evolution of a yogini and teacher
Favorite meditation spot, Encinitas, CA (Image © Robin Ellen Lucas)
Yoga is therapeutic
I'm Robin Ellen Lucas. I've lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 20 years, and North San Diego County (Encinitas, CA) as well through 2016, practicing Hatha yoga since 1996. Sharing my knowledge with others—particularly the therapeutic benefits as a teacher—has truly changed my life...
Starting with a Candle
My first yoga class ever was a nighttime candlelit vinyasa class with intermediate through advanced students. I didn't know in advance that there were different leveled classes. I arrived and put my mat down facing the wrong way, and I looked around most of the time to watch others.
With my true Beginner's Mind, I absorbed this 5,000 year old teaching as if it were second nature. I was hooked on yoga as soon as I tried it. I felt like an old soul and I didn't even know why at the time. From this day forward, I began to feel more sacred in everyday life; I was changing—relinquishing who I once was and allowing new influences to shake my insides.
Yoga began burning an image in my brain of my confidence and truth. I let it build up so that I could understand it better. Then I gave myself permission to be it.
Starting with Iyengar alignment-based focus, six years later and three pregnancies later, I discovered Ashtanga and Vinyasa Flow. Ashtanga yoga met my intensities in life. I ached to find the reasons why.
Powerful body, guiding wave
I invited personal power through strength and balance as my practice took on qualities found in martial arts. I learned to surf, letting the waves guide my Pisces soul who grew up on the beach. In this state, I trained to be a Vinyasa Flow teacher and Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT®).
Surfing soothes the yoga soul, Santa Cruz, CA. (Photo credits: Tye Varnes)
Mind-body medicine
Yoga Robin was born from the acceptance I received; others pleaded me to teach. Each of my experiences as a graduate school student and as a yogini, together with my teaching certification, contributed toward my private yoga instruction business. My life defined the reason I evolved into a private yoga teacher.
I've earned my Master of Arts degree in East-West Psychology at CIIS in San Francisco, specializing in yoga philosophy, holistic and psychological health as well as mind-body medicine. I became a yoga therapist as my years of practicing and teaching together with my M.A. lent themselves to therapeutic training for somatic and psychological health conditions. (Disclaimer: yoga therapy is not part of my RYT® credential with Yoga Alliance).
I was guided to a daily morning Ashtanga Mysore practice six mornings per week to burn out the samskaras and refresh myself through trials and tribulations of physical asana and spiritual awareness, mirroring my life's edges where I grow.
Through fatigue, I see goodness in moments, and build intentions while I transform strong emotions into personal power. Giving somatic attention to the energy in the body, alongside introspection about the intricate workings of our anatomical structures, subtle body energies and the mind and body interwoven as one has allowed me to evolve through various life challenges and junctures. I've captured many lessons in a self-led healing series (an Independent Study as part of my M.A.).
These are amongst the many reasons why I became a yoga teacher, to pass along the powerful gifts of yoga. Everything in our body is a reflection of what's going on within us. I want to teach people to integrate all of who they are.
Parivrtta Surya Yantrasana, Sundial pose (Image © Robin Ellen Lucas)