Kyle Kessenich grew up in Long Island but moved to Baltimore from Los Angeles just a few months after 9/11. Although she's a confessed former gym rat and spinning instructor, she's practiced yoga for as long as she can remember. "When I was little I used to watch my older brother twist himself into a pretzel, and balance in handstands on chairs and blocks. She discovered Bikram about six years ago.

 

Kyle started doing Bikram the very first day it was offered in Baltimore. She signed up for classes at the Cockeysville studio, and bought the first annual membership sold there. She was completely hooked, "I was the first to do 1000 classes in Baltimore." In her first year she took 387 classes! Nevertheless it was years before she decided to go to teacher training. While on a trip to Arizona, she was taking a Bikram class at a studio there. "Bob Floyd, who owned the Tucson studio, saw me practice, and told me I had a job if i went [to training]." Back home she was viewed as a senior student, and other students often came to her after class to talk about the practice. "Being a teacher is the most natural thing for me. I used to be a high school teacher and now I'm a parenting teacher in under-served communities in Baltimore, so teaching yoga is just another part of that."

 

"Bikram changed my life," avows Kyle. When she first moved to Baltimore she was single, working at home and totally isolated. "At this time in my life I was depressed and unhappy. I felt like I had lost myself when I moved here, and Bikram helped me find myself." As a woman she saw how it was strengthening her body image. "I was standing there watching myself in the mirror during practice, and I couldn't hide. I stopped seeing my thighs as ‘fat’, and saw them as “strong”. And by doing the yoga everyday, realizing that what I did yesterday in class may or may not be what I do today,  I learned that there is no permanence, things always change- good and bad. So now I don't hold onto anything. I know that things will change. Even with traffic or other daily stress, I just don't hold onto it anymore." She credits her practice with helping her soar. "I found my eagles in Bikram. Eagles don't fly with other birds."