Name: Yoga Fool (yes he actually want you to call him that; although most people just call him Fool)
Age: 35
Hometown: Miami, FL
Favorite Yoga Destination: Music festivals. I’ve been fortunate enough to teach at a few music festivals that incorporate yoga and the healing arts into their line-up. I absolutely love the kinds of people you meet there and how they resonate the atmosphere of love and community.
Favorite Mantra: Baba Hanuman
Never leave home without: pants
Where does Yoga take you: Yoga takes me off my mat. Coming into poses that require intense focus, training, and breath bring me right off of my mat into life situations that require the same disciplines. Balancing my partner in an acrobatic pose on my BOGA board teaches me how to balance my life and find harmony in the craziest situations and conditions. It doesn’t matter how “complicated” the pose is. What matters is how you handle and approach the challenge of that pose. It is a metaphor for how you handle your life. Slow down and breathe; let that be your guide.
Favorite BOGA Yoga Board: Yoga Bamboo Blue
What BOGA Yoga is to me: BOGA Yoga is family for sure. There have been kirtan jams at Surf Expo, demos on the water with friends and floating classes with laughs. I arrived to my water practice at a time when I was already falling deeply in love with yoga. BOGA Yoga was like renewing my vows lol
Favorite activities besides Yoga: My therapeutic Thai bodywork practice has to be my favorite activity outside of my traditional yoga practice.
Favorite pose: (AcroSUP) High Standing Backbird (SUP Yoga) Split Leg Forearm Balance (Yoga) Hollowback Handstand
Best thing about SUP Yoga: The best thing about SUP Yoga is that it brings you to square one in your yoga practice all over again. We begin yoga and fall in love and then quickly move into places and spaces that can easily become very routine. There’s nothing like having things totally shaken up by changing the rules of the game to include constant instability and increased challenge. When it comes to balance you really have to feel it from the inside and that’s one of my favorite things about yoga. Feeling; Awareness.
Favorite place to practice: Guruv Yoga in Central FL. I was trained there by a team of pretty amazing teachers and the international Shakti powerhouse that is Tymi Howard. My original yoga brothers and sisters practice there and it feels so good to monkey around next to somebody that knows your practice.Daily Ritual: Silence, solitude and self reflection
Inspirations: The embodiment of feminine energy is inspiring. It would be more accurate to say that The Mother inspires me. Both yin and yang, masculine and feminine, reside in all of us. It’s inspiring to experience true feminine energy and surrender to a vulnerability that isn’t characterized or viewed as weakness. True feminine can teach us about true masculine and this inspires me to become more balanced in myself and relationships overall.
Favorite Food: Pizza
Why do you teach Yoga: I love teaching. Yoga is just one of the things that I share. Teaching for me is an act of service and I find myself like Hanuman in that way. I’m very passionate about my practice and about sharing. Yoga shared with the intention of love can be very helpful and healing. I teach because it is an expression of love and we all need more of this type of expression in our culture.
My Favorite Quote: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary………… Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.”