Odisa Walker
Who am I?
Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to be a teacher. I grew up in Los Angeles, California the middle child of three. My mother came to the United States from Colombia and my dad came from Peru. Both were in their early twenties. When I was very young my dad became very interested in meditation, yoga and finding a deeper meaning to life. My very first encounter with yoga was with my dad during this time. I can remember my dad practicing the physical postures of yoga and giggling hysterically as we tried to copy what he was doing. The initial teachings of yoga came from my dad, not only the asana (physical postures) but the philosophical teachings as well. He is my first and greatest teacher.
As a teenager and young adult I had no interest in yoga. I went to college and followed my dream of becoming an elementary school teacher. I graduated, the first person in my family to get a college degree and started teaching fourth grade soon after. I loved it and felt complete joy and fulfillment in my work. I left teaching after having my first child though and desperately missed the joy of teaching. During the years as a young mother I dabbled in yoga. I would take a class and then feel it was just too slow or boring for me. I became a fitness instructor and that helped somewhat to fill the void of being an elementary school teacher. For one hour I would lead the class and get a workout too! Eventually I stumbled into my first vinyasa yoga class. It was actually a combo step aerobics and yoga class at the Oakland YMCA! Strangely enough something clicked in that hour and I began my slow return to yoga again. Still it took me a few more years to start practicing regularly.
Once I started to practice vinyasa yoga regularly it was as if I started to remember all of my dad’s early teachings. The sense of calm I felt after a practice, the stillness. This feeling of contentment settled over me and I stopped feeling this constant need to go, go, go and do, do, do, and more, more, more. I had enough, I was enough. During this time I enrolled in a 200 hour teacher training. As I read about yoga for the first time studying it on my own I recognized the teachings of my father. His calm. His contentment. I had finally come back to this practice on my own. Of course once I became a teacher, I realized there were no yoga studios in Northern Virginia where I lived at the time. I opened a studio, then another. I studied with many different teachers. During this time along with my business partner we offered teacher trainings, retreats, workshops. We nurtured a yoga community together for 7 ½ years and then I realized I was done. I had done what I wanted to do and the community was thriving. I sold the yoga studios to my partner and came back to the Bay Area.
Once again I felt the call to slow down, listen and be still. I didn’t teach for almost a year. I practiced. I got quiet, listened then I decided I had to teach. I am a teacher. I always have been. So that’s what I do now. I share what I love. I feel the power of the breath combined with movement. I feel it’s healing power and I try to share that with my students.
“I just love everything about your teaching style...the flow, the intensity, the invitation always to honor oneself in that moment...and just the esssence of you that comes thru! Yesterday one of my favorite moments was your invitation to spread out the toes and watching you looking down at your own toes with what looked like curiosity and delight, like, how was that gonna go?... it just made me feel happy and delighted.
— Ajua, student