Katie Giles

Path: As a long time dancer and runner, I used to practice pushing my body as far as it would go. My first introduction to yoga was through a Kundalini class in college, which challenged me to focus on a completely different way of using my body. The seeds of my long-term interest in yoga came a year later when I started practicing Iyengar yoga in Honolulu, HI. Over time I started practicing yoga more regularly when I was looking for a good way to get strong and balanced for surfing or to deal with stresses in my life. Since I’ve been working on physical activity and healthy eating promotion to prevent type 2 diabetes, I started searching for a way to be able to more directly interact with people on how to change their lifestyles. And realized I could do that by incorporating yoga into my professional approach to healthy living. Then I realized that the teacher I’d been taking classes from was going to be starting up another year of teacher training, so I completed Ti Harmony’s teacher training in May 2007. Inspiration I am very lucky to work with an incredibly wonderful team at UNC who helped me identify yoga teaching as my path, supported me through my 9 month teacher training and have helped me bring yoga into the work we do with middle school students, as well as into our workplace. I learned a lot and drew some deep inspiration from my fellow yoga teacher trainees in Chapel Hill and Ti. And finally inspiration comes from my friends who practice yoga, talk yoga and teach me all the time. Favorites for grounding: A mixture of moving a lot in practice and holding poses while focusing on sending my breath to different spots in my body. I’ve worked lately on finding a balance strength and flexibility in my practice and working on those aspects in conjunction with each other helps me to really be aware of how my body works. Favorites for kicking it: Probably one of the other times in my life where I find myself truly present besides yoga is while surfing. Being so far from the beach though keeps me more and more on my mat. Next up after those activities are traveling, hanging out with friends and reading. Practice: I’ve worked a lot through my practice on developing patience, strength and commitment to myself and to yoga. Much of my practice is spent trying to just figure out what my body needs that day, at that time, to trying something new when I can and to keep being creative about getting my body and breath moving. Intention: My purpose in teaching yoga is to help provide an outlet for people to get moving, to pay attention to their bodies and to put in some time each day to be healthy. I want to keep learning as a yoga practitioner and as a teacher from the people I work with.