When I had my admissions interview for Fuqua’s MMS program, one of the things that I said I wanted to do was teach yoga to the program. Yoga has always been a passion of mine. Growing up, I went to classes with my parents and slowly began to fall in love with it. Not only is yoga a great workout, it also gave me space to forget about everything else happening outside of the room for those 60 minutes.

My Goal to Teach Yoga

Because of how much I loved it, I decided to become a certified yoga sculpt instructor in the spring of my sophomore year at Notre Dame. The 50-hour training was something that I really looked forward to and enabled me to dive deeper into the practice of yoga. We learned everything from the different poses, to when to inhale and exhale, to which muscles were being used, and even what tempo music we should have for each section of class. From this training, I knew that yoga was something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life and share with others! It grounds me and provides me with benefits I want to share within the Duke community.

When it came to teaching a class for my MMS classmates, it was fairly simple. I had a meeting with MMS Program Director Allie McClarnon toward the end of our first fall term, and we just happened to talk about yoga. When she found out I was an instructor, we knew that we had to bring it to the Fuqua community. I learned the MMS program tries to sponsor a yoga class every year, but it’s not usually a current student teaching it. When Allie brought up the idea of me teaching a class, I immediately agreed. I couldn’t believe I was going to achieve my goal of teaching yoga for MMS after just two months in Durham.

Stretching Our Comfort Zones

On the day of the class, we had about 25 people sign up and make it to their mats outdoors on the patio. While a lot of the participants were my friends, I was also able to meet some of my other classmates and administrators that I had only had minimal interactions with. The class was a great way for people to step out of their comfort zone and enabled me to share my passion for yoga with them.

At Fuqua, we’re always being pushed out of our comfort zone and encouraged to branch out from our usual activities. I knew it was going to be a fun experience for everyone involved and had to take advantage of the opportunity I was given to teach something I love! I’m looking forward to teaching more classes for MMS students, faculty and staff in the spring.