When I started my 300-hour yoga teacher training in late 2024, one of my then-colleagues was enthusiastic:

It’s great that you’re getting that next credential, she said, you wouldn’t want to be stuck teaching at a YMCA or something.

Let me tell you friends: not only do I still teach at the small nonprofit gym in my rural town, but it’s kind of my favorite. People who have shown up in class this week:

-An ex-Marine who had never taken a yoga class before;

-A former band teacher-turned-farmer wearing an AC/DC t-shirt and jeans;

-A women from the next town over who decided to try something new and just googled “yoga classes near me.”

I’m sure there are rewards, beyond the financial, to teaching at a state-of-the-art studio filled with young, limber practitioners.

But my heart is here: with the beginners, the curious, the “inflexible”, the folks who might never show up in a more carefully-curated space.