We have a wonderful new Curvy Yoga teacher this month! I am excited to share them with you! To see a full list of our Curvy Yoga Certified teachers, please click here.

Kristin Barron

Location: Aiken, SC

Tell us a little about your relationship with yoga — both your practice and your teaching. I started doing yoga on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Curvy Yoga. I was doing two to three pretty grueling vinyasa classes a week in a bid to lose some weight and get in shape. I loved it. The more I went to classes, the more I realized that I wanted to be bringing this same joy to other people. I wanted to be helping them just like my instructor was helping me. To this day, I have no idea how I landed on Curvy Yoga’s page, it must have been the Universe nudging me in the right direction., because it has been the single best thing for my body image. I found home in yoga that not only accepts the shape I am, but celebrates it. I teach classes that are all about loving yourself. No matter what kind of yoga I’m teaching, there is always love. I’m currently in talks with local studios, hoping to have some regularly scheduled classes starting in January. Right now I’m practicing a little each day, and teaching and doing one-on-ones when I can.

Why do you want to bring Curvy Yoga to your community? I think every community needs yoga that is about loving yourself. I’ve found that everyone, no matter what size or shape, has some insecurities about their bodies, and I want to help people in my community reconnect with themselves, and find the same immense gratitude and love of self that I’ve found through Curvy Yoga.

What can folks expect when they take a class from you? A giant hug for your heart. I teach specifically Yoga for Self Love classes, but I bring that attitude to everything I teach. I always emphasize taking the time and space to connect with yourself, to feel the potential for love within yourself, and to pull it from the Universe if you need it. I want to connect students to themselves and to the Universe around them, I want them to leave my classes with a smile on their face, and a little more gentleness for their body.

What has been your favorite part of the certification process? I’ve already mentioned the self-love several times, but the other biggest thing was the absolutely amazing group of women I was lucky enough to experience this journey with. I cannot fully express my gratitude for this marvelous, fantastic collaboration of some of the most beautiful, inspiring and unique women I have ever met. They, including Anna, of course, taught me to really love myself, to let get of the anxiety, to be my authentic self all the time, to think more critically of the culture we live in, and to seriously embrace my inner geek. As a total introvert, the idea of spending 4 collective weeks with a group of strangers terrified me, but I didn’t find a group of strangers. I found a big, curvy, magical, nerdy family.

How can people get in touch with you? People can find me on my website, Facebook and Twitter!

Charli Prather-Levinson

Location: Chesterfield, MO

Tell us a little about your relationship with yoga — both your practice and your teaching. My practice is MODIFY. My teaching style is MODIFIED. Due to cancer treatment many years ago that left me with body image issues. I focused on what I could no longer do rather than what I could STILL DO! Yoga changed all of that. I’m now at peace with my body and my abilities.

Why do you want to bring Curvy Yoga to your community? I teach yoga to wounded warriors and to people with serious medical issues. Curvy yoga brings with it not only body positive language but an opportunity to change your relationship with not only your body, but your spirit as well. We are forever changing, nothing will be as it was last year or even yesterday.

What can folks expect when they take a class from you? Humor! And the ability to do as much or as little as they like in a safe space. I like to theme my classes because I’m a psychotherapist and we all need a little TLC at the end or the beginning of the day, a little message of peace, acceptance or hope does the body, mind and spirit a world of good.

What has been your favorite part of the certification process? Getting to learn from Anna who just EXUDES love. I’ve been able to take so many of these modifications into my work with Veterans as well as cancer, MS and dialysis patients.

How can people get in touch with you? People can find me on my website, Facebook and Twitter!

Jennifer VanBenschoten

Location: Jay, NY

Tell us a little about your relationship with yoga — both your practice and your teaching. I’d been practicing yoga on and off for over 12 years when it suddenly turned into a lifeline – I was struggling with anxiety disorder, and prescription medications had failed me for the umpteenth time. With the help of an incredibly caring, compassionate, and talented teacher, I started to find my way back “home”. After practicing daily for a couple of years, I took the plunge and did a 200-hour teacher training as my way to give back a little bit of what I had found to my wonderful Adirondack mountain community.

Why do you want to bring Curvy Yoga to your community? Two reasons: Growing up, I watched my mother struggle with body image issues and eating disorders for as long as I could remember. She finally lost her struggle with eating disorders, anxiety, depression, and other mental illness just after my son was born in 2008. When my own issues with anxiety and body image started affecting my daily life, I turned to yoga and found a source of strength within me that I never would have believed existed – I want anyone who suffers with body image issues to know that they can tap into that same source. The second reason is that when I started practicing yoga, it never crossed my mind that it was something that I “couldn’t” do, and now I feel motivated to bring yoga to anyone who has ever been told or who believes that they “can’t”.

What can folks expect when they take a class from you? Lots of deep relaxation, a few laughs, and some funny stories about my nearly-7-year-old yogi-in-training son. When someone comes to my class, I really do my best to get them into the here and now. Out of the head, and into the body with love and acceptance!

What has been your favorite part of the certification process? Oh, my, all of it! The other trainees in the group were just so wonderful, and I left each session feeling so inspired to start bringing body-positive yoga into my regular classes! Anna is truly a gifted teacher, and I just feel so blessed that I got to learn from her.

How can people get in touch with you? People can find me on my website and Facebook!

Jenny Milos

Location: Minneapolis, MN

Tell us a little about your relationship with yoga — both your practice and your teaching. In early 2011, a friend invited me to check out a new yoga class aimed at geeks – it combined storytelling, role-playing gaming, and yoga. At the time, I thought that sounded like it could be either an amazing thing, or a recipe for epic failure and cringing. I’d never done yoga before, and was intimidated, due to a lifetime of gym trauma, and anxiety over not having a “yoga body.” Thankfully, YogaQuest was amazing, and life-changing for me. I am the scriptwriter and narrator for our quests, and have been thrilled to add teaching to the mix. I certainly didn’t set out to be a yoga teacher when I started attending YogaQuest, but I can’t imagine my life without it now. It is a source of joy, and connectedness, and tremendous love, and I’m profoundly grateful for it.

Why do you want to bring Curvy Yoga to your community? At YogaQuest, I work with people who self-identify as geeks – people whose primary interests tend to be sedentary (ie. comic books, video games, computers, books, role-playing games, etc.). Combine those interests, and lack of activity, with the endless body-shaming bombarding them, and you have a community that desperately needs a safe space for reconnecting with their bodies. Curvy Yoga gave me the tools to really tailor my teaching to meet the needs of my community – non-shaming, body positive language, prop usage, and encouragement to teach from the most-to-least supported version of a pose. This is exactly what my community needs, to invite them into engaging with their bodies by embracing a yoga practice.

What can folks expect when they take a class from you? If you were to ask any of my students, my classes tend to incorporate my hearty appreciation for the absurd, and my open-hearted, mushbally sincerity, with liberal doses of geek pop culture references. I love breaking down poses in ways that allow everyone to practice mindfulness and body awareness. Even when I’m not narrating a class, I dig sharing a narrative perspective in class. It provides conceptual “hooks” on which students can hang their own experiences. Sometimes, that means talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena: Warrior Princess, Captain America, or the Winchester brothers from Supernatural – because those are the cultural references and hero myths that make sense to me and the people who attend my classes.

What has been your favorite part of the certification process? I spent four unbelievable weeks in the company of AMAZING, affirming, beautiful, brilliant women. I learned so much from Anna, and from the rest of my cohort, both in terms of my yoga practice and teaching, and in terms of myself as a human being. Life-changing in every sense!

How can people get in touch with you? People can find me on my website, Facebook and Twitter!

April Eckwielen

Location: Winter Garden, FL

Tell us a little about your relationship with yoga — both your practice and your teaching. I came to yoga wanting to find relief from lower back pain. I started practicing at a local studio and fell in love. then I found out I needed to have surgery on my back because the injury was much worse than expected. After my recovery time I came back to yoga and my passion for it grew. I wanted to share my love of yoga with everyone. I craved learning so I decided to do my 200hr YTT as well as get certification in Prenatal Yoga (since my day job is a parent educator for a local hospital). I then realized that I wanted to make sure that my community knew that yoga was for everyone and not just the thin and flexible. I found the Curvy Yoga certification and signed up as soon as a class session became available. Not only did I learn ways to modify my class and help others but I found tools that I could use personally to get me through my not so fun days. In my practice and my teaching, I promote honoring where you are at with your body at that specific time. Being a curvy yoga teacher and limited on poses that I can safely do because of my spinal fusion I am always encouraging others to be where they are and not try to keep up with the yoga Joneses.

Why do you want to bring Curvy Yoga to your community? Plain and simple I want my community to feel the wonderful benefits of yoga. I want them to not shy away from it because they think that they aren’t flexible enough, thin enough or able to. Yoga is for all and my mission is to spread that message.

What can folks expect when they take a class from you? I am very laid back in my teaching. Students will find me laughing with them, giving little tidbits about my own practice ups and downs. I am real. My job is to guide them in their yoga journey and make them feel safe. I am not there to show off some odd and contorted pose. I am there to share my love of yoga. Just coming into a class is a huge step for someone and that is praise worthy. I will be there to not only teach, but to listen.

What has been your favorite part of the certification process? I loved the way that the certification was put together. I did not have to take away any time from my family and other obligations. Anna made things very easy and I loved the webinar setting. I enjoyed all the interaction and the information exchanged. My favorite is being a party of the facebook group so we can all still bounce ideas off of each other and check in. I would recommend this training to everyone!

How can people get in touch with you? People can find me on my website, Facebook and Twitter!

Joy Thompson

Location: Hampton, VA

Tell us a little about your relationship with yoga — both your practice and your teaching. My relationship with yoga revolves around the idea of compassion. This is why I did my initial training at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. Swami Kripalu, the founder of the Kripalu style, once said, “The best yoga…is to be the well-wisher of everyone.” And so that’s how I practice and that’s how I teach. Coming to a yoga mat is an invitation to just be — no need to change a thing! And amazingly, change happens in the “just being.”

Why do you want to bring Curvy Yoga to your community? IN my area of the country, yoga is still looked upon with nervous, questioning eyes. Is it a religion? No. Is it only for flexible people? No. I can’t touch my toes. Not required. I don’t have any balance. Neither does your instructor. 🙂 From everything I’ve seen, it looks like yoga is only for skinny people. Trust me, it’s not.

Teaching Curvy Yoga would address a large, under-served portion of the Hampton Roads community. And I’m here to do just that.

What can folks expect when they take a class from you? Safety first and foremost. I know what it’s like to be in a yoga class…and feel unsafe. I couldn’t do the pose the instructor was offering and there were no props to help ease me into the pose. Compassion. Compassion is key to the practice of yoga. Empathy. Everyone’s “curvy” journey is different, and I get that. That’s why it’s so important to focus on the NOW. It’s my passion for students to find the sense that, in the NOW, they lack for and want for nothing.

What has been your favorite part of the certification process? Empowerment! Call it curvy, call it bodacious, call it round, call it big-bodied, call it ample. Call it whatever you want, but daily, there are more than ample fat-shaming messages, visual and otherwise. Anna, through her teaching and through her suggested resources, took me beyond that. Anna brought me to the place of “being okay with what is.” Her message that all body types are welcome to the mat, chair, wall or whatever is profoundly empowering.

How can people get in touch with you? People can find me on my website, Facebook and Twitter!

Nancy Roberts

Location: Birmingham, AB

Tell us a little about your relationship with yoga — both your practice and your teaching. I stumbled into Ashtanga yoga in my journey to wellness. I hated it at first, because it was hard and took me out of my comfort zone. But I loved it when I realized that I was not only letting go of tension physically but emotionally as well. My practice and teaching have changed over the years. I’m getting older and although I still love Ashtanga, I no longer want to teach or practice the full series. Both my practice and teaching have become a fusion of all the practices and poses that I love and want to offer anyone on their own wellness journey.

Why do you want to bring Curvy Yoga to your community? Birmingham’s non-Western wellness community is in it’s toddler phase of growth. There is still an untapped part of the community that believes they could not do yoga because they don’t look like the bodies on the cover of Yoga Journal. I want more people to know that yoga is all about connecting to the body we are in today and realizing that this practice is for everyone.

What can folks expect when they take a class from you? Expect to sweat and laugh. I believe yoga should be fun and you should leave with a smile. We will challenge our bodies in ways that are safe and supported.

What has been your favorite part of the certification process? Learning ways to offer this practice to a wider rage of people, learning how to open that door to everyone

Heather Jones

Location: Portland, OR

Tell us a little about your relationship with yoga — both your practice and your teaching. My personal relationship with yoga is like a good organic grapefruit: a little sour, a little sweet, but always good for me. What I love most about my personal practice is that it is always there for me, no matter how long we’ve been apart.

My teaching practice is like a museum. Endless amazing things to learn around every corner. I love every minute with my students – the challenging moments and the fun, silly times equally.

Why do you want to bring Curvy Yoga to your community? Because it is needed and such important work. There are a few groups of people in and around Portland doing wonderful things with body positivity, and the support from them has been fantastic. But there is still a core group of yoga practitioners and teachers who question the need for a curvy-based practice. They don’t understand their privilege, and I want to bring some of that to light. Additionally, yoga changed my life. And I’m a curvy gal! So I am living proof that yoga is not only for thin, able bodies. More people in my community need to know that, and join the club! LOL

What can folks expect when they take a class from you? First and foremost, authenticity. My teaching stems from my own practice, and I am a no-b.s. kind of person. I love to keep it real and laugh at myself often – so my students know I am a real person; a real, practicing student of yoga, just like them. We can celebrated our beautifully flawed selves together! In addition, they can always expect a safe, warm, welcoming environment and a teacher who will take care of them and whatever comes up for them during our time together.

What has been your favorite part of the certification process? Anna, and the opportunity to work with her. She has been so incredibly encouraging and real and supportive. Also, the teaching community outside of mine with which I have been able to connect, and will stay connected to, going forward. The cert process left me feeling strong, validated, and excited … about the next chapter in my teaching, but also about the wealth of knowledge I can bring to my students and my community.

How can people get in touch with you? People can find me on my website, Facebook and Twitter!

Catie Thompson

Location:  West Dundee, IL

Tell us a little about your relationship with yoga — both your practice and your teaching. I attended my first yoga class in 2000, and quickly fell in love with its ability to simultaneously strengthen and ground me. After attending classes for several years, I decided to deepened my personal practice by attending Chicago Yoga Center’s 200-hour Teacher Training Program. In 2010, I attended a fascinating workshop led by Paul Grilley, who demonstrated that no two people ever experience the same yoga position in the same way. This revelation was not only particularly enlightening for me as a yoga and prenatal yoga student but has also helped to inform my daily practice and teaching style. It was also this line of thinking that brought me to Anna’s amazing Curvy Yoga program. I currently live in the northwest suburbs of Chicago with my wonderful husband and superhero daughter and I strongly believe that anyone who wants to practice yoga can practice yoga.

Why do you want to bring Curvy Yoga to your community?
One of the main reasons I looked into beginning my yoga teacher training process was because of a very close friend’s diagnosis with rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. I had been practicing for a few years myself and occasionally she would join me in class but I could tell that certain poses or transitions were particularly difficult for her because her body moved differently than the other bodies in class. She was a trooper and she said she always felt better after class but I would sometimes catch a glimpse of her in the mirror next to me and I could see that she was frustrated and I hated that something that she said made her feel “better” could simultaneously make her feel frustrated or embarrassed or sad. I want to teach a class that is entirely inclusive of the body types of all my students and to be able to clearly express to them that they CAN do it and that each pose is THEIR pose, not MY pose or that magazine cover celebrity’s pose or that old school “yoga” book’s pose. I love the inclusivity of the Curvy Yoga philosophy. That’s the kind of yoga I want to practice and teach. That’s the kind of world I want to live in and create for my daughter..

What can folks expect when they take a class from you? Well, they can definitely expect me to say “and breeeaaaathe” a lot! I’ve found that one of the first things that happens to our bodies when we get into a tricky situation is that we stop breathing which only makes that tricky situation even trickier. Students have been walking into the studio where I teach lately having just gotten off their phones or having just sent off that last email to work or having just dropped their kids off and I love being able to help them work through that stress or help them forget about those things momentarily while they just focus completely on their breath. When you focus completely on your breath, there’s no room for anything else and your body is allowed to finally relax.

What has been your favorite part of the certification process? My favorite part of this process has been working with all the other students in my class and hearing what works for them and what they love about their practice. Oh! And Anna’s awesome sense of humor and giggles throughout all our silliness definitely made the process fun while being extremely informative.

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