I have grown up with yoga. I copied my mother, as my children copy me now. When I complained of being bored as a child my father would say "Go and meditate". It became an obsession. I couldn't understand what he meant by "just sit still and think of nothing". I would sit and battle with my mind as a 9 year old, constantly saying to myself "Think of nothing, think of nothing..." (Don't try this it doesn't work!)

​

I started attending regular yoga classes when I was 13 in Canada. It was an amazing experience, each week a hall would fill with about 150 people all with blankets and cushions and towels... I don't think yoga mats had reached the Rocky Mountains back then... I don't know if they had even been invented. My teacher was an older woman with white frizzy hair and a body like super woman. Her smile and love infected the whole room. It infected me too. I fell in love with how I felt every Thursday.

 

In an attempt to savour that Thursday feeling I started practicing seriously at home in my room. One day at about age 14 I had finished my yoga practice and decided to sit still and close my eyes... BOOM! I got it! Clearing the mind was easy if you had just cleared your body! 

​

So since then I have traveled and practiced with different teachers, in different cultures. I continue to practice in my room, my garden, on the beach...

​

My first teacher was taught by Iyengar, My second long term teacher by a swami in India, and another, a Zen Master, studied with Pattabhi Jois. I am very lucky at my age to have studied with two teachers who have studied directly with Iyengar and Jois. They were the forefathers of Yoga in the West.