Garden of Yoga Blog 1/19/25
I was born and raised in Los Angeles and grew up surfing Malibu and Topanga. Topanga Canyon is just a few blocks from my yoga studio Garden of Yoga.
I’ve been teaching yoga for 24 years and I’ve had many clients and still do living, working and raising kids in the Pacific Palisades. What an amazing and beautiful community devastated last week by the worst fires I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, especially in my hometown.
I’ve been surfing my entire life and I’m very familiar with the Santa Ana winds. When the wind warnings were posted and they mentioned it could be a deadly wind event it wasn’t surprising.
On Tuesday morning January 7th, I was preparing to go to the Pacific Palisades to teach one of my longest standing private clients and friends Rick. He was down in Manhattan Beach and mentioned that we would be meeting up at his house around 1 PM. We both were aware that the wind was really bad so we were planning to get there a bit early to avoid any traffic issues which are common in Los Angeles.
We spoke around 10 AM to confirm our session at around 10:15 I jumped in my car to go grab some food. For some reason 1070 KNX was on a.m. radio, and I pulled away from my house and “ breaking news” there was a small brushfire in the Pacific Palisades that started at 10:30am.
Within 30 minutes, the fire had spread so quickly my biggest fear, the combination of hurricane force winds and a quickly moving fire in a densely populated area is the worst possible scenario.
At 11:45 AM I called Rick back and said I’m not coming. This looks like a really dangerous situation that’s formulating. We both agreed and decided to stay in touch via phone throughout the day.
Several days of fires 🔥 with the most extreme wind, no rain since April 2024 and no ability to fly aircraft was the worst scenario. The rest is history.
As the fires ragged closer to our home and yoga studio, my family made the decision to pack up and leave town. I could feel my mental health wavering as we were all glued to the news and the app “Watch Duty”.
We began to receive a flood of messages and calls from family and friends offering us a safe space. We’d like to thank everyone who reached out from Washington to San Diego it was truly overwhelming the love and support. As a family we decided to pack up and head out.
We spent the next three days in San Diego monitoring the fire situation in Los Angeles. Thank you to our San Diego community for your kindness, generosity and compassion opening your doors and bringing us into a safe space Just to be able to breathe fresh air was a gift. The love and support we received from complete strangers was an indication of the heartfelt compassion we all have as human beings.
We decided on Sunday morning the 12th it was safe to return to Los Angeles and see what our community needed most and how we could be of service.
We are extremely grateful that our neighborhood is still thankfully in tact. We count our blessings and turn our attention to how we can help others in our community.
For those of you who are First Responders ⛑️ or those of you that lost your home to the devastating wildfires we are offering donation yoga. We offer in person and zoom yoga. Please email me at info@gardenofyoga.com. and I can add you to the list or let me know you’re coming in person. I look forward to meeting you.