The room was warm and filled to the brim last night at Emily Dillof’s Jivamukti class. This was the second time I had been and I am addicted. She really gets us going with her calm demeanor, as she traverses bodies and sweat, adjusting, reminding, calling out new positions, encouraging us to hold on for one more breath and showing us how we can go deeper.

Emily was once a family lawyer in Arizona and she found herself so stressed by her work, both physically and mentally, that she turned to yoga. Her life was changed. She left her work, became a yoga teacher and moved to San Francisco. She commands the room with a quiet strength that I sometimes imagine was born from her years of practice as a lawyer. She seems to have really found her groove in this practice and she invites us to do the same, find our place in it, breathe into it, and own it on our mats.

For the past couple of weeks, Emily has been lifting from the yoga sutras, sharing information about the importance of being compassionate with others. She reminds us how compassion has a ripple effect and kindness to one means kindness to many.

Emily also reminds us to work hard, moving through asanas at a quick pace, holding plank, dipping down for chatarunga, and later, deftly moving into triangle, warrior two and then warrior three. In each moment, we are using the breath to deepen a pose, like say, bind when doing revolved side angle pose (aka Parivrtta Parsvakonasana!).  By the time we get to Shavasana, we feel we’ve earned it.

Along with her calm and clear voice, Emily plays music that gets us excited to move. With the dim lights, the candles, the music, the breath, the heart beating and the mind calming with movement, it makes for a very liberating class. And that’s no surpise, Jivamukti is sanscrit for “living liberated” and when we walk out of Emily’s Sunday night class we feel a little freer than when we came in.