Yoga Teacher – RYT500

Nikki Lee, Yoga Teacher

Nikki had been practicing yoga for over 20 years, starting with Ashtanga and Vinyasa styles. She was happy with that and never once thought of teaching, until Life sent her 3 invitations.

The first invitation was to teach a morning yoga class at the Wheatland Music and Dance camp in 2017. One of the directors saw that Nikki had taken yoga classes every morning during previous years of the camp, thought that she “was pretty good” and asked her to teach a morning yoga class on the Main Stage in June 2018.

The second invitation came after Nikki’s husband, Rafe, was released home after 7 weeks of a scary sudden illness, Guillain-Barré syndrome. Rafe spent a week in ICU, paralyzed; and the next 6 weeks in a rehabilitation hospital. His recovery was complete and miraculous.

The Occupational Therapist used yoga in his exercise program , and told us that as Rafe had gone to restorative and vinyasa yoga classes once a week for the previous year, yoga movements were familiar to his brain and helped to speed his recovery.

One night, shortly after his discharge from the hospital, the weather was too dismal and stormy to drive to a yoga class. However, as Rafe had a commitment to regular physical activity, Nikki offered to do a yoga class at home. At the end of the class, Rafe said, “That was as good as class as any that I’ve ever taken.” The second invitation had been issued.

The third invitation was the discovery of a yoga studio very close to her home. The AmmaYanni Yoga Center is 2 miles from her former home in Elkins Park, PA. It is also a yoga teacher training school. Having a school virtually in her backyard was the final invitation. After 3 invitations from the universe, who could say no to learning to teach yoga?

In April of 2018. Nikki completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training, loving the new world of teaching yoga. In September, Nikki enrolled in a 300-hour course at the same center, graduating in March of 2019. Now with 500 hours of teacher training, Nikki teaches Hatha yoga and the AYT classes that were developed by Bridget Yanni LMT, e-RYT500,CYT. Nikki is grateful to have been a substitute teacher at AmmaYanni.

The AmmaYanni Positional Therapy classes blend yoga with the work of Lee Albert NMT (http://www.leealbert.com/) with whom Nikki has been studying at Kripalu, in Lenox, MA, receiving her Integrated Positional Therapy Level 1 certificate in April, 2019, and her IPT Level 2 in October, 2019.

Nikki’s style of teaching is the evolution of nearly 50 years of experience as a craniosacral therapy practitioner, a baby bodyworker, a lactation consultant, a nurse, a public speaker and a teacher. Her intention is to integrate alignment, breath, focus, and gentle movement into a therapeutic balance between ease and effort. Her ultimate goal for participants, her family, and herself is healthy and pain-free living.

Nikki enjoys giving individual classes, where her goal is a gentle and slow practice, using that and the breath to counterbalance the stresses and strains that are part of life in the 21st century; she teaches simple exercises to create a Wellness Plan for each person.

Text Nikki for private sessions at 215-888-0013

 

 

in 2023, Nikki started teaching yoga at a shelter for adolescent girls who have become wards of the state. She is enjoying the challenge of teaching teens who are completely stressed because they don’t know where they be placed nor how long they will be at the shelter. Yoga is a distraction for them, something to fill the day. They are not choosing the practice. Nikki works to give these girls tools to relax and sleep with pranayama, essential oils, yoga practice, and  meditation.

 

 

 

 

Contact Nikki!

 

 

 

Contact Nikki!