Hi everyone!
I’ve been down long-winded paths and several stays in mental hospitals throughout the years. Being involuntarily put in these places made me angrier and life unmanageable. Throughout the years, I’ve been turning to yoga and other safe coping strategies to work on the mind/body connection. This has helped me tremendously in managing my emotions, and nowadays I’m feeling stable enough to make plans for the future ☺️. I would like to lead free community classes in my local area of Maryland. My Latinx parents immigrated here, and I’ve seen how this difficult journey has affected them and others like them. During these painful times, it would be an honor to provide my neighbors with a safe space to move and feel.
I’m looking forward to learning and sharing this experience with you all <3
All the best,
Cele
Hello All,
I am super excited to be embarking on this new journey of becoming a Registered Yoga Teacher. Little Rock, AR is where I currently live and I was born and raised here. I first felt safe in the space of yoga in the year of 2023 when I was deployed. They offered yoga sessions to us every week and I always left out of the session lighter than when I came in. I recognized the powerfulness of the practice then. Ever since, I have searched all over for yoga sessions near me to participate in, watched YouTube videos to have my own solo sessions at home and even considered becoming an instructor myself. This is the year I make that dream happen. It is time that I embrace being a healer and helping not just myself, but others regulate their emotions through yoga. I look forward to meeting everyone.
Hello everyone!
My names Morgan (she/they) I am plains Cree and Metis originally from Treaty 7 in Alberta but I currently live on Vancouver Island In BC, now. I am a registered acupuncturist and herbalist, I first did a YTT 200 program in 2017 and fell in love. The last few years my yoga practice has fell off a bit, I am looking to get back into teaching, I work a lot with addictions and mental health at a few different facilities. Hoping to bring a yoga practice into those facilities soon.
thanks so much! and excited for this to begin 🙂
Greetings everyone!
My name is Rachael, and I’m reaching out from Henderson, Nevada, though my roots trace back to Southern California. I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to join the PYP teacher training program and to learn alongside individuals from diverse backgrounds and communities across the globe.
For the past fifteen years, I've served as a licensed school psychologist working with justice-involved youth navigating the complexities of the juvenile system. Throughout this time, my personal yoga practice has been instrumental in regulating my own nervous system and addressing the impacts of trauma in my life. This program resonates deeply with my calling to serve vulnerable populations—including veterans, incarcerated individuals, and first responders—communities I have been intimately connected with through personal experience.
I'm filled with gratitude and anticipation as I embark on this journey of learning and growth, with the intention of bringing this training and wisdom back to serve my community in meaningful ways.
Hi from Chicago! I've had YTT on my goals list for probably a decade now, and mainly because I find it hard to locate a class and teacher who I resonate with. I have a hard time with the watered down McYoga style of this practice that presents itself in our modern world. I am a former high school visual media and expressive arts teacher in Chicago Public Schools and have transitioned to working with women with incarceration histories, so finding PYP feels right. I'm excited to learn, and grow, and dream, and stretch with you all! ...Apologizing now for Brandi, my pittie mix, who might be making appearances on my yoga mat during live sessions 😉
Hi everyone, My name is Shailaja Akkapeddi. I live in Salt Lake City, Utah. I am originally from India.
I have practiced yoga off and on for several years now. I usually seem to come back to my yoga practice when I need it most...and it always helps me, almost immediately to feel better. Through this training period, I am hoping to create a regular and consistent practice for myself.
Much of my career has been working with resettled refugees. I have always though about how I'd like to see yoga accessible to refugees and vulnerable populations with trauma. I am not quite sure how but that's my goal. To find a way to offer it to people who need it most.
Looking forward to meeting you all tomorrow and learning and sharing with all of you
Hi everyone 🙂
My name is Alexandra and I'm learning with you from the Kansas City area. I am a working single mother of a 10-year-old daughter, and I started my yoga practice while pregnant with her. My path to this point, like so many, is complex and winding but I was introduced to Prison Yoga Project by my mother; she sent me a link to this organization while I was in relationship to a man in prison. I am deeply moved by and called to this mission for so many reasons from my traumatic childhood, my own legal and substance abuse struggles as a juvenile and young adult, and the wild ride of a healing and reclaiming expedition I've been on, to my growing understanding and intolerance of inequality and systemic injustice in our legal system and society as a whole. I've always considered myself a perpetual student, in all areas of life, so it's taken me a long time to consider participating in a teacher training and the thought of facilitating stretches me so far outside my comfort zone. But that's why I'm here, to grow, and stretch, and create alongside all of you.
Namaste
Hello from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
My name is Mike, and I am originally from Poland. I coordinate and deliver a wide range of programs for incarcerated youth and adult women. I have had the pleasure of working alongside the Prison Yoga Project for the past year. After seeing the benefits of the program and how well it is received by our vulnerable population, I decided to take the instructor course to help make it more accessible for our residents.
As the course sessions take place during my work hours, unfortunately I may not have many opportunities to join online.
Hello everyone, my name is Sandra (she/her) and I'm connecting with you from Golden, Colorado. I've been practicing yoga for about 25 years now. I have to say yoga has been with me through the best and worst parts of my life. It has been the anchor that brings me home to myself each and every time. I have gotten through hard times and have healed old wounds through this practice. As a woman who has experienced trauma in my life I've been through lots of therapies from talk therapy to different modalities of somatic therapies. I truly believe that the physical/somatic work I've done has been the most profound in my healing.
I've always wanted to go through a YTT program but it has never felt like the right place or time. Several months ago I started following Prison Yoga Project on social media and it was all I could think about. For me this feels like the exact right place and right time to do this. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to dive even deeper into yoga and it's philosophies and to hopefully come out and be able to share it in a compassionate trauma informed way. I look forward to meeting you all soon!