Welcome Rafaela Garcia

Rafaela is an incredible addition to our teaching family. We're excited to welcome her to our sub team (for the time being) and share her gifts of teaching with you all.

Name: Rafaela Garcia

B-day: February 15

Hometown: Oxnard, CA

In 3-4 sentences tell us about the evolution of your yoga practice:

I began doing yoga for exercise 8 years ago expecting to get a good work out and instead got a good work in!

I started as a dedicated student of vinyasa flow and eventually curiosity led me to try different styles and practices. So it was a mix of curiosity and fascination with sharing what I learned with others that eventually led me to get in front of the classroom.

What’s one thing you wish you could tell yourself when you began your yoga practice: Perfection is overrated.

In 1-2 sentences why do you teach yoga:

I teach yoga because I am endlessly grateful for this practice, I have received so much from it and continue to learn about myself through it. I am always learning something new and I believe that if we have some sort of knowledge or tool that can ease someone else’s life in some way we should share those tools. It’s the yoga that does the teaching.

How long have you taught: 2 years

If you could have lunch with any inspiration individual (dead or alive) who and why: It’s a bit basic, but I would have lunch with Audrey Hepburn. I would love to take the time to really know who the person was, she is so well known for grace and elegance but it’s her humanitarian work and large capacity to be of service that I’d like to learn from.

Favorite Treat: CANDY.

Favorite Book: Right now really enjoying Still Alice, but I love When Breath Becomes Air. Also Samantha Irby is hilarious, she walks the line between strong humor and real pain.

How many countries have you been to: Just Mexico so far but I am hoping for more travel this year! Canada maybe?

Spirit Animal: I don’t believe I know enough about what the cultural symbolism is of Spiritual Animals with in the cultures the phrase derives from but I’ve been told that I remind someone of an ostrich! (A beautiful reminder for each of us to re-evalute the phrases we commonly use. Thank you for this reminder Rafaela. We will be updating our teacher share form, but I wanted to leave this here as a reminder for all of us)

One thing we don’t know about you: I’ve been performing since I was 5 years old, love the performing arts.