent most of my time outside. Climbing effortlessly and breathing the smell of moss and pine, I freely gave my exhale back to the woods as I sat in the rhythmic drip that slipped through the cracks of my evergreen tent. Watching craggy undergrowth form ribbons of shivering lavender/gray on lowland swamp at twilight, I felt the reverberation of divine connection ripple through me. I knew that it was through sensing my physical body on the earth, not by understanding my thinking mind, that I encountered divinity. In 2013, driven by a lifelong love of movement, nature, and the profoundly healing experiences I found through Yoga as an adult, I pursued 200 hour and then 500 hour teacher trainings. When the pandemic dropped, I had been teaching for 7 years and was on the schedule at two studios on Portland’s east side for a total of 11 classes per week. I loved my students, but was finding that while I taught what I considered to be supportive styles (Gentle, Restorative, Yin, alignment based Hatha, etc.), my joints were not feeling good, nor were the muscles surrounding and supporting my spine and pelvis. I was realizing that my practice would need to shift if I was going to continue teaching in a pain-free body. I had taken a couple of classes from Annie Adamson in the past, and her unique functional movement method, Primal Vinyasa, had been calling to me, so I decided to take the gift of lockdown as an opportunity to dive in, and I have not looked back. While I still enjoy many styles of Yoga, Primal Vinyasa embodies the tenets that have most profoundly improved my musculoskeletal and overall health. Through this method, we recognize the body as an intelligent and synchronized system rather than a
collection of pieces and parts stuck together on a skeleton like Leggos. We are whole, integrated organisms, unbroken (no matter how fractured we feel), and primed for healing at any age through diverse, whole-body movement and connection with the earth. By re-patterning our movement habits and becoming aware of ourselves as inseparable from the natural world, we reclaim our birthright as free and natural movers. I currently have the honor of being mentored by Annie, and am enrolled in her Primal Medicine Mastery program. I am also honored and excited to find myself here at Upstairs Yoga, to share in a supportive Yoga community for the first time since moving to the west side!