Kimberly Ogle Hardick,

Yoga Educator and Practitioner

ActivewearUSA.com Ambassador

Aledo Yoga

In 2001 I took my first Yoga class at Bikram College of India. After 9 months of an intense physical practice something happened. I began having an emotional experience in class that I did not understand. A friend took me to her studio where she practiced and it was there I was introduced to Priya Yoga. What a blessing. I continued to experience emotional releases but with less intensity and more understanding. What began as a physical practice has turned into a way of life for me. The changes in my physical body are just as noticeable as the changes in my mental and emotional body.

Fascinated I wanting to learn more, I began studying with Michelle Andrie, the founder of Priya Yoga. Completing the 200 hour teacher training program in the fall of 2005 inspired me to continue with the 500 hour teacher training Yoga Therapy Program. I have been given the honor of carrying on Michelle's work and adapting some of her teaching into The Colibre School for Yoga Educators.

In 2005 I went thru the Nia White Belt Intensive and have been teaching The Nia Technique as well as yoga. In May of 2006 I completed the second half of the Thai Yoga training, and use these techniques in my yoga classes and in my private sessions, In the Fall of 2008 I traveled to Thailand with several of my students and returned to Thailand in 2009 to lead a Yoga retreat as well as traveling to India to study Yoga and be a student for 3 weeks. I am excited to teach and share what I have learned with fellow students, future educators and current yoga educators as I too continue to grow as a Yoga educator. I currently am on the Board for the International Wellness Professional Association overseeing the yoga aspect of this organization, own my own studio that is staffed by brilliant teachers and am a mentor and guide for new teachers as well as a travel enthusiast working with My Journey of a Lifetime as the Yoga Teacher on many of her tours. I recently have been asked to help coordinate the yoga program at a wellness center in South America that we hope to launch sometime in 2011. Yoga has opened up so many unexpected opportunities for me and I am always willing and anxious to share.

Thru a serious injury my yoga journey has evolved and I now prefer to teach a more adaptive, less strenuous healing form of yoga, focusing less on form and more on the function of each asana. As my practice has evolved to incorporate the use of a folding chair I am finding my body responding in ways I never dreamed possible. My students, both advanced practitioners to those with physical limitations are also finding that by incorporating the adaptive yoga techniques into their regular practice they are able to focus more on the action of the asana and developing a better understanding of the function of the asana. They also are now able to incorporate their practice in the most unlikely of places as there are always chairs available. This was an amazing gift given to me and I am so pleased to have the opportunity to pass it on.