My own yoga journey started with a VHS tape by Rodney Yee and a few classes here and there.. Then a friend asked me to come to a hot yoga class in 2002. Not knowing exactly what I was heading into, I attended my first class. I had always been flexible, but at almost 6ft, I blamed my long legs for not being able to touch my toes. However, It just felt right. somewhere in class, I remember standing on one leg, and the rest of my body bending and stretching, I felt this sense of peace, an inner calm.
Living in today's fast paced world, and on top of it right in the middle of New York City, That feeling of inner calm and peace was what kept me going back for more!
Born in Sweden, but with 19 years in New York City, I have been working as a model since i was 14. I love my job, the traveling, the people, and never knowing where it will take me next! Practicing yoga is what helps me to stay healthy, grounded, and strong, mentally and physically.
Through the next decade, my hot yoga had become my treat. that time on the mat, was my little "get away" in New York City. It was quiet and peaceful and my overloaded and overwhelmed senses could relax, Specially after a long flight, or a long week of shooting -My body and my mind needed it! I just had to go, and every walk home after class I felt like I was floating! years after that, and through exploring different styles of yoga, and having tried to get everyone I know with me to practice, I did something I had longed for, in 2015 I travelled to Cahuita , Costa Rica, for a 200hr Yoga teacher training, with the awesome Marianne Wells Yoga School (RYS). It was humbling, scary and intense, but life changing!
in 2019 I went to beautiful Bali to study another 100hrs YTT, with Marianne Wells Yoga School, with focus on alignment and adjustment. continuing to grow for both myself and what I teach is really important to me. yoga is a journey after all and it is for everyone!
Yoga is something that brings me so much happiness, health and harmony. We all deserve to live our lives in the most blissful state! yoga is an amazing awakening, a tool to letting go but yet soaking it in!
In the spring of 2024, I completed a certification as a Vipassana Mindfulness and Compassion Meditation Teacher with The Path led by founder Dina Kaplan and Samuel Morales Jr.
I have for as long as I can remember had an interest in meditation and the quest to be present, with the goal really, to be practiced and lived, in real time and life on or off the mat or meditation cushion.
The quiet and still sit, works as an excellent tool to bring ourselves and our drifting minds back to what is. To cultivate that inner peace that we can carry with us and to place an anchor there to keep us grounded.
Through a practice, we learn to identify less with our thoughts, after all, our minds have more than 60,000 thoughts per day! And instead find the space between thought and being. Create less stories, and rumination, and let this magical life hold its own in all its presence as it unfolds!
By having that quiet space, we also become less reactive, and we can observe and then respond from a place of compassionate awareness.
I love the quote by Wayne Dyer,
'“ If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”
It carries the important message, that in this life, there is so much power in our perception and personal experience, and while we can’t always control what happens on the outside, we can control what is on the inside.
May all beings be happy, free, and have love & peace!
Testimonials
Feature in WomenFitness
“When I started my yoga practice with Jennifer, it was a time of breakthrough for me on many levels, and her instruction was a pillar for me in terms of physical fitness and rejuvenation. In conjunction with her practice and diet I lost over 30 lbs. and gained a new body with more mobility and tensile strength (though I still have a long way to go,) but none of that is why I truly feel special to be a student with Jennifer. For me, our practice does the following; charts physical progress and creates incredible strength, provides sanctuary for my body and mind to reset and reorient, and lastly, fills me with an energy that is both calm and empowered. As someone who had a therapist and many different personal trainers through the years, yoga practice with Jennifer has not only enlightened me personally, it has also opened wide access to a culture I was shut off too, that I can now engage with confidence. All I can say is that last week I couldn’t fully do a side-crow (yet,) but I did do an excellent bridge, and I used to not be able to do a crow (which involves putting all your weight on your hands) and now I can do that with ease and on a good day push out to a plank, albeit momentarily. Thank you!”
David Rosen