Each One Teach One

Wow, that's a lot of money. Why is yoga teacher certification more than my mortgage?

Anyway, you can see why I need help and to spread the word about this. It's been a long road and my old work (racism) was literally killing me. Your contribution helps me to be healthier and happier.

thank you.

damali

10/1/08

Thank you to everyone who pitched in at my talk last night. We collected $356.51 towards my new life and yoga teacher training. Incredible. I am deeply moved!

I"m going to write a check for that amount precisely to give to the studio to immortalize this moment.

I also hope to offer a class to those of you who contributed.

warmly,

damali

To help you learn a bit more about why yoga, why now, and why me, I thought i'd just share some of my life and my journey.

I grew up in a family that was full of tension, anger strife and secrets. The two things that gave me a place to retreat during my growing up were my mind/creativity and my body. I used to dance to clear away the stress of my family.

When i was in high school, I found a book "28 days of yoga" in my parent's shelf that book and a book on hypnosis fascinated my always hungry and curious mind. I started to work on my breath and tree pose. I remember standing at the end of the lacrosse field at my high school, pulling up my leg into tree pose and breathing. It seemed like magic and science combined into one- which is perhaps a good way to describe the feeling of spirit and the universe at work in anyone's life.

Years later, as i grew through adulthood, it was always yoga that i came back to when i needed a space to calm my restless mind, heart or to deal with the stresses of being a creative artist as a profession. Yoga always held me with the warmest embrace, allowing me to be the best in my world on a daily basis.

I practiced yoga on and off my entire lifetime but this last year has given me a deeper re-commitment to it. Eight years ago, after a trauma triggered PTSD, I suffered with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for six years, which left me in bed for days unable to do simple things like walk to the front door to collect my mail. I tried every solution and supplement and tested my body for everything that my doctor and i could think of and finally succumbed to medication just to keep me functioning on a basic physical level.

Last year I made the journey of taking myself off medication, committing to a life of health and wellness, losing ten pounds, and rediscovering yoga as a daily practice. I am now not only medication-free, but fatigue-free as well. Yoga becomes the place that restores my body and reconnects me to my mind, while calming any emotions that might exacerbate to the PTSD that caused my fatigue.

Today i am well, healthy, strong and affirmed.

It is at this point in my journey that I know it is time for me to share the beauty of yoga in an official capacity with other people. I believe that yoga heals and i am a living example of that. I want to teach yoga to share with the world that healing is possible and that we can not only overcome chronic illness, but improve our health beyond what we can ever imagine when we are sick.

Please join me in spreading the magic and science that is yoga, the way you know i will (if you know me or my work). Being a yoga teacher is something i take on with a sense of duty, service, and a deep deep love.

thanks

damali




to learn more about my art-life up to this point of transformation, please visit: http://damaliayo.com

Hello incredible people.

I've recently begun Yoga Teacher Training and it's been an incredible experience. Today I was inspired to create a means to assist with the cost of the training but also to help grow the number of black yoga teachers. So, I created this ChipIn to help me raise the $1750 I have left to pay for my training, and an additional $500 for to jump start a ChipIn fund for a the training for another black yoga teacher, they will in turn, raise their training fee plus $500 to start the next person on their road and so on.

I hope you will join me in this exciting venture to spread yoga and diversify the faces of those leading classes and this movement.

You can also find more black yoga teachers at IABYT the International Association of Black Yoga Teachers.

If you are a student of yoga who is ready to become a teacher and want to be the next one in line in this fundraising process, drop me a note at damali@reinventfitness.com.

Any amount will have an impact, on my heart and on the lives of those I will have the honor to teach. Thanks so much for any support you can give!

damali