Liz's Bio

Liz's interest in Yoga began in 1974 when she was in grammar school. She ordered Richard Hittleman's book, "Introduction to Yoga" through the book club at school. Something about the focused way of being in Yoga always intrigued her. From reading the book she found out she was breathing incorrectly. "I thought it was a misprint so I searched all through the book to see if he told more about how to breathe. My natural breath was the opposite of what it should have been which is very common."

Later in 1987 while living in New Haven Liz began doing Yoga regularly with a friend who was a Yoga teacher. "Before I started doing Yoga with her I would keep telling her how I would like to start doing Yoga soon. After hearing this so often she finally said, "why not now?!"

A year later Liz moved to Willimantic where she couldn't find a yoga teacher. She resorted to audio taping herself reading from a Yoga book because it was hard to do the postures and look at the directions in the book. "It was, also, hard to listen to my own nasal sounding voice" she said. "Thanks to Ujjayi breathing I no longer have that nasal sound but a clear voice."

It was imperative for Liz to continue her Yoga practice because when she was 19 years old she hurt her back in an accident. For years she was in continuous pain. "I had gone to all sorts of doctors. It wasn't until I began my own REGULAR yoga practice that I was finally able to live pain free."

One night, several years later, after not being able to sleep she got up to do some yoga. For some reason it was different. She was extremely focused and was paying deep attention to the cues her body was giving her. She was able to go farther than she was ever able to go before and it seemed effortless. She said that while she was in the posture the bound angle (Baddha konasana) an amazing wash of bliss went through her and she stayed in the posture for a very long time in complete comfort. When she came out of the posture she was full of a sense that she needed to share Yoga with others. That is when she knew she needed to be a Yoga teacher.

Liz began teaching when her daughter was in cooperative preschool. She taught the other moms while the children were in school. She says the best way to describe how she felt while teaching was like a child feels on Christmas morning and they've received everything they wanted and they're completely happy and thrilled to be able to finally play with those long awaited toys.

Liz received her 200 hour Yoga Teaching Certificate from Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, North America's largest Yoga Center, located in Lenox, MA. She is currently nearing the end of the 500 hour Yoga Teaching Certificate through Kripalu Center. Liz has trained with well known teachers from across the United States such as Erich Schiffmann, Beryl Bender Birch, David Swenson, Doug Swenson, Bryan Kest, and Shiva Rea. "My most influential teachers have been from the variety of needs and abilities from hundreds of Yoga students since I started teaching in 1998."