#i was fortunate enough to get a lot of locally-based scholarships that took care of me so i didnt need to work while studying

[musubiki]

im ngl noww that you say that you do art as a hobby, im just intrigued by how you are so confident and are able to have the free time to do it as a hobby...

i hope i didnt make a mistake taking art college ;; IM ROOTING FOR YOU TOO! its so luckily nowdays to have a job youre at least okay with but also have some really fun hobby on the side too

to one broke college student to another do u have any advice for future years? i ltrly just started college like 3 weeks ago

aaaa as far as time for the hobby goes, i actually only have that kinda time very recently (like over the summer and this semester).....if you noticed, i kinda dropped off for a year where i mustve only drawn like 10 things??? which is because last year was such a busy year for me in terms of work and courses...but this semester is better because im only in 3 classes: one doesnt have any exams and another im retaking (cuz i didnt pass the summer comp exam for it lol) so its all content ive seen before!! so this semester is a little easier and i can draw a bit more when i dont have homework or on the weekends!!!

as far as advice goes, (im not sure how art school works? or if youre in a normal university just majoring in art?) id say: take a lot of different classes to see what you like! explore different areas, and i think it might also be good to have like.....a contingency plan so to speak. like in my undergrad i got a minor in anthropology and almost got a certificate in accounting just so i had a little more options post-undergrad if the math major didnt work out!! so doing something like that is never a bad idea!!! (my undergrad program had a requirement to fulfill a certain amount of credits outside your major courses, so i used those to explore different things)

also dont be afraid to change if you feel you dont like your current path.....like i mentioned i was an astronomy major in undergrad first, and had wanted to go into astronomy since i was a kid, but found eventually it wasnt for me (i couldnt cut it in physics) and switched to something i wasnt SUPER passionate about, but i was good at it!! which was a huge decision for me and lowkey pretty risky (the fuck do you do with a math major?? everyone i asked they just replied "Oh you can do lots of things!" and never gave me an actual job title)

try to do summer internships if you can! as long as its financially feasible for you, itll make your resume a lot beefier when you graduate if employers/grad school see that you already have several experiences under your belt (and experience compounds on itself-- the more you have the more likely you are to get more!! for example here in my program, if you have more stats and coding experience coming in youre more likely to get more stats/coding assistantships, so you gain even more experience over the person who had no stats/coding experience prior and as a result got sent to be a TA or something. so the person who already had experience gets more experience and the person who didnt falls even further behind :') (me) )

networking is also important!!! since youre just in undergrad, i would recommend starting by talking to professors when you can. doesnt need to be like, going out of your way to go to their office hours and talk stories, but maybe chat a bit before/after class!! ask them how their weekend went, ask a dumb clarifying question!! i got to my current grad program because my professor came to me before class one day and said "I have a friend from [my current program] coming to recruit, you should go meet him." so be friendly with your professors so they get to know you and will pass on opportunities when they hear about them!!

a lot of professors get emails from all kinds of jobs/programs to the effect of "[place] is looking to recuit/hire" and they can pass those your way if youre on their radar!! and lastly work hard!!

(anyway this is advice i have based on my own experiences and what worked for me, it will most likely be different for you!! stay on top of your studies, but also force yourself to rest every so often!! I personally do not do any work on saterdays and try not to on sundays!! so i feel okay working hard the other nights of the week so i have two full days of rest....sacrifice your work-week free time for grades :') sometimes the best thing for your mental health is just getting the thing you dont wanna do out of the way!! good luck in uni!!!)

[yogaposesfortwo]

Meet Hollywood's Favorite Yoga Teacher

Kirschen Katz is the go-to yoga teacher for many Hollywood A-listers, but her most fulfilling work—teaching kids—comes after the school bell rings. Lindsay Tucker: How did you transition into becoming a yoga teacher? Kirschen Katz: When I was 34 years old, I was trying to become an actress in Los Angeles, and I had many, many jobs. I have been practicing yoga since 1989. I come from a running background—competitive runner at 12 years old, full athletic scholarship. I just always ran, and really was not competing anymore but started to breakdown. So I ended up getting into a yoga practice on my mother's recommendation in 1989. I did my first class with Steve Ross, one of the godfathers of yoga in Los Angeles. I practiced yoga until ’96, and then I was able to take a year off and think about what it is I wanted to do. I decided to become a yoga teacher, and I did teacher training. That's my pre-divorce—I go pre-divorce and post-divorce—pre-divorce was teaching, but I was in a financial life where I didn't have to really struggle. And then he moved me to Hawaii, and my marriage ended there. LT: So how did you end up working with actors? KK: I came back to LA, and I really had to boogie to make a living. I was really lucky to be in the right place and open to abundance—that was my mantra after my marriage crumbled. I had signed a prenup and was left very little money. Anyway, I came back to LA, and I was in my hairdresser's salon, and there was a Hollywood wife there, and she said, “Come and teach me yoga.” Through her I met Jenny Belushi—who was married to Jim Belushi, the actor—and Shannon Rotenberg, whose husband ran a management production company. And so then these women (and this is now in 2005), they introduced me to just wonderful women in the entertainment business, and one of them introduced me to Julia Roberts. And then the other one introduced me to Reese Witherspoon. I never went back to teaching classes. I just settled into the private yoga world. I tapped into this niche of, you know, Hollywood and entertainment people, and it's all referral base, as you can imagine, and it's about trust. It's a lot of yoga therapy and just really listening to people. I've incorporated running with some of my clients, so for maybe 30 minutes of the private, we’re walking, running—we're doing more of the therapy session—and then the other 30 minutes is yoga. It's not always that way. A lot of clients just want their yoga, but I have been in so many different situations. I've had the royals from Liechtenstein. I've had royals from Abu Dhabi. But I am also a secret, because I am not really involved in the Los Angeles yoga scene. I know the players in it, but it's like I'm just kind of doing my own thing. See also 10 Business Secrets to Starting a Successful Yoga Career LT: You work with the Just Keep Livin Foundation teaching yoga as an after-school program in inner city schools. Is that just straight yoga, or are you involved in other ways? KK: Last year, they asked me to go in and tell my story. It's a story. I grew up with the Nazi- loving father, and I had to heil Hitler until I was older. I didn't know what it was. I grew up in Upstate New York. My mother was loving, but she had no voice. She had no self-esteem. And the father—I refer to him as “the father” and not my father—he grew up a Hitler youth, and I grew up in a very violent, verbally and physically abusive home. My inspirational story of transformation is something that I want to share with these students, so I go into the schools and I share it. We practice yoga, we talk about my story, and then we have a gratitude circle. But getting back to growing up, yeah, I changed, a violent verbally abusive traumatic childhood and I got out. Running was something that helped me, and yoga was something that helped me process trauma.

LT: And how has yoga helped you process your trauma? KK: I process it by being still. PTSD comes from war, but it can come from abuse as well. I had tremendous anxiety. I had dyslexia. Nobody ever took me to a doctor or therapist, so I was always running on Cortisol and my adrenals were blown out. I was running 90 miles a week, highly competitive. My body fat was very low. I developed bulimia. I couldn't stand still long enough to tap into my consciousness. You know what I mean? Running is helpful to produce serotonin and dopamine, but yoga was what I needed to really slow down and tap into my breath and become quiet. Then I was able to approach . Yoga can bring up all your injuries and also all your mental anguish and trauma. See also A Yoga Therapist Shares the Truth About Trauma LT: What’s different when you’re solely a private yoga teacher? KK: You are in these homes and in these people's lives. I have been fortunate enough to have many of my clients for literally 14 years. I've gone through their children with them. I’ve gone through marriages. I have been to more bar and bat mitzvahs than I can share. You know these people intimately on an infinite level. You’re on their journey with them. But what is really nice for me is there are no distractions. It's one on one. I am solely focused on them. It's more intimate, and I love intimacy. I love having my clients feel vulnerable that maybe you can’t in a class. You can really devote this hour to their wellbeing and their healing or their nourishing. If you have a class of 30, 40, 80 people, you cannot really make anything individual. you really make it specific to them, what they are feeling that day. I show up and my clients could be crying, and you have to be flexible. I go there, I open the door, I’m invited in, and within a minute I read my clients and know what they need at that moment. That's a unique thing. I love that. Being vulnerable, and that's what I get. I get people on a path, trying to always improve themselves and grow. You get to share that and see that, see people evolve. Traveling with clients is really wonderful. Eat, Pray, Love, that was a great experience. I mean, really interesting. It was so nice to have Julia take me to India. LT: Can you share more about that experience? KK: She had been my client for a while. I got a phone call—I am going home on the freeway from my day—and she goes, “Pull over.” She’s like, “I’ve got this movie. It's Eat, Pray, Love.” I knew the book. I knew the book, and I love Elizabeth Gilbert. I was so happy I was going to have the experience with someone who actually wrote something I love to read. You know? I left for three months: one month in Rome, one month in India, and the best month in Bali. I left my clients, which was tricky. I left them with support yoga teachers. I took videos of them doing yoga, and I sent them to a local studios. India and Bali are otherworldly. Bali was a wonderful reward for India. India was very challenging. I have heard people say poverty is astounding, but it's way more than I thought it would be. But I embraced it all, and it ended up being wonderful. And the Bali portion was some of the most fun yoga. It’s funny—I work with these Oscareen actresses, but you forget who they are because you know them as Laura or Reese or Julia, and that whole other part of them is such a different part. They become so much more interesting when you get to know them aside from all that fame. LT: Tell us a little bit about your personal practice. KK: It's literally like 20 to 30 minutes a day, and I fit it in whenever I can. It's really just working on the poses. It changes daily; it changes with my mood, with whatever injury I am trying to avoid. I am not the most flexible person. If you looked at my Instagram, the most bearing pose that I can do, Natarajasana and Crow Pose, is strong. I have to be careful because running is very important to me, and I can't do anything where I blow anything out. I use my body for my career, my business, so I don’t ever try anything too daring. I do a lot of pranayama in my own practice, driving around Los Angeles, always doing pranayama counting. I do a lot of mantra and essential oils. Basically I do the practice similar to what I teach. So it's level 2. I love inversions, so I am constantly upside down. Like before this interview I just went upside down a couple of times to calm myself down. If I go three days without practice, I am hard to be around. See also 30-Minute Beginner Sequence to Reset Your Perspective on Life LT: What is the hardest thing about being a yoga teacher? KK: For me, the only downside is all the damn driving that I do—that's it. I put 25,000 miles a year on my car. I just drive a lot. But I love teaching yoga. I love doing it with my clients, and I don’t think about anything in my life. I'm present, and it's pure, and we are moving, breathing, and our breaths are in sync. I am really fortunate enough to teach yoga to people on a journey toward a beautiful life or enjoying a beautiful life or evolved people. I am grateful I have created this too. There is a deep sense of pride for having created this in a moment of trauma. I just came here wishing abundance not only for me but for everyone around me, and the universe presented me with this opportunity. I took advantage of it. I was very open for that. I believe yoga has really helped me to manifest this life I have. Author: Lindsay Tucker Source: https://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/kirschenkatz Discover more info about Yoga Poses for Two People here: www.yogaposesfortwo.com Read the full article

[drrjsb]

Bruce Banner Appreciation Week Day  3: Injury/Child 

“Before: Spring 1979″

Bruce is having issues at school, and Aunt Susan can’t get him to talk about it until she finds some sheet music that belonged to his mother.

If there was one thing Susan Banner hated, it was going through the boxes that had arrived about six months after her sister-in-law Rebecca Banner’s death. As far as the military was concerned, the case had been closed when her brother had been admitted to a mental hospital hundreds of miles away, unfit to stand trial, so there was no reason for the police nor the military to hold the broken pieces of the family’s lives that did not pertain directly to the case any longer. When the officer arrived with two MPs and a half-loaded van, Bruce had been at school, so she’d locked the boxes away safely in a basement storage room, reasoning that Bruce didn’t need to run across them while he was getting settled into a routine. The military had packed the boxes up room by room, but sometimes there would be an odd item packed up randomly because someone hadn’t known what to do with a stray book or a coffee mug.

She was tackling a box one night a week and separating out the obvious junk from things Bruce might later like to have. Unfortunately, a lot of his mother’s possessions had been damaged or destroyed when Brian Banner had barricaded himself in the house for a few hours before the police were able to talk him out. He’d made good use of his last hours of freedom ripping up her clothes, breaking all the mirrors, throwing a sewing machine down the staircase, ruining a piano with a set of golf clubs, and upending every drawer and shelf in the kitchen. That sarcastic voice in the back of Susan’s head hoped it had been cathartic for her brother, but Susan sincerely doubted that was so. She as still having trouble reconciling the protective big brother she knew from childhood with the narcissistic monster he became, following down their own father’s violent path.

As a result, here she was late on a Friday evening wearily tackling an unlabeled box from Dayton after Bruce was settled upstairs in bed, ragdoll tucked in with him while the model solar system he’d designed glowed dimly as planets on a clockwork device circled the ceiling. It had been a rough day at school for him, and he’d had a scrape on his cheek when she’d picked him up at the elementary. Her instinct was to march him right back in and talk to the teacher, but he’d begged her not to do it. Against her better judgment, she’d backed off, and they drove home in tense silence.

Bruce’s aunt reasoned she could always talk to the woman later, teacher to teacher. Susan taught music at the local high school since she’d stepped down as Division Head to have more time with Bruce. She’d started college on scholarship as a piano performance major with big dreams and plenty of ambition, but reality hit once her cantankerous father was left an invalid after a stroke. That meant she’d given up dreams of being a concert pianist and switched over to an education track. Fortunately, she’d been able to get through college on work study, grants, and teaching piano lessons on the side, so she hadn’t needed much help from her older brother Brian who was already making good money working on a government contract in New Mexico. She’d continued her education to earn an MA and now she had her PhD and tenure. Thus, she could support her nephew comfortably without touching the survivor benefits or insurance money Bruce had received or the remunerations from his father’s work. That money she saved, so he would be able to attend the Science Academy in a few years and then, presumably, the best universities. Who knew, he might focus his talents in an entirely different direction? Whatever it might be, she’d be there to support him.

Susan had found her sister-in-law’s sheet music in a satchel at the bottom of the box and immediately knew what a potential treasure this was. She had just started teaching Bruce beginning piano, and he was taking to it well. She spread the books and smaller pieces out across the top of her Baldwin baby grand to see what Rebecca had liked to play. “You had such a pretty voice, Becky. Now, what did you play besides church music and hymns?” Susan murmured to herself. There were a couple of collections of show tunes and a Disney anthology. The rest were advanced classical studies from Rebecca’s student days and a variety of single song sheets that had been popular back ten or more years before: quite the mixed bag, Susan decided. The teacher thumbed through the selections from musicals and noticed some works from Camelot were well marked. For some reason, that didn’t surprise her. She’d look at those later.

The Disney collection immediately fell open to “Baby Mine,” so she placed the book on the music stand and sat down on the bench to try sight reading the chords. She had gotten through the base clef with her left hand and started to put it with the melody when she looked up and saw Bruce standing in the doorway like a little revenant in pajamas with his goofy ragdoll Guardian in tow. Susan smiled and patted the piano bench beside her, and he shyly came in and sat down on her right. He’d been in bed an hour, so she’d accidentally woken him up. Understandably, he looked a little dazed.

“I . . . I dreamed I heard Mom, but I guess it was you playing,” he said sleepily. Susan could hear a bit of disappointment in his voice. Poor kid! You should have waited, scolded the voice in her head.

“Did she play this for you?” His aunt asked as she went over the first line.

“Yes. She sang it to me when I was really little.” He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed in that weighty way he had, reminding Susan of a much older soul. “She’d play it when things didn’t go well, too.” His aunt really hoped he’d be ready to talk because Bruce had been completely silent and disengaged at dinner and retreated to his room afterward.

“Like today?” Susan asked as she continued quietly to play the song for him.

“Yah.”

“Can you tell me what happened today?” she coaxed.

He swallowed hard before he replied. “Not much. Some older kids were picking on people after school, and Guardian came out.”

“Not your Guardian? Do you mean the janitor or the maintenance man came out of the building?” Susan was a bit confused.

“No,” Bruce hugged his doll closer. “Guardian only comes out when he really has to.”

Okay, this was odd. She knew the principal, the maintenance crew, and the janitor, but that wasn’t one of their names. Susan frowned, knowing the doll had been left at home resting on his bed today like always. What could he mean? “What did Guardian do?”

“He took his hand like this,” Bruce showed her the heel of his left hand, “and he hit the biggest kid in the nose.” He demonstrated a martial arts-like upward strike for her.

Susan stopped playing and placed her full attention on her nephew. “This happened outside the school while you waited on me? Did any teachers see it? What happened to the boy?”

Bruce shook his head. “No teachers were there. We were on the playground. The boy cried and his nose bled a lot, but the big kids all left. I think they were too embarrassed to tell. The other kids cheered though.” The smallest smile flitted across his face. He seemed just a wee bit proud of that.

“Why didn’t you tell me when I picked you up?”

“Guardian took care of it. He . . . he didn’t want you to worry,” Bruce trailed off. Susan wasn’t sure what to think. He looked up at her, and she swore for a moment she was looking into his mother’s green eyes, and then it was gone. “Could you please play the song again, Aunt Susan?”

What a little con! “All right. Can you help me sing?” He nodded and smiled up at her, so she played it and sang with him.

Baby mine, don't you cry.

Baby mine, dry your eyes.

Rest your head close to my heart,

Never to part, baby of mine.

Little one, when you play,

Pay no heed what they say.

Let your eyes sparkle and shine,

Never a tear, baby of mine.

If they knew all about you,

They'd end up loving you, too.

All those same people who scold you,

What they'd give just for the right to hold you.

From your hair down to your toes,

You're so much, goodness knows.

And, you're so precious to me,

Sweet as can be, baby of mine.

By the end, he’d snuggled closer to her, and she wrapped her arm around him. “This is your song, hmm?”

“It used to be.”

“It could still be yours.”

“I don’t cry anymore.”

“But it would be okay if you did.”

“No. I don’t let people hurt me anymore, so I don’t cry. If you cry, they win.” She’d learned Bruce could be very stubborn. He’d gather his data and mull things over, but once his mind was set on a course of action, he was quite adamant.

“Like the kids at school?” she guessed.

“No. Well, yes, but I don’t care about them. They never will get me to cry. They’re a waste of time.” He paused for a moment to think. “If I don’t feel something, I can’t be hurt or sad; therefore, I won’t cry.”

“So, you’re saying if you don’t feel anything, you think you won’t be hurt?”

“Right. I don’t want to feel or be hurt, at least not at school. Maybe most of the time when I’m not at home.”

“Do you feel something for me?” she asked, a little afraid of the answer.

“Of course, I do, Aunt Susan!” Bruce threw his arms tightly around her torso, and she hugged him close, feeling relieved. “I’ve known you my whole life. I know you love me.” Yet, she suspected she knew what he’d meant. The boy was armored up to not let himself feel for anyone, at least no one new, and she wasn’t sure how to convince him he should do otherwise.

The friends he did have were older and shared his interests in computers and electronics or astronomy or chemistry. The only friend Bruce had who was near his age was his cousin Jennifer who’d had a standing library date with him on Saturdays for the past nine months or so. Would these connections be enough? The boy just didn’t seem interested in expanding his circle at all. She hugged him close. “Do you want to play this piece on your own sometime?”

“Yes,” he said and straightened up, reaching out to touch the keys and slowly beginning to figure out the right-hand melody. “I want to play this for my child someday, but I want the words to be different.”

“Happier?”

“Yes, I want her or him to be happier than me.”

“Bruce, I want you to be happy. I know you’ve been deeply hurt, but one day you will be ready to take a chance again because the rewards are so worthwhile. There are going to be people worth knowing and loving who will come into your life.” She grinned, “How do you expect to have children one day if you don’t find someone to fall in love with?”

He didn’t respond immediately. “I guess you’re right, but if you know this, why aren’t you married?”

What a little stinker! “I was always busy with school or my job, so I never found the right person, but then it didn’t matter because you came into my life. I would rather that bad things didn’t happen to your family, but at least we both get a second chance.”

[cedarrrun]

Kirschen Katz is the go-to yoga teacher for many Hollywood A-listers, but her most fulfilling work—teaching kids—comes after the school bell rings.

Lindsay Tucker: How did you transition into becoming a yoga teacher?

Kirschen Katz: When I was 34 years old, I was trying to become an actress in Los Angeles, and I had many, many jobs. I have been practicing yoga since 1989. I come from a running background—competitive runner at 12 years old, full athletic scholarship. I just always ran, and really was not competing anymore but started to breakdown. So I ended up getting into a yoga practice on my mother's recommendation in 1989. I did my first class with Steve Ross, one of the godfathers of yoga in Los Angeles. I practiced yoga until ’96, and then I was able to take a year off and think about what it is I wanted to do. I decided to become a yoga teacher, and I did teacher training. That's my pre-divorce—I go pre-divorce and post-divorce—pre-divorce was teaching, but I was in a financial life where I didn't have to really struggle. And then he moved me to Hawaii, and my marriage ended there.

Photo by Diana Ragland

LT: So how did you end up working with actors?

KK: I came back to LA, and I really had to boogie to make a living. I was really lucky to be in the right place and open to abundance—that was my mantra after my marriage crumbled. I had signed a prenup and was left very little money. Anyway, I came back to LA, and I was in my hairdresser's salon, and there was a Hollywood wife there, and she said, “Come and teach me yoga.” Through her I met Jenny Belushi—who was married to Jim Belushi, the actor—and Shannon Motenburg, whose husband ran a management production company. And so then these women (and this is now in 2005), they introduced me to just wonderful women in the entertainment business, and one of them introduced me to Julia Roberts. And then the other one introduced me to Reese Witherspoon.

I never went back to teaching classes. I just settled into the private yoga world. I tapped into this niche of, you know, Hollywood and entertainment people, and it's all referral base, as you can imagine, and it's about keeping people’s secrets, about trust. It's a lot of yoga therapy and just really listening to people. I've incorporated running with some of my clients, so for maybe 30 minutes of the private, we’re walking, running—we're doing more of the therapy session—and then the other 30 minutes is yoga. It's not always that way. A lot of clients just want their yoga, but I have been in so many different situations. I've had the royals from Liechtenstein. I've had royals from Abu Dhabi. But I am also a secret, because I am not really involved in the Los Angeles yoga scene. I know the players in it, but it's like I'm just kind of doing my own thing.

See also 10 Business Secrets to Starting a Successful Yoga Career

LT: You work with the Just Keep Livin Foundation teaching yoga as an after-school program in inner city schools. Is that just straight yoga, or are you involved in other ways?

KK: Last year, they asked me to go in and tell my story. It's a story. I grew up with the Nazi- loving father, and I had to heil Hitler until I was older. I didn't know what it was. I grew up in Upstate New York. My mother was loving, but she had no voice. She had no self-esteem. And the father—I refer to him as “the father” and not my father—he grew up a Hitler youth, and I grew up in a very violent, verbally and physically abusive home.

My inspirational story of transformation is something that I want to share with these students, so I go into the schools and I share it. We practice yoga, we talk about my story, and then we have a gratitude circle. But getting back to growing up, yeah, I changed, a violent verbally abusive traumatic childhood and I got out. Running was something that helped me, and yoga was something that helped me process trauma.

Katz leading a Just Keep Livin Foundation yoga class

LT: And how has yoga helped you process your trauma?

KK: I process it by being still. PTSD comes from war, but it can come from abuse as well. I had tremendous anxiety. I had dyslexia. Nobody ever took me to a doctor or therapist, so I was always running on Cortisol and my adrenals were blown out. I was running 90 miles a week, highly competitive. My body fat was very low. I developed bulimia. I couldn't stand still long enough to tap into my consciousness. You know what I mean?

Running is helpful to produce serotonin and dopamine, but yoga was what I needed to really slow down and tap into my breath and become quiet. Then I was able to approach [the trauma]. Yoga can bring up all your injuries and also all your mental anguish and trauma.

See also A Yoga Therapist Shares the Truth About Trauma

LT: What’s different when you’re solely a private yoga teacher?

KK: You are in these homes and in these people's lives. I have been fortunate enough to have many of my clients for literally 14 years. I've gone through their children with them. I’ve gone through [their] marriages. I have been to more bar and bat mitzvahs than I can share. You know these people intimately on an infinite level. You’re on their journey with them. But what is really nice for me is there are no distractions. It's one on one. I am solely focused on them. It's more intimate, and I love intimacy. I love having my clients feel vulnerable [in a way] that maybe you can’t in a class. You can really devote this hour to their wellbeing and their healing or their nourishing.

If you have a class of 30, 40, 80 people, you cannot really make anything individual. [With private lessons,] you really make it specific to them, what they are feeling that day. I show up and my clients could be crying, and you have to be flexible. I go there, I open the door, I’m invited in, and within a minute I read my clients and know what they need at that moment. That's a unique thing. I love that. Being vulnerable, and that's what I get. I get people on a path, trying to always improve themselves and grow. You get to share that and see that, see people evolve. Traveling with clients is really wonderful. Eat, Pray, Love, that was a great experience. I mean, really interesting. It was so nice to have Julia take me to India.

LT: Can you share more about that experience?

KK: She had been my client for a while. I got a phone call—I am going home on the freeway from my day—and she goes, “Pull over.” She’s like, “I’ve got this movie. It's Eat, Pray, Love.” I knew the book. I knew the book, and I love Elizabeth Gilbert. I was so happy I was going to have the experience with someone who actually wrote something I love to read. You know?

I left for three months: one month in Rome, one month in India, and the best month in Bali. I left my clients, which was tricky. I left them with support yoga teachers. I took videos of them doing yoga, and I sent them to a local studios.

India and Bali are otherworldly. Bali was a wonderful reward for India. India was very challenging. I have heard people say poverty [there] is astounding, but it's way more than I thought it would be. But I embraced it all, and it ended up being wonderful. And the Bali portion was some of the most fun yoga.

It’s funny—I work with these Oscareen actresses, but you forget who they are because you know them as Laura or Reese or Julia, and that whole other part of them is such a different part. They become so much more interesting when you get to know them aside from all that fame.

LT: Tell us a little bit about your personal practice.

KK: It's literally like 20 to 30 minutes a day, and I fit it in whenever I can. It's really just working on the poses. It changes daily; it changes with my mood, with whatever injury I am trying to avoid. I am not the most flexible person. If you looked at my Instagram, the most bearing pose that I can do, Natarajasana and Crow Pose, is strong. I have to be careful because running is very important to me, and I can't do anything where I blow anything out. I use my body for my career, my business, so I don’t ever try anything too daring. I do a lot of pranayama in my own practice, driving around Los Angeles, always doing pranayama counting. I do a lot of mantra and essential oils. Basically I do the practice similar to what I teach. So it's level 2. I love inversions, so I am constantly upside down. Like before this interview I just went upside down a couple of times to calm myself down. If I go three days without practice, I am hard to be around.

See also 30-Minute Beginner Sequence to Reset Your Perspective on Life

LT: What is the hardest thing about being a yoga teacher?

KK: For me, the only downside is all the damn driving that I do—that's it. I put 25,000 miles a year on my car. I just drive a lot. But I love teaching yoga. I love doing it with my clients, and I don’t think about anything in my life. I'm present, and it's pure, and we are moving, breathing, and our breaths are in sync. I am really fortunate enough to teach yoga to people on a journey toward a beautiful life or enjoying a beautiful life or evolved people. I am grateful I have created this too. There is a deep sense of pride for having created this in a moment of trauma. I just came here wishing abundance not only for me but for everyone around me, and the universe presented me with this opportunity. I took advantage of it. I was very open for that. I believe yoga has really helped me to manifest this life I have.

[amyddaniels]

Meet Hollywood's Favorite Yoga Teacher

Kirschen Katz is the go-to yoga teacher for many Hollywood A-listers, but her most fulfilling work—teaching kids—comes after the school bell rings.

Lindsay Tucker: How did you transition into becoming a yoga teacher?

Kirschen Katz: When I was 34 years old, I was trying to become an actress in Los Angeles, and I had many, many jobs. I have been practicing yoga since 1989. I come from a running background—competitive runner at 12 years old, full athletic scholarship. I just always ran, and really was not competing anymore but started to breakdown. So I ended up getting into a yoga practice on my mother's recommendation in 1989. I did my first class with Steve Ross, one of the godfathers of yoga in Los Angeles. I practiced yoga until ’96, and then I was able to take a year off and think about what it is I wanted to do. I decided to become a yoga teacher, and I did teacher training. That's my pre-divorce—I go pre-divorce and post-divorce—pre-divorce was teaching, but I was in a financial life where I didn't have to really struggle. And then he moved me to Hawaii, and my marriage ended there.

Photo by Diana Ragland

LT: So how did you end up working with actors?

KK: I came back to LA, and I really had to boogie to make a living. I was really lucky to be in the right place and open to abundance—that was my mantra after my marriage crumbled. I had signed a prenup and was left very little money. Anyway, I came back to LA, and I was in my hairdresser's salon, and there was a Hollywood wife there, and she said, “Come and teach me yoga.” Through her I met Jenny Belushi—who was married to Jim Belushi, the actor—and Shannon Motenburg, whose husband ran a management production company. And so then these women (and this is now in 2005), they introduced me to just wonderful women in the entertainment business, and one of them introduced me to Julia Roberts. And then the other one introduced me to Reese Witherspoon.

I never went back to teaching classes. I just settled into the private yoga world. I tapped into this niche of, you know, Hollywood and entertainment people, and it's all referral base, as you can imagine, and it's about keeping people’s secrets, about trust. It's a lot of yoga therapy and just really listening to people. I've incorporated running with some of my clients, so for maybe 30 minutes of the private, we’re walking, running—we're doing more of the therapy session—and then the other 30 minutes is yoga. It's not always that way. A lot of clients just want their yoga, but I have been in so many different situations. I've had the royals from Liechtenstein. I've had royals from Abu Dhabi. But I am also a secret, because I am not really involved in the Los Angeles yoga scene. I know the players in it, but it's like I'm just kind of doing my own thing.

See also 10 Business Secrets to Starting a Successful Yoga Career

LT: You work with the Just Keep Livin Foundation teaching yoga as an after-school program in inner city schools. Is that just straight yoga, or are you involved in other ways?

KK: Last year, they asked me to go in and tell my story. It's a story. I grew up with the Nazi- loving father, and I had to heil Hitler until I was older. I didn't know what it was. I grew up in Upstate New York. My mother was loving, but she had no voice. She had no self-esteem. And the father—I refer to him as “the father” and not my father—he grew up a Hitler youth, and I grew up in a very violent, verbally and physically abusive home.

My inspirational story of transformation is something that I want to share with these students, so I go into the schools and I share it. We practice yoga, we talk about my story, and then we have a gratitude circle. But getting back to growing up, yeah, I changed, a violent verbally abusive traumatic childhood and I got out. Running was something that helped me, and yoga was something that helped me process trauma.

Katz leading a Just Keep Livin Foundation yoga class

LT: And how has yoga helped you process your trauma?

KK: I process it by being still. PTSD comes from war, but it can come from abuse as well. I had tremendous anxiety. I had dyslexia. Nobody ever took me to a doctor or therapist, so I was always running on Cortisol and my adrenals were blown out. I was running 90 miles a week, highly competitive. My body fat was very low. I developed bulimia. I couldn't stand still long enough to tap into my consciousness. You know what I mean?

Running is helpful to produce serotonin and dopamine, but yoga was what I needed to really slow down and tap into my breath and become quiet. Then I was able to approach [the trauma]. Yoga can bring up all your injuries and also all your mental anguish and trauma.

See also A Yoga Therapist Shares the Truth About Trauma

LT: What’s different when you’re solely a private yoga teacher?

KK: You are in these homes and in these people's lives. I have been fortunate enough to have many of my clients for literally 14 years. I've gone through their children with them. I’ve gone through [their] marriages. I have been to more bar and bat mitzvahs than I can share. You know these people intimately on an infinite level. You’re on their journey with them. But what is really nice for me is there are no distractions. It's one on one. I am solely focused on them. It's more intimate, and I love intimacy. I love having my clients feel vulnerable [in a way] that maybe you can’t in a class. You can really devote this hour to their wellbeing and their healing or their nourishing.

If you have a class of 30, 40, 80 people, you cannot really make anything individual. [With private lessons,] you really make it specific to them, what they are feeling that day. I show up and my clients could be crying, and you have to be flexible. I go there, I open the door, I’m invited in, and within a minute I read my clients and know what they need at that moment. That's a unique thing. I love that. Being vulnerable, and that's what I get. I get people on a path, trying to always improve themselves and grow. You get to share that and see that, see people evolve. Traveling with clients is really wonderful. Eat, Pray, Love, that was a great experience. I mean, really interesting. It was so nice to have Julia take me to India.

LT: Can you share more about that experience?

KK: She had been my client for a while. I got a phone call—I am going home on the freeway from my day—and she goes, “Pull over.” She’s like, “I’ve got this movie. It's Eat, Pray, Love.” I knew the book. I knew the book, and I love Elizabeth Gilbert. I was so happy I was going to have the experience with someone who actually wrote something I love to read. You know?

I left for three months: one month in Rome, one month in India, and the best month in Bali. I left my clients, which was tricky. I left them with support yoga teachers. I took videos of them doing yoga, and I sent them to a local studios.

India and Bali are otherworldly. Bali was a wonderful reward for India. India was very challenging. I have heard people say poverty [there] is astounding, but it's way more than I thought it would be. But I embraced it all, and it ended up being wonderful. And the Bali portion was some of the most fun yoga.

It’s funny—I work with these Oscareen actresses, but you forget who they are because you know them as Laura or Reese or Julia, and that whole other part of them is such a different part. They become so much more interesting when you get to know them aside from all that fame.

LT: Tell us a little bit about your personal practice.

KK: It's literally like 20 to 30 minutes a day, and I fit it in whenever I can. It's really just working on the poses. It changes daily; it changes with my mood, with whatever injury I am trying to avoid. I am not the most flexible person. If you looked at my Instagram, the most bearing pose that I can do, Natarajasana and Crow Pose, is strong. I have to be careful because running is very important to me, and I can't do anything where I blow anything out. I use my body for my career, my business, so I don’t ever try anything too daring. I do a lot of pranayama in my own practice, driving around Los Angeles, always doing pranayama counting. I do a lot of mantra and essential oils. Basically I do the practice similar to what I teach. So it's level 2. I love inversions, so I am constantly upside down. Like before this interview I just went upside down a couple of times to calm myself down. If I go three days without practice, I am hard to be around.

See also 30-Minute Beginner Sequence to Reset Your Perspective on Life

LT: What is the hardest thing about being a yoga teacher?

KK: For me, the only downside is all the damn driving that I do—that's it. I put 25,000 miles a year on my car. I just drive a lot. But I love teaching yoga. I love doing it with my clients, and I don’t think about anything in my life. I'm present, and it's pure, and we are moving, breathing, and our breaths are in sync. I am really fortunate enough to teach yoga to people on a journey toward a beautiful life or enjoying a beautiful life or evolved people. I am grateful I have created this too. There is a deep sense of pride for having created this in a moment of trauma. I just came here wishing abundance not only for me but for everyone around me, and the universe presented me with this opportunity. I took advantage of it. I was very open for that. I believe yoga has really helped me to manifest this life I have.

[krisiunicornio]

Kirschen Katz is the go-to yoga teacher for many Hollywood A-listers, but her most fulfilling work—teaching kids—comes after the school bell rings.

Lindsay Tucker: How did you transition into becoming a yoga teacher?

Kirschen Katz: When I was 34 years old, I was trying to become an actress in Los Angeles, and I had many, many jobs. I have been practicing yoga since 1989. I come from a running background—competitive runner at 12 years old, full athletic scholarship. I just always ran, and really was not competing anymore but started to breakdown. So I ended up getting into a yoga practice on my mother's recommendation in 1989. I did my first class with Steve Ross, one of the godfathers of yoga in Los Angeles. I practiced yoga until ’96, and then I was able to take a year off and think about what it is I wanted to do. I decided to become a yoga teacher, and I did teacher training. That's my pre-divorce—I go pre-divorce and post-divorce—pre-divorce was teaching, but I was in a financial life where I didn't have to really struggle. And then he moved me to Hawaii, and my marriage ended there.

Photo by Diana Ragland

LT: So how did you end up working with actors?

KK: I came back to LA, and I really had to boogie to make a living. I was really lucky to be in the right place and open to abundance—that was my mantra after my marriage crumbled. I had signed a prenup and was left very little money. Anyway, I came back to LA, and I was in my hairdresser's salon, and there was a Hollywood wife there, and she said, “Come and teach me yoga.” Through her I met Jenny Belushi—who was married to Jim Belushi, the actor—and Shannon Motenburg, whose husband ran a management production company. And so then these women (and this is now in 2005), they introduced me to just wonderful women in the entertainment business, and one of them introduced me to Julia Roberts. And then the other one introduced me to Reese Witherspoon.

I never went back to teaching classes. I just settled into the private yoga world. I tapped into this niche of, you know, Hollywood and entertainment people, and it's all referral base, as you can imagine, and it's about keeping people’s secrets, about trust. It's a lot of yoga therapy and just really listening to people. I've incorporated running with some of my clients, so for maybe 30 minutes of the private, we’re walking, running—we're doing more of the therapy session—and then the other 30 minutes is yoga. It's not always that way. A lot of clients just want their yoga, but I have been in so many different situations. I've had the royals from Liechtenstein. I've had royals from Abu Dhabi. But I am also a secret, because I am not really involved in the Los Angeles yoga scene. I know the players in it, but it's like I'm just kind of doing my own thing.

See also 10 Business Secrets to Starting a Successful Yoga Career

LT: You work with the Just Keep Livin Foundation teaching yoga as an after-school program in inner city schools. Is that just straight yoga, or are you involved in other ways?

KK: Last year, they asked me to go in and tell my story. It's a story. I grew up with the Nazi- loving father, and I had to heil Hitler until I was older. I didn't know what it was. I grew up in Upstate New York. My mother was loving, but she had no voice. She had no self-esteem. And the father—I refer to him as “the father” and not my father—he grew up a Hitler youth, and I grew up in a very violent, verbally and physically abusive home.

My inspirational story of transformation is something that I want to share with these students, so I go into the schools and I share it. We practice yoga, we talk about my story, and then we have a gratitude circle. But getting back to growing up, yeah, I changed, a violent verbally abusive traumatic childhood and I got out. Running was something that helped me, and yoga was something that helped me process trauma.

Katz leading a Just Keep Livin Foundation yoga class

LT: And how has yoga helped you process your trauma?

KK: I process it by being still. PTSD comes from war, but it can come from abuse as well. I had tremendous anxiety. I had dyslexia. Nobody ever took me to a doctor or therapist, so I was always running on Cortisol and my adrenals were blown out. I was running 90 miles a week, highly competitive. My body fat was very low. I developed bulimia. I couldn't stand still long enough to tap into my consciousness. You know what I mean?

Running is helpful to produce serotonin and dopamine, but yoga was what I needed to really slow down and tap into my breath and become quiet. Then I was able to approach [the trauma]. Yoga can bring up all your injuries and also all your mental anguish and trauma.

See also A Yoga Therapist Shares the Truth About Trauma

LT: What’s different when you’re solely a private yoga teacher?

KK: You are in these homes and in these people's lives. I have been fortunate enough to have many of my clients for literally 14 years. I've gone through their children with them. I’ve gone through [their] marriages. I have been to more bar and bat mitzvahs than I can share. You know these people intimately on an infinite level. You’re on their journey with them. But what is really nice for me is there are no distractions. It's one on one. I am solely focused on them. It's more intimate, and I love intimacy. I love having my clients feel vulnerable [in a way] that maybe you can’t in a class. You can really devote this hour to their wellbeing and their healing or their nourishing.

If you have a class of 30, 40, 80 people, you cannot really make anything individual. [With private lessons,] you really make it specific to them, what they are feeling that day. I show up and my clients could be crying, and you have to be flexible. I go there, I open the door, I’m invited in, and within a minute I read my clients and know what they need at that moment. That's a unique thing. I love that. Being vulnerable, and that's what I get. I get people on a path, trying to always improve themselves and grow. You get to share that and see that, see people evolve. Traveling with clients is really wonderful. Eat, Pray, Love, that was a great experience. I mean, really interesting. It was so nice to have Julia take me to India.

LT: Can you share more about that experience?

KK: She had been my client for a while. I got a phone call—I am going home on the freeway from my day—and she goes, “Pull over.” She’s like, “I’ve got this movie. It's Eat, Pray, Love.” I knew the book. I knew the book, and I love Elizabeth Gilbert. I was so happy I was going to have the experience with someone who actually wrote something I love to read. You know?

I left for three months: one month in Rome, one month in India, and the best month in Bali. I left my clients, which was tricky. I left them with support yoga teachers. I took videos of them doing yoga, and I sent them to a local studios.

India and Bali are otherworldly. Bali was a wonderful reward for India. India was very challenging. I have heard people say poverty [there] is astounding, but it's way more than I thought it would be. But I embraced it all, and it ended up being wonderful. And the Bali portion was some of the most fun yoga.

It’s funny—I work with these Oscareen actresses, but you forget who they are because you know them as Laura or Reese or Julia, and that whole other part of them is such a different part. They become so much more interesting when you get to know them aside from all that fame.

LT: Tell us a little bit about your personal practice.

KK: It's literally like 20 to 30 minutes a day, and I fit it in whenever I can. It's really just working on the poses. It changes daily; it changes with my mood, with whatever injury I am trying to avoid. I am not the most flexible person. If you looked at my Instagram, the most bearing pose that I can do, Natarajasana and Crow Pose, is strong. I have to be careful because running is very important to me, and I can't do anything where I blow anything out. I use my body for my career, my business, so I don’t ever try anything too daring. I do a lot of pranayama in my own practice, driving around Los Angeles, always doing pranayama counting. I do a lot of mantra and essential oils. Basically I do the practice similar to what I teach. So it's level 2. I love inversions, so I am constantly upside down. Like before this interview I just went upside down a couple of times to calm myself down. If I go three days without practice, I am hard to be around.

See also 30-Minute Beginner Sequence to Reset Your Perspective on Life

LT: What is the hardest thing about being a yoga teacher?

KK: For me, the only downside is all the damn driving that I do—that's it. I put 25,000 miles a year on my car. I just drive a lot. But I love teaching yoga. I love doing it with my clients, and I don’t think about anything in my life. I'm present, and it's pure, and we are moving, breathing, and our breaths are in sync. I am really fortunate enough to teach yoga to people on a journey toward a beautiful life or enjoying a beautiful life or evolved people. I am grateful I have created this too. There is a deep sense of pride for having created this in a moment of trauma. I just came here wishing abundance not only for me but for everyone around me, and the universe presented me with this opportunity. I took advantage of it. I was very open for that. I believe yoga has really helped me to manifest this life I have.