About

 

Athlete.
Artist.
Healer.
Teacher.

A Body of Knowledge

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The body is a storehouse of every experience you have walked through in your life - all your joys and sorrows. Each one of us carries a body of knowledge and we are all learning from one another.  I will share mine with you here - from the personal to the professional. 

Athlete

Ultimately, I believe that students are drawn to this practice because of its potency to help us befriend, move through, or when possible, ease pain and suffering in all its forms. After an adolescence spent in a back brace due to severe scoliosis, I sought yoga practice to relieve the physical pain of my aching back. Living with a background structural discomfort has led me all my life to stay moving, flexible, and continually on the hunt for mind-body approaches to maximize physical spaciousness, grounding, and ease so that I can thrive in this body. I committed to the yoga practice as a central component of my life once I realized firsthand how dramatically it not only decreased my pain but attuned me to the center of my body as a physical power source, a meditative abode, and the central baromoter of honoring my truest life. It is a joy to now share these techniques with others to help ease pain and open to the fullness of life. I practice daily and have for over two decades. I teach with a passion, precision, and a direct connection to the physicality of this practice that can only be accessed firsthand by a devoted practioner.

 
 
 
 
 
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Artist

I have trained since early childhood in ballet and modern dance and worked throughout my twenties as a professional modern dancer in San Francisco and Berlin, Germany. A lifelong mover, after healing from two knee surgeries, I knew the time had come to transition out of my career in dance and focus on the regenerative benefits of yoga to heal and repair rather than slowly deteriorate my body if I wanted to continue to be an athletic mover in my body through old age. Though I no longer dance on stage, I will always have a Dancer’s discipline and sensibility that is felt in my classes as well as a deep reverence to the emotionality and expressiveness of our bodies.

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Healer

Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood awakened me. I got to know the strength of my own resolve and my heart opened unstoppably, perpetually, and exponentially. Childbirth offered a sense of Oneness and connection beyond my personal fears, needs, and limits. I  felt connected at once to my own deepest innermost strength and resolve and fully surrendered to a flow of life moving through me that I had no ability to control -  only to trust, love, align with, and release myself into. To this day, birth and motherhood imprint into everything I know and share about our capacity as humans, in body and heart. This has led me to teach prenatal yoga but beyond the confines of that niche it also offers an affirming philosophy that ripples into all my teachings, the capacity I see in all beings, and a pedagogical approach of both loyally nurturing and fiercely pushing students to their edge of growth.

 
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Teacher

I have practiced for over two decades and taught yoga full time since 2006. I have taught in yoga studios internationally, worked with an NBA basketball team, an NCAA diving team, professional dance companies, and therapeutically with private clients across the globe.

I have studied with Shiva Rea, Ana Forrest, Christina Sell, Don and Amba Stapleton, David Moreno, yoga for scoliosis with Elise Browning Miller, Ayurveda with Kameko Shibata, Prenatal yoga with Marisa Toriggino, and Hypnobirthing with Yael Tober Quittner. A former massage therapist specializing in Sports Massage and Deep Tissue work, I have studied anatomy with Art Riggs and Thomas Myers. 

I currently make my home in Baltimore with my husband and two young sons.

Student Tesimonials

Testimonials

I've had the pleasure of having Lily as a teacher and a trainer, as well as working alongside her as a colleague. You will be hard pressed to find a teacher who is more passionate, creative, and engaging. From the moment you enter her class, she makes it a point to learn your name, welcome you, connect with you, and hold space for you. Her compassionate, inclusive approach to teaching has helped build a community of dedicated yogis and yoginis from all different backgrounds and levels of experience with yoga. Her diverse classes and workshop offerings give every yoga practitioner a place to begin right where they are, and then she provides the scaffolding to build the self-confidence and curiosity needed to take the next steps on their yoga journey. Whether it's soaking up time in Yoga Nidra during her "Blissful Body" Restorative workshops or trusting yourself as you spring up into your first handstand away from the wall, you know that you are held, you are safe, and you can do hard things when you are practicing with Lily. As a student of Lily's, I have greatly benefitted from her cleverly designed, dynamic, challenging, and playful practices that allow me to lean in to what feels right in my unique body and push myself beyond what I thought I was capable of doing and being. As a Prenatal Teacher trainee, her in-depth anatomical focus, her helpful alignment cues, and the community she fosters with her mamas gave me a blueprint for creating my classroom community and supporting my students on their journey to motherhood. As a colleague, she is extremely well organized, communicative, collaborative, and inclusive. She seeks to connect, to learn, and to grow as a teacher, student, and person with every interaction. She is truly an unparalleled teacher, and I highly recommend her classes and workshops to anyone and everyone, no matter where they are in their relationship with yoga.

-Sarah Arteaga

I've been teaching yoga for almost a decade. I've done trainings both domestically and internationally and have close to 700 hours in yoga study- I can honestly say that I learn something new every time I practice with Lily. I've been practicing with her for years. Her wisdom and presence are unparalleled. Lily's vinyasa classes are challenging and will push you to your limit all while encouraging you to honor your practice and your breath. Her restorative workshops and beautiful chanting will leave you feeling blissed out, grounded and more in connected to your body and to your Self. I was also privileged to partake in her Prenatal Yoga Teacher training this past year; her knowledge and scope left me in awe. Not only did she transition to a virtual platform with grace, she managed to hold space for all of us all while maintaining the training's integrity. Lily has an eye for her students that will help your practice get past any plateau. She sees the body with an expert eye. Due to her breadth of knowledge, Lily always has tools to help you where YOUR practice needs it. She's not one to parrot back cues for the sake of saying words and filling space. Instead she carefully chooses her wording to best serve the people she's teaching while leaving space for you to hear and process what she's said. Lily is a phenomenal teacher and you'd be lucky to train, study and learn from her.

-Jaclyn Melsopp

As a yoga teacher and practitioner, Lily is simply unparalleled. I have practiced yoga for almost 20 years, and have rarely encountered a teacher who so gracefully embodies a multitude of gifts: authentic wisdom, intellectual integrity and curiosity, physical mastery and prowess, deep empathy for human beings and a profound love for the tradition of yoga. I have been her student in vinyasa yoga for many years, and drew on her prenatal program to support me through two pregnancies and two unmedicated births. I adore Lily and am so grateful for all she gives to this world! Anyone who finds her practice will be better for it.

-Johanna Richlin, professor and mother

Lily’s classes are unmatched in creativity and fun! Lily builds a fire from the deepest layers out. Each class is so well thought out, so well delivered, and an engaging experience from start to finish. Through the body, Lily guides me back me back to myself. I leave each class inspired both as a teacher and a student.

-Olga Mezhebovsky, Doctor of Physical Therapy, PT, DPT & E-RYT 200

What is Yoga?

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A living, breathing, evolving practice. An adaptable practice. An infinite practice. Through yoga we come to see wholeness or enlightenment as a continuous quality of attention towards remaining present and engaged in life.

 

Yoga is an eight-limbed path of liberation originating in India. It has been passed down somatically, communally, and across borders for over 5,000 years. Incorporating the five dimensions of being, or Koshas (Physical Body, Energetic Body, Mental Body, Wisdom Body, and Bliss Body), our relationship to ourselves and our relationship to our communities and the planet, yogic practice is holistic.

 

We strengthen and open the physical body. We steady the breath and give space for unseen emotional residues to integrate. As the body opens, and the breath and emotional energies stir and settle, we witness our thoughts and mental processes more clearly. Once we witness our thoughts rather than identify with our thoughts, we unearth the heart-centered wisdom that reaches far beyond the intellect. The practice teaches us to let go of old patterns, to drop in to 0ur depths, to awaken to our wild wise embodied nature, and to find our own strength to open to the fullness of our lives.

 

Relaxing the body, steadying the breath, witnessing the mind, and resting into our heart wisdom: we catch glimmers or moments of our Bliss Body. This is the mode where no single physical sensation, thought, or emotion snags our attention. Through our Bliss Body we feel an even, spacious awareness of the whole, and open ourselves to moments of profound relaxation in which we recall a oneness with all beings everywhere, across time and space.

Acknowledgements:

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I humbly bow to my teachers along this path: past, present, and future. To my parents, my brother - my family I was born into and my first teachers. To my husband, my sons - my family I have consciously created who are always teaching me how to wake up. To my early dance teachers who saw and supported the Wild One inside me so desperately seeking a container to emerge from my shyness and express with my body. To my collaborators in LEVYdance who taught me so much about relationship, trust, process, experimentation, confidence, and creativity. Deep bow to my yoga teachers: David Moreno (Abhimanyu), Don Stapleton (Brahmanand), Shiva Rea, Ana T. Forrest, Pedro Franco, Elise Browning Miller, Marissa Torigino, Leslie Howard, and my beloved Feldenkrais Teacher Augusta Moore who has profoundly changed the way I move my body and see my student’s bodies, and my anatomy Teachers Art Riggs and Thomas Meyers. Deep bow to my colleagues - Kameko Shibata, Sarah Cook, Lauren Slater. Deep bow to my students who keep showing up, exploring their edges, and sharing this sacred practice, breath, and community. For it is not so much that I think of these people each with profound love and gratitude but it is that I will feel myself occasionally engulfed in an embodied sense of my love and gratitude towards each of these teachers for the healing they have sparked within me and the wisdom and daring with which they shared their yoga. To my doula, Cara Crowe, who stood by my side with both of my sons’ labors and deliveries and showed me the power in holding space and showing up for someone in their greatest hour of need and how that too can be a great container for transformation and empowerment. To all my relations that have served as Teacher and all the ways that showing up to life is the practice. Deep Bow.

I’d love to meet you on the mat - check out different ways to practice with me!