“Transforming suffering is more about changing our relationship to our experience than trying to float above it. Real transformative practice is embodied and simple practice. It lets us touch deeply the heart of our lives just as they are, and on that journey we become fully human.”
Kate’s Yoga Experience & Training
What began as a once-a-week class in 2006, has become a daily devotion in 2026. Yoga practice has been a constant in my life for the past two decades keeping me tethered within through all the ups, downs, and plateaus of life. This practice has proven its worth as a reliable path home to the core of myself, again and again. In a world that is constantly in flux, the consistency of practice is a saving grace.
When I started practicing yoga, my body was stiff and full of tension. I was not one of those kids who spent sunny afternoons doing round-offs, handstands, and dropping into backbends. I played sports, rarely stretched, and I could barely touch my toes. Mentally speaking, rights and lefts mixed me up, inversions disoriented me, and I often had difficulty imitated the teacher’s instructions in my own body. Yoga practice deeply challenged me, bringing me face-to-face with opportunities for growth emotionally, mentally, and physically.
Despite the discomfort and the vulnerability that persisted for the first decade of practice, I stuck with it. For years, day after day, I would get on the mat, and do what I could. I read books, I went to classes, I tried a variety of teachers and styles. I just kept going. I had so much conviction that yoga was my path, and eventually, little by little, my body began to change.
The major turning point came in January of 2017, when I started studying yoga with Todd Jackson. His emphasis on inner body integration over forced idealized shapes was profound for me. I continue to be a dedicated student to this day.
Todd Jackson has been teaching yoga since 1997, and is a respected and well-known teacher of teachers in Portland, Oregon. Todd presents original content in the field of yoga.
What I teach comes directly from what Todd has taught to me. Todd’s main teachers, Donald Moyer and Mary Lou Weprin, had a profound influence on his practice and teaching style. B.K.S. Iyengar was the main teacher of Donald Moyer and Mary Lou Weprin. I am forever grateful for Todd’s patient guidance, clear instruction, and wonderful sense of humor. If there is anything of value that I pass on through teaching yoga, the credit belongs to him, Donald and Mary Lou, Mr Iyengar, and so on down the line.
At the end of 2017, I completed a 200-hour Yoga Alliance certified teacher training program along with a supplementary restorative teacher training program in Portland, Oregon. I immediately starting teaching upon completion of that program.
Gratitude
Teaching yoga in this way allows me to give to others the tremendous gift of practice that has been given to me. It is my way of honoring the long lineage of practitioners that have kept yoga alive and continually evolving for thousands of years. It fulfills me to share this experience and I couldn’t do it without dedicated students like you. I truly believe that the work we do together on the mat goes with us into the world and creates ripples that positively impact all the relationships in our lives. Thank you for joining this beautiful community of practitioners and making the world a more wonderful place!