Arlana has been practicing yoga for more than 25 years and teaching for 9 years. Her goal is to offer the benefits of a yoga practice to those who thought they could never do it. She lived in Europe from 1999 to 2015 and began teaching medical yoga in 2014 to American soldiers returning from deployment. Her chair and restorative yoga classes have developed over the years as she continued her training and witnessed the difference yoga can make for people with mobility challenges.
In 2018, Arlana completed training through the New York State Office for the Aging to teach a modified version of Tai Chi, specifically designed for people who have arthritis and/or balance challenges. In 2019, she continued her training through the Asian Arts Group Tai Chi Center in Albany and became certified to teach Tai Chi for Memory and Tai Chi for Energy.
Arlana has taught at
Years of Teaching
+ Training hours
+ Years of practice
Types of yoga
When I walked the Camino de Santiago in 2015, I practiced yoga every morning before starting out on the day’s hike. I was staying in the hostels along the trail, and often there wasn’t much free space inside so I would go outside. This was usually right around the time of sunrise and it was truly inspiring to face east and practice yoga as the sun rose. Sometimes other peregrinos (hikers) would slip off their backpacks and join me. The unifying spirit was so powerful and peaceful at the same time. What an amazing journey it’s been from my first yoga class to this sunrise practice.
I was about 40 years old when I went to my first yoga class. I was a sporadic practitioner – with two young girls and a full-time job, it was not easy to practice regularly. When I was 43, we moved to Germany for my job with the US Department of Defense, and there I began attending weekly yoga classes. I liked it so much that I set up a small yoga area in our house so I could do yoga more often, and it became a regular, almost daily part of my life.
Six years later, my job took me to Italy and there I met the yoga instructor, Lacey Wolff, who would change my life with her suggestion that I should share my practice with others as a teacher. About 3 months later, I attended my first training conference and two months after that, I taught my first class. It was a tough group – seasoned soldiers returning from deployment who were more interested in lifting weights than balancing on one leg. But Lacey and I persevered, and after awhile, the soldiers began to see and feel the benefits of integrating yoga into their PT routine. I worked with soldiers who had suffered combat injuries, helping them manage pain and increase flexibility, and I worked with some who had PTSD, helping them manage emotions and find moments of tranquility. By the time I retired in late 2015, I was teaching yoga to military spouses, youth and civilians on the post as well as the soldiers.
After retirement, I moved back to the States, to Oneonta, NY. As I met people and talked about my experiences, I heard so many of them say, “Oh, I can’t do yoga, I’m not flexible enough,” and I kept replying, “Yoga is what you do to become flexible.” My teacher training classes emphasized that anyone can do yoga, so I have made it my life’s mission to offer yoga classes for anyone who thinks they can’t do it!
Tai Chi Practice
I’ve enjoyed practicing Tai Chi for periods of time over the past 20 years, but for one reason or another, didn’t ever stay with it. Then in 2018, I was introduced to a very simple and gentle form of Tai Chi developed by Dr. Paul Lam, and this one stuck. I liked it so much that I became certified to teach several of the forms he designed and now I offer classes in two of the forms. There are many similarities between Tai Chi and yoga, despite being developed in different parts of the world at different times, and I often bring movements and practices of one discipline into the class of the other.