Share Your Practice aims to serve as a resource on yoga service.
Typically (but not always) this means yoga outside a studio / gym / private lesson setting. Often participants are underserved in some way – maybe trauma survivors who are also low-income, maybe residents of homeless shelters, maybe people who live in neighborhoods that have few public yoga classes available.
With the goal of connecting yoga teachers to resources to do this work themselves, I share articles on the benefits of yoga in such settings, information on non-profits engaged in this work, and interviews with teachers offering yoga in this way. I also share my own thoughts and experiences and spark discussion on this under-covered topic.
I am certainly not an authority on this topic nor on teaching yoga! But my long-term interest in this work and professional work experience with a yoga service non-profit motivate me to start this project and connect others who are similarly inspired. Read more about my yoga service work here.
Trauma-informed yoga classes (my current public schedule)
Trauma-Informed Yoga: Practice & Talk (2-hour event)
Corporate Yoga to benefit my trauma-informed yoga work
I’m Kate, and I love yoga. Read about my work in a Huffington Post interview and view my Yoga Resume here. I started practicing in 2009, and completed my 200-hour yoga teacher training in 2014. Vinyasa flow and power vinyasa are the styles that speak to me the most (why?!). Teaching yoga is now my main work – I teach public classes at several locations. I taught a weekly free community class I set up independently in a library from 2015 - 2017, and another library class approximately every other week. Both were located in neighborhoods that lack the variety of yoga options on offer in more central locations. I started teaching in Cook County Jail near the end of 2016.
Through a past job with a yoga non-profit in DC, prior to becoming a yoga teacher, I worked to set up yoga outreach classes with non-profits, and also attended training such as Street Yoga, Prison Yoga, and Yoga for Homeless & In-Recovery Communities. In Chicago I’ve participated in two Breathe Network trainings focused on survivors of sexual violence.
Outside yoga: I studied sociology and have a master’s in international communication. I spent about 5 years each living in Eastern Europe and then Washington, DC, and am now back in the area I grew up in – Chicago. I’ve done a lot of different jobs! I don’t run as much as I used to, but running has been a great thing in my life, particularly volunteering with Back on My Feet – a non-profit that partners with homeless shelters in a number of cities to host a running program.
My favorite pose is chapasana, half moon with a bind! I am still working on headstand away from the wall. I love dogs. And cooking.
(In photo: art in meeting room where we practice yoga at Coleman Library in Chicago)
Read my blog on yoga service: Share Your Practice
What's it like teaching yoga at a jail? (YogaDork blog)
Book Review: Best Practices for Yoga in the Criminal Justice System (YogaDork blog/YogaDorks for Good)
How is trauma informed yoga different (Philly/DC/Chicago Area Yoga)
Trauma informed yoga teacher training (Philly/DC/Chicago Area Yoga)
Setting up your own yoga service class (Philly/DC/Chicago Area Yoga)
on community classes / trauma informed yoga
on Trauma-Informed Yoga: Practice & Talk
on Yoga Tools for Stress Relief
(Photo by rosephoto.official)
My public class and community class schedule
Trauma-informed yoga - open to the public, free
Trauma Informed Yoga Practice & Talk - Winter
Friday, 2/9, 6-9pm, 360 Fit, 1807 S Washington St., Naperville, IL
Trauma Informed Yoga Practice & Talk - Spring
Saturday 4/21, 12:30-3:30pm, Pendulum Space, 1803 W Byron, Chicago, IL
