Yogis Uncovered | Meet Marco
In this edition of Yogis Uncovered, we sat down with the inspiring Marco! From his unique hybrid career as a freelance photographer and yoga instructor to his journey of sobriety and finding functional strength, Marco shares his perspective on self-acceptance, building momentum, and why he found freedom practicing nude.
“It’s all about knowing where your ability is at today and meeting yourself with your ability in the present versus beating yourself up or comparing.”
Hi I’m Marco and I live in San Diego.
Where are you from originally and what was it like growing up there?
Originally I’m from New York just outside of New York City and it was a lot colder than San Diego growing up, but I really enjoyed making snowmen and also being able to go to the beach in the summer.
What do you do for work?
I’m a freelance photographer and a yoga instructor. I originally was living in Los Angeles and working in entertainment, but once COVID hit and the whole entertainment industry shut down, I started reconsidering my options. So I moved to San Diego to go to a master’s program. And while there, I fell in love with yoga and have found this hybrid between the two.
What is your favorite thing about photography?
My favorite thing about photography is being able to connect with the subject, whether that is an urban landscape or working with a model to do yoga portraits and being able to pull out the beauty and the unified vision. My favorite type of photography is definitely black and white film, because I develop the film myself, then take it into the darkroom, and print it on an enlarger. I get to shake the paper in the chemical baths and watch the image come to life.
What is a challenge that you overcame that made you who you are today?
When I was in my early 20s, I overcame a pretty intense alcohol addiction, and I’m happy to be 13 years without alcohol.
Where did you find the strength to do that?
I found the strength to do that through AA, as well as building a support network, and honestly, I got really into fitness and running. I was able to use that when I felt compelled to use. Changing the reward was able to get me moving and I started to build up momentum. And once the momentum started to build, the benefits of not using became starkly apparent.
How did you get into yoga?
Throughout most of my twenties, I was very big into lifting weights. And when COVID shut down, like everything, they shut down the gyms as well. And so I started doing yoga flows on my television in my living room. All we had was a two pound dumbbell, which wasn’t really the same as the weights in the gym. So yoga emerged as this thing that could be done safely inside.
At what point did you decide to start practicing naked and what inspired you to do that?
In San Diego, we’ve got a beautiful nude beach called Black’s Beach. And I started going there and getting really comfortable in my body towards my late 20s. And it was like this waterfall and it’s been really fun to practice nude. I started on my towel, throwing it into a down dog, stretching, and then doing sequences and hitting inversions. It’s just very freeing.
How did you become so comfortable with nudity?
I got really comfortable being nude I think in part because I do hot vinyasa practice and I wear tiny little Adidas running shorts, and then partly because I saw my body really change as I got into like body weight movements and became very functionally strong, and started to shed a lot of the number focus that comes with lifting weights. And so it was a slow evolution. I honestly went to some Korean spas and realized that everybody’s just human. It’s not super profound, but whatever insecurities are holding you back are probably 10 times louder in your head than they are in the world. And like the comfort just blossomed.
What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?
The most spontaneous thing I’ve ever done was definitely booking a trip to Thailand less than two weeks before the flight because my buddy was shooting a Shark Week movie in the south beaches. And he was like, “Hey, if you want to come, you can come”. I had a lot of credit card points. So I was like, “I’ll meet you there next week!”.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
I think the best piece of advice I’ve ever gotten was just to keep coming back. Much like in yoga, just because you don’t have a pose today doesn’t mean you didn’t have it yesterday. It’s all about knowing where your ability is at today and meeting yourself with your ability in the present versus beating yourself up or comparing. I guess another great piece of advice is “comparison is the thief of joy”. That one has really stuck with me because it’s helped destigmatize my yoga journey, but also it’s very applicable off the mat as well.
Where can our viewers see more of your work online?
If you want to see more of what I’m up to these days, you can follow me on X at @movewithmarco
*this interview has been edited for brevity and clarity