Jerica Rossi is our Wizard of Oz behind the curtain!

She supports WYC in scheduling classes, workshops, retreats, she runs the marketing for emails and social media, and she makes sure our community is taken care of! And she does all of this from several states over! We are so excited to have Jerica as our Featured Staff Member of the Season. Thank you, Jerica, for everything you do!

Our fabulous Jake interviewed Jerica! Take a look and a listen in the video below!

 

Tell me about your experience with yoga: how it began, where it has taken you, and how yoga has impacted your life.

My love for yoga began while I was interning at a sustainable living center in Thailand, where I was learning earthen building and organic farming after college. One of the other interns offered morning sessions in this gorgeous cob building as the sun was rising- and I remember feeling like I’d never been taller and more present; it felt like it’d cracked me open to more joy and strength. Since then, my mat and practice has always been somewhere to turn and I’ve loved taking it around the country and world on my travels, as it’s something that I feel enhances my embrace of a place. I moved around for the majority of my twenties, so yoga was also a place to feel at home while exploring and something to share with new friends along the way. Over the past few years, I’ve found myself interested in the philosophical side of yoga, energy work, Ayurveda, chakra healing, and expanding my flexibility. It’s a journey that will always be unfolding.

What are your favorite styles of yoga / classes?

I’ll take my yoga yummy, relaxing, challenging flexibly, or explorative. Hot yoga has been a great medicine during the winter, and restorative during the planting and harvesting seasons, but a fluid vinyasa with some great beats is my dessert- ya know, when you’re really IN the rhythm.

What’s your favorite pose and why?

I was a headstand junkie as a kid, and have always loved hanging about in Tree Pose, but ultimately it’s Goddess Pose. I love rocking it out and stretching my hips. It’s a pose that makes me feel like I’m aligned with my power.

What do you do when you’re not practicing yoga?

My partner and I live on a homestead and sell organic produce – so we’re always getting in the soil, going to market, trying a new dish in the kitchen, finding a way to process whatever we have that’s about to go to waste, or planning a little getaway. We live along a creek in the forest, so creek walks, wildcrafting, forest bathing and hammocking are always in order- unless I’m busy at work on the computer for Waynesville Yoga Center 🙂

Tell me something funny or unexpected about you.

I speak Indonesian and have lived, traveled, and studied on several of the archipelago’s islands. Around 23, I became fascinated by Jane Goodall and the great apes, which inspired me to go to Sumatra to see the critically endangered Orangutan. One of my fondest memories in Indonesia was hiking through the dense jungle, nervous that I might not catch a glimpse of the elusive creature in the wild. I began repelling down a waterfall and when I looked up there was a mama and baby on a limb watching me with their big ole human-like eyes- and then kissed. It was magical.