From our 2017 YTT in Newark:
"Teacher training with Nancy Candea was transformational for me. Not only is Nancy a gifted leader, discussion moderator and yoga expert, she provides an ideal space for learning and growing by being completely vulnerable as well as flexible with her teaching style. I have become more grounded, more spiritual, more confident, more in touch and more knowledgeable of who I am due to my time training with Nancy. The process is priceless."
- Lauren Craig, Newark's Glambassador and author of 100 Things to Do in Newark Before You Die
Transitional Yoga Program
The Transitional Yoga Program was developed in 2011 to expand classes currently being offered to incarcerated women. Yoga Impact has teamed with Certified Yoga Teachers by providing classes within the jail and offer classes in the community to help women maintain the benefits that come with a regular yoga practice. All participants earned certificates of completion, and a free yoga mat when they continued their yoga journey beyond the confines of the jail! Local yoga studios donated space for free community classes and continued connection! Those who continued the journey were offered scholarships to complete the 200 hour themselves, returning to the jail and offering the gift of yoga to others!
During the pandemic, all programming shut-down at the jails and in the community, but we are back up and running again! Our dedicated instructors are providing much needed skills of breath, movement, and mindfulness within the walls of the jail. Our goal is to rebuild the community connection through offering free classes, and collaboration with justice services. Our mission is to add more classes within the jail, to reach all populations, and to develop programming designed to educate facilitators among those we serve. Outside of the jail, we hope to create more full-circle yogis through 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training scholarships to continue the chain of connection through breath, movement, and mindfulness.
The Living Boldly Project
Since 2022
The Living Boldly Project (LBP) educates women and healthcare providers on the effects of ageism and the science of healthy longevity. The effects of ageism, coupled with so many myths about aging, have women, and the greater community, feeling like midlife and getting older is a medical condition and a series of unfortunate events. Science affirms that healthy longevity is attainable. LBP empowers women physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually to learn skills that will bring quality to the second half of life. Led by Nancy Candea, author, yoga therapist, and founder of the non-profit Yoga Impact, the LBP includes an online educational platform with a resource library, women’s stories, and a podcast with expert interviews. We offer trainings, events, fundraisers, and speaking engagements to create awareness on how to live a mentally and physically healthy second half of life! More
Meditation and Mindfulness
Meditation Facilitator Training is available for anyone who is interested in leading meditation groups
MIndful Kindness Training is available for teachers who wish to add midfulness skills and kindness vocabulary into their classrooms.
Vespers Mindfulness Program
Since 2019
Vasper is a revolutionary health and fitness technology that combines compression, cooling and interval training to help the body restore, harmonize, and reach peak vitality. Some of the benefits participants of this program are experiencing are increased energy and focus, improvement in strength and decrease in recovery time, and an all around sense of wellness. This program is offered in Waima, Hawaii for veterans and first responders. The use of Vasper free of charge through Yoga Impact donations.
Therapeutic Use of Yoga for Trauma and Chronic Pain Training
A participant-led training with guest speaker Nancy Candea, Adv-CYTO, E-RYT 500
This 16 hour cec (Yoga Alliance) certificate course is for energy/bodyworkers and yoga teachers who want to sensitively address trauma and chronic pain issues with their clients. In a participant-led training we can learn from the diverse experiences and cultures of this unique group of healers working in Uganda. As yoga/energy/bodyworkers, we know that the chronic discomfort that our clients feel in their bodies and emotions manifests as anxiety, depression and physical pain, can often be traced back to trauma. As healers, we want to do our best not to trigger our clients, but to engage our clients in deep healing. This heart-centered training will bring the science and best practices for deep healing work in our community. A certificate will be given to those who come to all the contact hours and complete their written assignment. Space is limited to 16 participants. 16 CEC for YA
Some of Our Past Projects
YI Pre/postnatal Yoga Teacher Training
In recent years, the medical community has verified that the societal and systemic racism experienced by black women in America creates toxic physiological stress, resulting in conditions such as hypertension and pre-eclampsia. These conditions, and the silencing of black women’s voices via the dismissal of their health concerns and symptoms, lead directly to higher rates of infant and maternal death. Yoga Impact is effecting change on this front by developing a pre/postnatal yoga training for yoga teachers in Newark and surrounding communities. Upon completion of this training, participants will be qualified to teach stress reduction skills specifically for pregnant and postnatal people, and be able to adapt their yoga classes for pre- and post-pregnancy clients. Through focused attention on the needs of new parents and provided community resources and support, Yoga Impact hopes to improve the overall health of new parents and contribute to closing the gap on black parent and infant mortality rates.
Yoga Impact Training in Newark!
Past trainings: 2017 and 2019
In 2017 we partnered with the Newark Yoga Movement and sponsored 17 amazing Newark residents through a Yoga Teacher Training. In 2019 we partnered with I’m So Yoga Studio in Newark to train 7 more yoga teachers form the area, These new yoga teachers are ready to teach chair yoga, gentle/restorative yoga, and flow yoga in their communities.We also provided training for yoga for children, healing from trauma and chronic pain and pre/postnatal yoga teacher training for those who were yoga teachers and birth workers. We are currently working on Yoga Impact’s Pre/Postnatal Yoga teacher Training that addresses the needs of pregant people in the black community. More about Yoga Impact Teachers in Newark
Yoga Training on the Navajo Nation
Past Training 2017/2018
In October of 2017, Yoga Impact began a 200hr yoga teacher training on the Navajo Nation in Arizona. This training will conclude in May 2018, and is very culturally and physically diverse. Our group has experienced much growthful struggle with our cultural differences. To some of the Diné (Navajo) trainees, the teaching of yoga philosophy felt intrusive, as they are struggling to preserve their own culture and beliefs. But with loving-kindness, consultation, and perseverance, we were able to move on and grow as a group. We are working on another training Projecton the capital of the Navajo Nation in 2020.