March Featured Yogi: Janette Guzman

​Follow Your Heart was the appropriate meeting place, a natural foods restaurant that embraces yogi living, for my lunch interview with Janette Ramirez, this month’s featured yogi.  
 
Thrilled to celebrate the completion of her 200-hour yoga teaching certification, Janette radiated with passion for the practice as she reminisced when her yoga practice began in 2011, her first class with us at North Hollywood YMCA.  Through the years, she discovered her favorite yoga pose, Warrior 2, became her progress meter on her yoga journey.  “I remember you (Michelle) used to always correct me because I would over-arch my lower back.  I was all over the place—physically and mentally.”  Over time and much practice, she re-trained her spine to find its upright direction in Warrior 2 and steadied her focus in yoga on and off the mat.  Similarly, she found grounding during major life transitions and awakened her desire to learn more about yoga and pursue teaching it. 
 
With a dreamy smile, she described the moment when she knew she had fallen in love with yoga. In Costa Rica on our yoga retreat, practicing walking yoga in the warm rain, our group gathered in a circle at the beach, “It felt very peaceful,” Janette remembers, “Yoga makes me realize what I want from life.  It got me by my feet and (rooted me) down (to earth).  Yoga is my medicine.  With yoga, I have a balanced life.   If I have a balanced life, I’m healthy.”