 What brought you to your yoga practice?
I was a law firm associate in New York City. A colleague whose wife is a yoga teacher invited me to take her class. I had no idea it would change my life! At first, yoga was a wonderful way to challenge myself physically. I thought of it as achieving beautiful poses. Eventually, I came to appreciate yoga as much more - a practice of integrating body, breath, and mind. Yoga became a portal to living according to personal principles and honoring the value of community. I found 5KY in December 2025 after foot surgery because of the livestream classes. I'm grateful to now be able to practice at the studio because the 5KY community is welcoming and open - to me, that is a huge part of yoga practice. What benefits did you notice once you started practicing consistently? Physically, yoga helped me maintain strength and openness. Mentally, yoga has helped me to regulate the intense stress of being a lawyer and maintain balance in my life. What would you now tell yourself before you started practicing yoga? See beyond the asana (physical poses). Appreciate and begin to understand how asana connects you to breath, serenity, and finding your own truths and other people who support your living those truths. Be okay with where you are today - stretch yourself, but stretch yourself appropriately with the trust that you'll attain a different place in your practice at the right time.
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 Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash The secret of success is constancy to purpose. - Benjamin Disraeli This blog post is part of our Yoga Sutras series. Want to start at the beginning? Yoga Sutra 4.18 सदा ज्ञाताश्चित्तवृत्तयस्तत्प्रभोः पुरुषस्यापरिणामित्वात् sadā jñātāścittavṛttayastatprabhoḥ puruṣasyāpariṇāmitvāt Fluctuations of the mind are always known to its master, the Purusha, due to its constancy. Before going any further, let’s get reacquainted with Purusha. Vedanta sees the physical manifestation of the world as dualistic.
All things spring from the combination of prakriti, which is nature, and Purusha, which is variously defined as the “soul” (Iyengar, 266), the “seer” (Iyengar, 267) the “True Self” (Stiles, 51), the “transcendental self” (Stiles, 117), “the owner of the mind-stuff or… its master” (Satchidananda, 262) in the texts I am referencing. Surely, it has many, many more translations and really, it’s up to you to pick the one that suits your fancy. I will pick “universal consciousness” here to stay consistent with the rest of our Yoga Sutra blog post series. As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope. - Ursula K. Le Guin This blog post is part of our Yoga Sutras series. Want to start at the beginning? Yoga Sutra 4.9 जातिदेशकालव्यवहितानामप्यानन्तर्यं स्मृतिसंस्कारयोरेकरूपत्वात् Jāti deśa kāla vyavahitānām apy ānantaryaṃ smṛti saṃskārayor ekarūpatvāt Even though birth, place and time separate us, the continuity between memory and subliminal impressions (samskaras) gives us a common identity. Continuing on from the discussion of sattvic, rajasic and tamasic actions in Sutra 4.7, Patanjali delves deeper into karmic philosophy.
In Yoga Sutra 4.8, he says that the residual impressions created by former actions will only manifest in a particular birth according to the “ripening” (Stiles, 114) of the soul. The soul must have the maturation needed to at least attempt to overcome this karma.  Photo by Samuel Austin on Unsplash Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity. - Carl Jung This blog post is part of our Yoga Sutras series. Want to start at the beginning? Yoga Sutra 4.7 र्माशुक्लाकृष्णं योगिनस्त्रिविधमितरेषाम् karmāśuklākṛṣṇaṃ yoginas trividham itareṣām The actions of the Yogi are non-white and non-black; but in the case of others are threefold (white, black and gray). Yoga Sutra 4.7 is a final punctuation to the thought we were exploring last month in Yoga Sutras 4.4 - 4.6. When the mind of a yogi has been conditioned through meditation, the ego is slowly dissolved. Thoughts created within this meditative, ego-less state are not subject to karma.
As we saw through the progression of the third pada of The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, by effort in concentration one develops the ability to meditate. Through meditation, the seeker can learn to live their life in a deepening state of continual meditation and complete equanimity. At least this is the goal.  What brought you to yoga?
Yoga came in and out of my life as a teen and college student as a workout and outlet for community but it wasn't until the COVID-19 pandemic that I began developing a more consistent yoga practice and showing up for myself. Living in isolation and dealing with lots of uncertainty in the pandemic, I experienced a lot of anxiety and yoga was my outlet for presence, regulating my emotions and nervous system, and staying consistent with movement in a time where we couldn’t leave our house. What is your approach to teaching? I am passionate about creating a welcoming and inviting atmosphere in my yoga classes, where all students feel respected. I believe that yoga is for everyone - no matter your race, body type, economic background, language, or gender. Representation and accessibility matter, and I aim to uplift all voices in my classes. I enjoy teaching yoga as a tool for personal growth and helping students feel more confident and empathetic towards one another, and themselves. Why did you choose to teach at 5KY? Because of the community atmosphere! When I first discovered 5KY as a student, I loved how accessible, intimate, and community oriented the studio was. Additionally, I love how 5KY is women-run and has a diverse range of classes and teachers. There’s something for everyone at 5KY, whether you are a beginner or have taken hundreds of classes, and the instructors have diverse backgrounds and styles, so always something new to learn and try. :) What makes your soul sing? Hanging out in the sunshine, walking in the forest, spending time with my loved ones and kittens, and eating a good vegan donut.  What brought you to your yoga practice?
I was looking for something like this because I felt like I needed this for healing and to help me move and build my self esteem. I was feeling not myself during the COVID time, feeling isolated, stagnant and wasn't feeling right mentally and physically. I wasn't feeling good about myself and kind of depressed. I tried yoga a few times before but never really stuck to it more than once or twice. What benefits did you notice once you started practicing consistently? More flexibility, my body is able to be more flexible, and it taught me how to breathe and meditate and stay in the moment. It also helped me with digestive problems that I started having during the pandemic. What would you now tell yourself before you started practicing yoga? That I need to get out and do something for myself. Life is not always comfort because if you stay comfortable it doesn't help you in the long run and after a while you start to digress. I will keep coming back.  What brought you to your yoga practice?
I tried yoga in high school and loved it, but had focused on my on-again-off-again relationship with cardio for the past years. Last summer, I attended yoga classes at Gallagher Way hosted by Five Keys, and I fell in love with yoga as a communal and cultural practice. I've been attending a class at least once a week ever since. What benefits did you notice once you started practicing consistently? Immediately, I experienced pain relief in my hips and back. I grew in confidence, and experienced a much deeper relationship with my body; one based on respect and love for its capabilities. Those things make it easy to turn yoga into a priority in my schedule. What would you now tell yourself before you started practicing yoga? I would tell myself that respecting and honoring what my body is capable of is much more important than meeting my own expectations of image. Health is so much more holistic than you think. How I show up to class mentally is almost as important as the practice.  Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash No one can deny his own being. - Ramana Maharshi This blog post is part of our Yoga Sutras series. Want to start at the beginning? Yoga Sutra 4.4 निर्माणचित्तान्यस्मितामात्रात् Nirmāṇa cittāny asmitā mātrāt Fluctuations of the mind are created solely from the sense of individuality. Patanjali’s explanation of karma extends to our own psychology in Sutra 4.4. If we think back to Yoga Sutra 1.2, wherein Patanjali explains the concept of citta, or the fluctuations of mind we call thought, remember that Patanjali defines yoga as calming these fluctuations.
Now Patanjali tells us that the citta is born solely from our sense of individuality or in other words, from our ego. Ego is not inherently bad but it is the thing giving rise to our thoughts and what we must overcome in order to feel at peace in all situations we encounter in our lives.  What brought you to your yoga practice?
I need movement in my life to be happy, and for a long time before yoga I exclusively practiced martial arts. While there are a lot of benefits to that and I don't regret it at all, there came a time where engaging with it was no longer supporting what I wanted my life to become. I came to yoga looking for a more supportive community that would let me engage on my own terms and an activity that would challenge me in new ways physically and mentally. I found both! What benefits did you notice once you started practicing consistently? I'm a lot more gentle with myself when I need to do something differently than what I feel is expected of me. The practice of sitting with whatever your limits are, right now, today has made it a lot easier to "take a modification" in real life to accommodate what I need in the moment. What would you now tell yourself before you started practicing yoga? You don't have to work at it. It's not something you need to stress about improving or changing. Your practice today is as valid as your worst day and your best day, and if today you just sit down and don't move that's your practice then maybe you worked just as hard as anyone else.  Photo by Photoholgic on Unsplash Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. - Oscar Wilde This blog post is part of our Yoga Sutras series. Want to start at the beginning? Yoga Sutra 4.3 निमित्तमप्रयोजकं प्रकृतीनां वरणभेदस्तु ततः क्षेत्रिकवत् Nimittam aprayojakaṁ prakṛtīnāṁ varaṇa-bhedas tu tataḥ kṣetrikavat Incidental events indirectly cause the evolution of nature by removing obstacles on its pathway. On the other hand, this energy may be channeled like a farmer removing barriers within a watercourse. Sutra 4.3 is one of my very favorite Yoga Sutras. It is poetic but also clear and direct. But before we get to that…
Let’s not gloss over Yoga Sutra 4.2 because it is tied to the meaning of Sutra 4.3. In 4.2, Patanjali discusses the idea of karma, which underpins the philosophical background of this text. As Vedantic scholars, the scribes listening to him would be intimately familiar with the idea of karma. These days karma seems to be shorthand for justice or punishment, which couldn’t be further from the truth. To begin with, karma is not that orderly. |
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