Andrea C. Skelly - YREC Certified

  PhD, MPH

On a winter’s day almost a decade ago, the decision to “drop in and try” a Yoga class started Andrea on a path that continues to evolve her life to combine ancient wisdom and well-being practices with science. She consistently reaffirms that a day without Yoga is like a day without sunshine!

Stress management and self-discovery have become the primary focus of her teaching. By guiding students through gentle movement and restorative Yoga postures and the basic aspects of Yoga practice, they discover healthy ways of reducing stress and enhancing well-being. Personal experience with and dissertation work on stress, coping and connections between the mind and disease, have led her to reaffirm the immense value of and need for gentle and restorative Yoga as well as the practice of Yoga Nidra. Andrea loves sharing these practices and teaching/reaffirming the basics via her Level I class.

Andrea earned her certification as a Yoga instructor via the Yoga Research and Education Center (YREC) program under the direction of Georg Feuerstein, PhD, world-renowned expert on Yoga history, philosophical and spiritual tenets of traditional Yoga. The asana part of the program included instruction by internationally respected teachers such as John Friend, Patricia Walden, Janice Gates, Frank Jude Boccio and Judith Hanson-Lasater (to many, the “Queen” of restorative Yoga), among others. In addition, she continues to train with nationally known and respected Anusara Yoga instructors, (some of whom are in the Northwest!), as well as with local and internationally known Yoga instructors from other traditions. While her teaching is primarily influenced by the philosophies and principles of Anusara, she incorporates the tools from many traditions and is grateful to all of her teachers, particularly her students!