"All I have is my word. And so the only option is to be honest with it."
The real story
Yoga saved my life.
I know that might sound like something people say. I mean it the way you mean something when you've turned it over in your hands long enough to know it's true.
I'm Brazilian-born and Maryland-rooted. I came to yoga the way many people do — not because I was looking for it, but because something in me had run out of other options. And what I found wasn't a fitness class. It wasn't flexibility. It wasn't even peace, not at first.
What I found was a practice that required me to be honest.
The mat doesn't let you hide. What you do when the pose gets hard — whether you breathe or hold, whether you stay or check out, whether you're kind to yourself or merciless — that's data about who you are. The practice holds up the mirror.
Yoga is not romanticized. It's not linear. It's not beautiful in the way we've been sold beauty. It's the courage to know yourself. To walk into your own dark corners with a light. To come to an understanding — not of the poses, but of who you actually are when no one is watching.
That's what yoga did for me, and that's what I teach.
What I bring to the mat
I'm a 700+ hour yoga teacher — E-RYT 200, RYT-500, YACEP — and an award-winning Instructional Designer with a Master's in Instructional Design and Technology and a Graduate Certificate in UX from Cornell University.
I've taught over 1,000 classes. Adults, children, corporate environments, community events, private sessions, and online since 2020. I've trained in creative sequencing, breathwork, Yin yoga, accessible inversions, Ayurveda, and anatomy — and I keep learning because the practice keeps unfolding.
That intersection — 700 hours of yoga + a career in learning design — is not incidental. It's why my classes feel different. Every sequence I build has the same rigor behind it as a learning experience I'd design professionally. There's a reason for every transition. There's an arc. There's an intention behind where we start and where we arrive.
But underneath all of that, I teach what I live. And I only teach what I mean.
Training & Credentials
✔️ 38H Certified Breathwork Instructor — Michaël Bijker | Yogalap, 2026
✔️ 18.5H Breath is Life — Michaël Bijker | Yogalap, 2026
✔️ 50H Creative Sequencing & Cueing Lab — Flow School, 2025
✔️ 20H Yin Yoga Teacher Training — Jessica Fleming E-RYT® 200, 2024
✔️ 20H Creative Sequencing & Anatomy — Lilo, Bel & Aline, 2024
✔️ 50H Creative Sequencing — Authentic Movements, 2023
✔️ 300H Advanced Teacher Training — Authentic Movements, 2022
✔️ 50H Accessible Inversions — Authentic Movements, 2022
✔️ 20H Bridge Teacher Training — YogaSix, 2021
✔️ 30H Ayurveda Specialist — Online Yoga School, 2020
✔️ 200H Teacher Training — YogaWorks, Baltimore, 2019
Registered with Yoga Alliance.
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