A Los Altos native with 15-plus years of experience in the fitness industry has returned to the area to teach Yin yoga and coach somatics.
ElizaBeth Alexander, a professional somatic coach with a background in fitness and the healing arts, replanted her roots in Los Altos during the pandemic after 10 years running a fitness business in Santa Barbara. During that time, Alexander said she sold more than 100,000 copies of her online programs, trained celebrities and garnered national media attention.
Leaving what she called “a great community of colleagues and friends” in Santa Barbara, Alexander said returning to Los Altos was like “starting from scratch.”
The 2007 graduate of Mountain View High School added that “building some of those relationships has been a challenge, but it’s nice to feel like I’m rooting here in Los Altos again.”
Once settled, Alexander began studying somatics, which she described as “a body-centered approach to transformation.”
“And at the same time that happened, I started practicing Yin yoga,” she said, “and I realized like, what a great tool it was.”
Yin yoga differs from other forms of the exercise that people are probably more familiar with. While rooted in Indian culture, according to Alexander, it also has roots in traditional Chinese medicine and Taoist theory.
Alexander, who now teaches Yin yoga classes twice a week at Yoga of Los Altos, called it a “work in, more than a workout – like inner-size instead of exercise.” She described it as “gentle,” involving holding poses for three to five minutes on the ground, using the support of props, with the goal of relaxing deep into each stretch.
“It helps to turn on the autonomic nervous system or queue up the repair response of the autonomic nervous system,” said Alexander, who earned a bachelor’s degree in communications at UC Santa Barbara and minored in exercise and sport studies. “We slow down and we get still enough that all of the things that naturally happen in your body to support healing can actually start to happen, like your breath rate slows, your heart rate slows. It’s kind of meditative in that sense.”
Staying for the longer hold in each pose of Yin yoga impacts deeper tissues in the body, like connective tissue, joints and ligaments, according to Alexander. She added that the practice also works to balance the energy flow of the body. Alexander encouraged everyone to try it, but especially recommended it for those looking to improve their mobility and have better range of motion in their joints.
“I’ve realized what a great bridge it is to help people build more somatic awareness, or more body awareness,” Alexander said.
As a private somatic coach, Alexander said she “harnesses the intelligence of the body” to help people who feel stuck in different ways, forming stronger mind-body connections. Somatic coaching has many applications. One example Alexander gave is helping people show up more in leadership positions at work when they feel that their efforts aren’t being recognized.
“Instead of just being up here in the head, we actually practice relating with and getting information from our nervous system, from things like sensations, images, behaviors, affected movement. We use all of that input to help move towards the changes they desire,” she said.
With her years of experience teaching people movement in one-on-one or in group settings, Alexander said that having built her own body awareness and somatic awareness for so long is a great asset when working with clients.
Alexander said her favorite part of both jobs is seeing the progress that people make individually and how that growth ripples out into their communities.
“It feels really good to know that I’m investing my time and energy into the kind of work that can be really impactful,” she said. “Not just on the one-on-one person I’m working with, but on their families and their places of work and just how they show up in the world.”
For more information on Alexander’s somatic coaching, visit embodywithelizabeth.com.
