"Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the Self"

True Self Yoga is committed to sharing the wisdom of Yoga & meditation to help people realize their full potential.

Om Shanti

Husband-and-wife team, Vajra Romano and Christina Lagdameo, established True Self Yoga in 2016 with a mission to serve your highest good. Our personal journeys while studying the traditional practice of yoga and meditation brought us together; now we aim to share what we have learned in a way that is applicable for you.

We first met in 2007 at a yoga conference in Colorado and discovered a deep connection.  Vajra had just finished as a seasonal wilderness ranger in Olympic National Park and Christina was completing a seven-year tenure in the White House Office of Management and Budget.

We stayed in touch for four years as we continued on our own unique journeys- Christina to Mysore, India to study Ashtanga Yoga and serve survivors of sex trafficking; Vajra to Maui to teach yoga at hotel resorts.

In 2011, Christina’s work brought her to Seattle where Vajra was teaching yoga.  We reunited, and the time was perfect to start a new life together. Vajra moved to Washington DC, where Christina was serving the Obama White House, and he offered meditation classes to White House staff.

We married in 2012, then traveled to Mysore, India to share yoga with survivors of human trafficking at Odanadi www.odanadi.org and make pilgrimage to ashrams throughout South India. Wanting to slow down, simplify, and deepen our personal yoga practice, we moved to Kauai, Hawaii for two years to live and work on an organic farm. During the years on Kauai we founded Yoga on Kauai, and hosted retreats and classes at Kumu Camp, a Native Hawaiian retreat center in Anahola.

We were drawn back to Olympia by a family tragedy, the suicide of Vajra’s cousin, Trevor Smith.  We established True Self Yoga in 2016 with a scholarship program, ‘Quest for Truth’, in Trevor’s memory.  True Self is the fruition of our life experiences, studies, and combined 16-years of experience teaching yoga. At the core of each class you take at True Self Yoga lies the same ultimate goal to which all the teachings point: practice and train to reveal your physical, mental, and emotional potential and live your life to its fullest. 

We are deeply grateful for the spiritual lineages we have studied, most notably Tibetan and Zen Buddhism, and Mysore Ashtanga Yoga.  Below are the most instrumental guides whose teachings are weaved throughout all True Self classes.

Reggie Ray: Vajra’s Tibetan Buddhism teacher in somatic-based meditation practice.

Nataraja Kallio: Vajra’s teacher in Traditional Eastern Yoga while at Naropa University

Angela E Oh: Christina’s Zen Buddhism teacher with the Chozen-ji Zen Dojo in Honolulu. Angela married Christina and Vajra in 2012.

Sri. M.A. Narasimhan, Ajay Kumar, Richard Freeman, and Sindhu Kiran: Christina’s teachers in Ashtanga yoga, Sanskrit, yoga philosophy and Odissi (Indian Dance).

With Angela’s marriage blessing, we vowed “to continuously examine our True Self…to maintain awareness that all things are impermanent, and to remain determined in knowing that we can always support one another to achieve our greatest potential and happiness.”