Rachel's Story
A dancer since the age of 6, Rachel has been studying the body and movement for her entire life. She minored in Modern Dance at Washington University in St. Louis, pursued her personal training certification in 2013, and completed her 200 hour yoga teacher training in 2016. She believes in bringing joy back to movement and challenging people to step out of their comfort zones for improved results, greater self awareness, and personal empowerment. Her own transformative weight loss journey gives her special insight into making fitness a lifestyle and empowering others to achieve their goals. She approaches training with thoughtful skill and creativity to meet each individual’s needs. Over the years, she has continued to further her education with four additional certifications and trains a wide variety of clients with goals including but not limited to weight loss, strength building, cardiovascular conditioning and muscle gain. She trained full time for 3.5 years at VIDA Fitness City Vista, and in March of 2017 launched her independent business to train her clients privately.
Rachel first started taking yoga classes intermittently over 15 years ago as part of her dance training. She began practicing more consistently in 2008 with Támi Jacobs in Baltimore and then in 2013, she began studying with Eric Schwarz in DC. After attending two of Eric’s retreats during the summer of 2015, yoga quickly became the vehicle she was seeking to bind her relationship with movement and physical practices together with a spiritual grounding and nourishment for her nervous system. She found in yoga the peace she now seeks to create in herself and others and decided to pursue her yoga teacher training with Eric in 2015. She believes that challenging ourselves in safe and accepting environments is the truest path to self-realization, and approaches all instruction with a creative spirit.
Rachel has taught over 5000 hours since 2016 and has also studied with Davis Burroughs, Anna Franklin, Elena Papina, Abby Dobbs, Sonja Kubota Johansson, Michael Peterson and Alicia Moyer to deepen her own practice and feed her passion for learning. She completed her 500 hour teacher training in 2020 with Alicia Moyer, E-RYT 500.
Rachel believes in the importance of both training for physical strength and empowerment, and moving for the sake of moving, breathing, and being without the need to achieve a particular result. They both have their place and the balance is complementary — hence her focus on yoga and strength. She continues to study the body as well as the philosophy and history of yoga and feels driven to guide others with her passion and knowledge, seeking to share the beautiful reward of balancing effort with acceptance, and fire with surrender.
