“Yoga for Every-Body”  offered by Andrea DiMaio of Ample Movement. 

This class is:

• About making the pose fit your body, not your body fit the pose. Lots of variations!

• Learning to honor the indigenous roots of yoga 

• A class for all by offering pay-what-you-can and no-cost options.

• Welcoming to all genders 

• Queer friendly 

• Trauma aware

• Anti-diet and weight neutral

• Spicy or gentle, it’s up to you

• Welcoming to neurodivergent folks

• Where we believe all bodies are yoga bodies!

 

Participants can practice on the floor or in a chair or wheelchair, whichever is most comfortable. You can bring your own mat, rug, or towel to practice on or use a mat provided. 

Accessibility: there is an elevator available to use to get to the space. Contact the YWCA or Andrea for other accessibility needs. 

 

About yoga instructor, Andrea DiMaio:

Andrea (she/they) is a yoga teacher with 500 hours of yoga teacher training. She completed her 200-hour teacher training through the Himalayan Institute in 2019. That same year, she completed continuing education and became a Yoga For All(™) certified teacher as well as completing 30 hours of Accessible Yoga(™) training. She earned her 300-hour teacher training in The Path to Yoga, Justice, and Equity offered by Dianne Bondy Yoga, in April of 2022. Andrea began her teaching career at Samsara Yoga Center in Jamestown NY and taught there from early 2019 until the studio closed because of the pandemic. Andrea has continued to teach several weekly online classes since March of 2020 along with various in-person classes in different locations.

 

Andrea does her best to make her classes welcome to all and is thoughtful of the way she teaches. She uses gender-neutral and trauma-sensitive language and she works to make the classes inviting as well as a brave space for folks to explore the expanse of their practice. She always gives several versions of each asana (pose) so that folks can find the one that works best for them. She knows that each person is their own best teacher and sets them up to build their own practice by providing a space of true acceptance. Andrea believes that the only thing a person needs to do yoga is their breath. She teaches that yoga is for everybody and that you don’t need a flexible body, an able body, or a thin body to do yoga. 

 

Andrea believes in truly living in the bodies we have right now and in finding freedom knowing we all have intrinsic worth no matter our body type or identity. Her work is done from a weight-neutral, anti-diet, anti-racist, and anti-ableist framework.

 

When Andrea isn’t teaching yoga, you can find this retired dog trainer doing precisely what she dreamed of doing as a teenager. She leads body positive, inclusive, “no one left behind” hikes and other outdoor adventures locally with her group, Ample Movement. She also works for Whoa Travel, an international outdoor adventure travel company, as a group leader for plus-size group trips all over the world. Andrea is also an advocate for body liberation and all other forms of social justice and shares life with her partner, their husky, and their cat. 

 

You can find Andrea here: 

www.amplemovement.com

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