About

Tessa Sophia Rapaczynski was born and raised in New York City, the daughter of two crazy lawyers whom she loves very much. She began her formal education at Columbia Greenhouse Nursery School in Morningside Heights, before entering kindergarten at Brearley on the Upper East Side. After attending boarding school at St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire, Tessa graduated cum laude from Columbia University with a major in English and Comparative Literature. She has a master’s in modernist literature from Oxford.

Since 2012, Tessa has lived in Los Angeles. She worked briefly as an assistant at a boutique management company, and at Warner Brothers in feature film development. In 2014, after a lifetime of striving for achievement within the context of elite institutions, Tessa paradigm-shifted. She quit her job, sold or donated the vast majority of her possessions, and became certified to teach yoga.

Tessa teaches hot yoga, power yoga, hot power fusion, trauma-informed yoga, and dynamic movement. She leads group classes, private classes, and corporate events. She also hosts yoga retreats, and has led multiple Yoga Alliance-accredited 200-Hour Teacher Trainings, as well as educational workshops.

In her free time, Tessa writes, paints, and plays a Baby Taylor guitar. Her short-term goals are to spend less time on her phone, finish her unfinished projects, and train her Doberman puppy to be a good girl. Her long-term goal is to stay in good mental, physical, and spiritual health, so that she can keep evolving as an artist, friend, and human being.