Meet Kelsey Hopper

History

I come from a creative background. I studied the arts rather seriously since I was 4 and a little Suzuki music baby in a tiny town in the USA. Along with music studies I naturally studied dance which lead me to yoga. I remember my first yoga class at 13 years old was a hot yoga class with such a high level of expert teachers and practitioners. There was something so motivating and magical about being around true masters of an art form. I was also very young and had a big ego from my dance training which gave me the expectation that yoga would be easy for me. Oh boy how wrong I was! That first class was truly humbling and I wondered a few times in that class if this was how it would end for me: heart attack on the mat of a hot yoga class! The challenge of working through the poses and the heat made me feel alive and the euphoria of the savasana meditation was intoxicating. It was clear that there was something very special about this practice and I believe it helped shape my young mind to be enormously resilient. Since then, I have be practicing and teaching as much and as often as I can. To me a practice whether it's yoga or music or any other field is essential for our mental health, like making water for our minds. Disciplined creative practice keeps us flexible and adaptable.

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Music

I was always drawn to different sounds and experiencing the world with auditory sensation and I like to bring this part of my human experience into my classes. I will often begin and end class with binaural music and theta waves music which I think of as a massage for the brain. I often experiment very liberally with my playlists, always trying to match the music to the energy of the space, the group, and the sequence when I can. Music is very powerful, especially when it comes to motivating us to move so I spend a lot of time working on our class music.

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Intensity

With the yoga poses, I like to give students the option to discover their limitations and flirt with them. Wink Wink. I will always give you a full platter of poses and their depths for you to discover. I put my full trust into the students to decide how far to go and what is optimal for their bodies in each pose and class. This is the best way for you to develop trust with yourself and your body as well. We must take risks to learn and know ourselves.

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Style

I'll be honest, yoga can get kind of culty. I am not a fan of the great "lineages" of yoga teachers or following specific styles or schools of yoga. I would call myself a "non-dogmatic" teacher in the sense that I do not follow one guru or one teaching style and very impractically attempt to do them all. Diversity is the spice of life and I would never wish to deprive my students of new flavors.

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Philosophy

I believe there is an external universe where you can travel to beautiful exotic locations and meet many interesting people and have mind expanding experiences. I also believe in our internal