Hi! I’m Ariel (she/her). My first experience with yoga was in 2012 in New York City during college at a hot, smelly, carpeted studio. The classes were problematic for so many reasons and yet something about the practice kept calling me back. I spent several years trying different classes in different studios, continuing my search to better isolate the parts of yoga that I loved. With each new class and style I felt I was coming closer and closer but something always felt like it was missing. I found many studios to be competitive, fat phobic, ableist, and I even had several experiences where teachers physically adjusted my body, unsafely, without my consent and without room for me to speak up. 

After years of off and on practice, I took my first teacher training. Not long after I began teaching, I stumbled across a company called Accessible Yoga and my life was forever changed. I found the missing piece! My curiosity and education snowballed quickly from there to learning about and incorporating trauma informed practices, the incredible benefits of somatic practices and applying polyvagal theory. 

I think one of the things I offer best as a teacher is that I am forever a student myself. I have such a deep passion and love for learning about and sharing yoga in a trauma informed, accessible and science backed approach. 

Through my many years of exploring, I am happy to report that yoga doesn’t have to happen in a hot room, at an impossible speed, in any particular body, and that it doesn’t have to involve any physical movement at all. Yoga can be safe and accessible in all its forms to all kinds of people and I work to make that the standard for all of my offerings.