BIO

I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia went to college for dance in North Carolina and have been dancing, teaching and living in New York City for the last 11 years. Since moving to New York, I have performed and toured with STREB, Brian Brooks Moving Company, Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, David Neumann's Advanced Beginner Group, and Katie Workum. I had my first yoga class my first year in New York. Yoga was compelling for mysterious reasons, but also frustrating and I left and returned to yoga over and over for many years following that first class. However, I was consistently passionate about movement and bodies, and I continued to train and teach people in movement and fitness. I became certified through National Academy of Sports Medicine in physical training and through Physicalmind Institute for Pilates. As my private training business grew, so did my desire to incorporate more than just the physical aspect of wellness. Yoga called me back to its teachings and I saw how it offered a perspective that integrated the whole person in an intelligent and effective way. As the lessons of yoga began to resonate more into my life, I noticed how much of it became a part of how I was working with my students and clients.

In 2005, I became a Yoga Alliance 200 hour certified teacher through Yoga Works and a year later I completed a 200 hour yoga anatomy training with The Breathing Project. While both yoga trainings emphasized different aspects of Yoga, they gave me a very applicable and well rounded way to teach functional, individualized and alignment-based yoga to any kind of mover. Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy (PRYT) came into my life five years ago as a friend needed someone to practice on. After receiving that session and feeling the power and eye-opening, deep awareness PRYT offers, I was hooked and became a regular client and eventually a practitioner. I became a Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy Practitioner in March of 2009 after completing my 600 hour certification. Alongside my private Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy practice in the city, I continue to perform and choreograph, most recently with Katie Workum with whom I will be performing a new work in April 2012. My home life is busy with my amazing son blooming into a toddler and my two beautiful step-sons 9 and 10 years old. I am a chair member of the Move for Breast Cancer Awareness organization and a member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists. I am still learning to surf, get three kids out the door with patience and love with abandon.

TESTIMONIALS

Yoga Therapy
"I have always felt a confluence of emotion and thought that has not been entirely answered either by psychoanalysis or yoga. In one, there has never been room enough for what comes up in the body through verbal associations, and in the other not enough space for saying what is happening in the head when the body moves. Weena has an amazing receptivity to the emotions of the body and to language's contortions that has helped me begin to un-block in both."
Patricia

"It is like receiving Grace... I just want to tell you how talented I believe you are for this work: the way you hear and communicate, your guidance and intuition, the love and sensitivity and intelligence you bring to your work. And talk about Buddah compassion. You radiate it. What more could someone ask for in the person to whom they reveal even their child heart."
Nehemiah

Yoga
"Weena is a real soul with a super human body. She is ALWAYS on time and dependable + incredible flexibility. I learned I can do it. I've also learned how negative I was about my ability to exercise and how I can change that with Weena's unflappable optimism and energy."
R. Quaytman - Visual Artist

"In many ways sessions are collaborative—she tunes into me where I am, where my body is, and tailors the hour to that. Weena is interested and works with the whole person with the awareness of an emotional condition or environment at the time and it is taken into consideration. She tunes into me."
Edith Chevat - Author and Poet

"Working with Weena is a unique blend of the physical with the intellectual. Weena's deep knowledge of the mechanics of the body and her extensive creative movement experience combine with her thorough and thoughtful approach to fitness. "
Rachel Sussman - Photographer

"I have learned greater body awareness and interesting and useful info about anatomy and function. I now have a deeper commitment to fitness and strength development in a way that improves the health and functionality of my body.We do it all! Strength, stretching, balance, jumping, leaping, running, hanging upside down. Engaging the body and mind in new challenges."
Sarah Weir - Editor, Mother

Classes and Training
"Weena's class is a real eye-opener. Her insight to exercise goes far beyond her knowledge of musculature and physiology. She seems to very quickly gain an understanding of her students and their needs so that she can apply pertinent techniques and exercises for that person's goals and body type. I was pleasantly surprised when in a first class she was able to set me in 'perfect vertical' very easily with gentle guidance and a keen eye for alignment. "
Mark Toorock - Founder of US-Parkour.com

"Training with Weena is the best thing I've ever done for my body. A world apart from the drill-sergeants who prowl gym weight rooms, Weena trains with knowledge and intelligence, enthusiasm and skill, creativity and humor. And perhaps most importantly, she combines an ideal blend of rigor and compassion."
Alarik Myrin - CTO of Sakonnet Technology

"Studying with Weena has fundamentally altered the limits of my physical abilities. I've learned to do things that I hadn't imagined I can do. Weena is a brilliant teacher — she finds ways of making the complicated and impossible simple and within reach. Because her experience is so diverse, her classes are always fresh and surprising."
Jonathan Soroko - Attorney

EDUCATION

2012
October - April PRYT Group Facilitator Training

2011
December Reiki 1 with Myra Luz Martinez, LMT, Reiki Master

2010
PRYT Apprenticeship for teacher training

2009
March Completed the 650 hour Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy certification

2008
March Level 1 Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, Bristol, VT
April Level 2 Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, Bristol, VT
June Level 3 Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, Bristol, VT

2007
January SYTAR (Symposium of Yoga Therapy and Research) in LA, CA
February Anatomy of Connection with Tom Myers, author of Anatomy Trains
November Shambhala Meditation Training, Level One, NYC

2006
Sept- June Yoga Anatomy 200 hour, Three semester course withLeslie Kaminoff at The Breathing Project, NY

2005
September Re-certification as NASM Certified Personal Trainer, National Academy of Sports Medicine, NYC
August Adult CPR with AED Certification, American Red Cross
June ISHTA Yoga Teacher Training, certified through Yoga Alliance, Be Yoga/Yoga Works, 200 hour certification, NYC
May Integrated Core Stabilization Training Course, National Academy of Sports Medicine
Optimum Performance Training for Seniors Course, National Academy of Sports Medicine
April Osteoporosis, Exercise Protocols Course, Physicalmind Institute
Nutrition 101 with Diet Directives Course, Physicalmind Institute

2004
Jan- May Comparative Physiology, Brooklyn College

2003
December Initiation 201 Teacher Training, Certified in TheMethod® Pilates, PhysicalMind Institute
August Optimum Performance Certified Personal Trainer, National Academy of Sports Medicine
June Initiation 101 Teacher Training Course in TheMethod® Pilates, PhysicalMind Institute

2000-2003
(Toured Internationally with STREB dance company.)

1998
May Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from University of North Carolina at Greensboro, magna cum laude
April AFAA Certification as Personal Trainer