While I hold a deep appreciation for intimate yoga studios and a reverence for traditional ashrams, I have come to equally value sharing yoga’s timeless wisdom within the steady hum of everyday gymnasiums. Over more than twenty years of teaching in such spaces, I have witnessed the emergence of genuine community and formed friendships that continue to endure. These larger, often more accessible settings can open a door to yoga for people who may not initially be drawn to more niche yoga studios or traditional ashram environments.

It is undeniably easier for the mind and nervous system to settle in spaces intentionally designed for asana and meditation. Yet life rarely unfolds under ideal conditions. More often, we meet circumstances we did not choose, events beyond our control, and environments that quietly—or abruptly—test our capacity for presence and ease.

How we meet distraction, discomfort, and unpredictability when they inevitably arise—and how we respond in those moments of discontent during class—can be a revealing mirror of our habitual patterns, reflecting how we face difficulty, change, and uncertainty at other times in our lives. Practicing yoga—in all its wild and wonderful forms—in less‑than‑ideal conditions can become a powerful catalyst for growth, offering a rewarding opportunity to cultivate resilience, adaptability, and deeper self‑awareness. 

There is a quiet discipline—Tapas—in choosing to practice anywhere, rather than only where conditions feel just right. When practice becomes dependent on specific spaces, teachers, sequences, or moods, its steadiness can become fragile and conditional. 

Over the years, I’ve often heard the refrain, “I don’t do gym yoga—I go to a real yoga studio.” I receive this less as a critique and more as an opening for inquiry.

What makes yoga “real”? Is it the space, the aesthetics, the physical shapes, or the teacher—or is it the ethical foundations that draw us back to practice again and again, shaping how we live, relate, and respond to each unfolding moment? In learning to meet each experience fully amid noise, limitation, and change, yoga begins to reveal itself less as something we do for one or two hours on a mat or meditation cushion, and more as a way of being—a heart-led consciousness that is interwoven into every interaction, choice, and breath.

This year, from February to November, I’m holding a ten month series based on embodying ethics, at select Goodlife clubs. This series explores the ethical foundations of yoga and a practical framework for social and personal conduct. These ten precepts form the first two limbs of the eightfold path of Ashtanga Yoga. Over ten months—beginning in February with Ahimsa, non‑violence—we explore each one through accessible philosophy and embodied practice. Each class weaves ethical themes into movement, breath, and contemplation, supporting their expression both on and off the mat.

Rather than presenting the Yamas and Niyamas as ideals to master, this series approaches them as living inquiries—principles we return to again and again, noticing how they meet us differently over time, and as circumstances change. I have been exploring these teachings for decades, and they continue to challenge, refine, and deepen my understanding. Like a muscle that atrophies when it is no longer used, these yogic virtues weaken within us when they are not practiced, or at the very least, contemplated, in daily life. Sustained awareness allows them to remain active, relevant, and transformative.

The Yamas & Niyamas series sits alongside my Embodied Ethics yoga card deck and forthcoming book, Evolving Traditions: Yoga, Ethics & Modern Practice. These offerings are an open invitation to explore yoga as a conscious, embodied practice—month by month, class by class, breath by breath.