M. Alex
Wainright

I work in tech. I have for 15 years. I sit at a desk most of the day, the same as a lot of the people I work with, and I feel it in my neck and shoulders pretty much every week. That part hasn't changed.

What changed was how I respond to it. At 24 I woke up one morning and couldn't turn my neck. I had never been someone who moved, never been athletic, tried and hated 90-minute hot yoga, never thought much about my body until it stopped cooperating. My chiropractor, Dr. Nicholas Stamoulos, got me functional again, but he was clear that if I didn't start building some kind of movement practice the same thing would keep happening. A few coworkers in Houston convinced me to try yoga at lunch. Something shifted, more attention to movement and breath, less hiting a pose and rigid movement ideas.

I found a home at two studios in Houston. BIG for the grit and community, and Yoga Better for the precise and small and cumulative. Not about flexibility or sweat, about understanding what you're actually doing with your body. A single movement from one of Andrew's or Nancy's classes would stay with me for months. I kept going back.

The pain didn't disappear cleanly. Ski injuries, physical therapy, months of setbacks. But I kept practicing, kept learning, and started to understand the difference between pain that means something is wrong and pain that is just your nervous system being cautious. That distinction, which I first heard from the work of Peter O'Sullivan, changed how I thought about movement entirely.

I teach eight classes a week across five venues right now. I still work in tech. I still sit at a desk every day. That's not incidental — it's the whole point. I'm not someone who solved this and moved on. I'm someone who manages it continuously and has built enough tools to do that well, and I teach those tools.

I got my first 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) through Nancy Perry, Sarah Montross, and Janan Araujo-Siam at BIG Power Yoga in 2022 and created a strong personal practice. I fell in love with teaching unexpectedly. After a move to Utah full time, I started teaching at Satori Hot Yoga under Louda Morales, and found my footing. Trained in Chair Yoga with Amanda Lawford, Sherry Zak Morris, and Justine Shelton. Wrapping all the yoga princlples together with a second 200-YTT under Andrew Dugas at Yoga Better summer 2025. In 2026, I am focusing on 1-on-1 sessions, and I have completed my Aromatherapy YTT (IISDT).