Hello, I am Nicole!

In 1997, I started my yoga journey at the age of fifteen. My mom lured me to go to YogaHouse in Pasadena to combat my crippling anxiety over being a teenager. I attended a Vinyasa flow class and I enjoyed it; however, I also felt out of place because I was the only teenager in class.  As a teen, I viewed practicing yoga as weird and would often avoid doing it due to fear of not being able to do it perfectly or that my peers would make fun of me. So, once I felt like my anxiety was under control, I put yoga on pause.

Four years later, I returned to yoga because my anxiety returned while in college. My mother encouraged me to go to the Iyengar Institute and practice restorative poses with Karin O’Bannon. I would use props to help me, like a horse or a setu bandha bench. I liked the feeling of being in restorative poses and believe they helped me grow confidence in my journey of becoming a young adult. I resisted sharing my yoga practice with others because, at the time, I viewed yoga as only pertaining to one type of person: skinny, flexible, blond, or “hippy.”

I would often take classes with my mom or with teachers from YogaWorks and the Iyengar Institute randomly up to age 30. I felt more comfortable in my own skin and was ok with labels and judgments from others.  I realized that yoga made me feel at peace and I want others to know this too. I believe yoga is for every shape, size, or color.

So, in the year 2020, I decided to finally take a 200-hour course with YogaWorks with Ashley Rideaux, Bianca Fearon, Heather Seiniger in the midst of a pandemic. It was during this course that everything clicked for me. All of the prior knowledge I had growing up immersed in yoga from my parents all made sense to me. Today, I love taking a variety of yoga classes to see all the different flows in existence. And, through this process, I find that my students are my biggest inspiration.