All of us have role models we look up to. Sometimes they’re an integral part of our lives, someone we see on an everyday basis and get to know well. Other times, they’re figures we admire from afar and we attempt to emulate the values they instill in us. Yoga teachers often fall in the latter category, as students rarely get the chance to pick their favorite instructor’s brain. To remedy that, YogaEarth presents a new series called Post-Practice Chat - where we ask the most extraordinary yoga teachers ten questions. Read on to learn how yoga teachers are both deeply inspiring and, at the same time, just like you and me.
Ashley Albrand teaches souful and sweaty vinyasa flow yoga and dance 
throughout Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. She is a professional dancer and has been studying movement since the age of five. Ashley is known for her physically challenging classes that stay true to the essence of yoga. Her classes embody strength and spirit, prayer, meditation, the releasing of negative thought patterns and the pranic exchange.
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1. What’s the best part of your day?
Sunrise.
2. What’s your guilty pleasure?
Gangster rap and hip hop.
3. Favorite quote.
All you have is all you need.
4. If you could travel anywhere at this very second, where would you go?
I’m planning my next retreat to Thailand and it’s getting me so excited! But really at the moment I’m loving being in the woods of Topanga where I live and teaching at Exhale in Venice. Grounding down!
5. What do you do to recharge and find balance?
Nature meditation and pranayama! Also, being submerged in either river, ocean or hot bath!
6. What’s your ideal Sunday?
Sunrise sadhana followed by a yoga class and finished by being with my family in nature!
7. What has been your biggest challenge throughout your own yoga practice?
Many years ago I suffered with knee injuries. Being a teacher and having surgery was quite the pickle! I love the strength and knowledge that came from that beloved teacher.
8. What is the quality you most admire in people?
Above all, compassion and kindness!
9. If you weren’t a yoga teacher, what would you be?
A mermaid, a bird or an astronaut 
10. What inspires you?
The galaxies, planet Earth, women, Drew Broadrick, my amazing tribe of female friends, Shiva Rea, Ganga White, my family, Nature, the goddess, my students! Being inspired is a practice just like any yoga pose… depending on where you place your awareness the inspiration either flows and flows or remains stagnant and closed. It’s easy to close your heart and shift away from inspiration, away from the source. Our jobs as conscious seekers of truth, abundance and the flow of prana is to sweetly return again and again to our breath, to the steady stream of well-being that is all around, just waiting to be let in.
