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Cheryl Fenner BrownE-RYT 500, C-IAYT
Integrative Yoga Therapist Oncology Yoga Specialist Holy Fire® Karuna® Reiki Master
On this path, no effort is ever wasted, no gain is ever reversed, |
Biography
Cheryl found yoga in 2001 to ease chronic back pain and became instantly enchanted by the subtle connections between the breath, body, mind, and emotions. Students appreciate her deeply educational approach to yoga. Her classes weave anatomy, philosophy, asana, mudra, chanting, pranayama, and yoga nidra together for a well-rounded experience delivered with compassion and humor. Encouraging each student to honor where they are in their bodies every time they step onto the mat enables profound transformation in self-awareness. She loves showing people how posture, breath, and attention can completely transform how they feel in their bodies and how they feel about themselves. She specializes in helping cancer patients, those with structural injuries, and people in midlife (and beyond) thrive.
Her training with master Hatha teachers from Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland, California, and the Integrative Yoga Therapy school at Kripalu helps her to blend both traditional Hatha teachings and alignment principles with subtle energy work and intuitive healing. She is certified as an E-RYT 500 through Yoga Alliance and maintains their certification as a continuing education provider. In 2016, she was among the first teachers certified through the International Association of Yoga Therapists as a C-IAYT. She has been a Reiki practitioner since 1997 and was certified as a Holy Fire® III Karuna® Reiki Master in 2019. She currently works at the Mindfulness Center as a Master Faculty Teacher.
As a yoga therapist with over 1,840 hours of individual client experience, Cheryl co-creates home practices that meet the lifestyle needs of her wide variety of clients. As a teacher, she has taught over 9,000 hours of public classes, workshops, and retreats (see Resume' for details) in studios, cancer centers, and retirement communities. She serves on the faculty of several teacher training and yoga therapy schools. As a mentor, she helps aspiring and seasoned yoga teachers incorporate adaptive asana and subtle practices into their teaching. As a researcher, her Healing Yoga for Cancer Survivorship study on the benefits of yoga for reducing side effects of cancer treatment was presented at IAYT's Symposium on Yoga Research and the Society of Integrative Oncology's annual conferences in 2015.
Her work has been featured in the Yoga Journal and Yoga Therapy Today magazines, on Spectrum News, on the Yoga U Online and Yoga Therapy Hour, Glass Half Full, Yoga for Healthy Aging blogs and podcasts, and in the book 'Yoga Therapy Across the Cancer Care Continuum' (see Press). In 2022 I published the Yoga Encyclopedia App containing two decades of yoga philosophy and practice knowledge for practitioners and teachers.
Her training with master Hatha teachers from Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland, California, and the Integrative Yoga Therapy school at Kripalu helps her to blend both traditional Hatha teachings and alignment principles with subtle energy work and intuitive healing. She is certified as an E-RYT 500 through Yoga Alliance and maintains their certification as a continuing education provider. In 2016, she was among the first teachers certified through the International Association of Yoga Therapists as a C-IAYT. She has been a Reiki practitioner since 1997 and was certified as a Holy Fire® III Karuna® Reiki Master in 2019. She currently works at the Mindfulness Center as a Master Faculty Teacher.
As a yoga therapist with over 1,840 hours of individual client experience, Cheryl co-creates home practices that meet the lifestyle needs of her wide variety of clients. As a teacher, she has taught over 9,000 hours of public classes, workshops, and retreats (see Resume' for details) in studios, cancer centers, and retirement communities. She serves on the faculty of several teacher training and yoga therapy schools. As a mentor, she helps aspiring and seasoned yoga teachers incorporate adaptive asana and subtle practices into their teaching. As a researcher, her Healing Yoga for Cancer Survivorship study on the benefits of yoga for reducing side effects of cancer treatment was presented at IAYT's Symposium on Yoga Research and the Society of Integrative Oncology's annual conferences in 2015.
Her work has been featured in the Yoga Journal and Yoga Therapy Today magazines, on Spectrum News, on the Yoga U Online and Yoga Therapy Hour, Glass Half Full, Yoga for Healthy Aging blogs and podcasts, and in the book 'Yoga Therapy Across the Cancer Care Continuum' (see Press). In 2022 I published the Yoga Encyclopedia App containing two decades of yoga philosophy and practice knowledge for practitioners and teachers.
The Real Story
By the turn of the millennium, I was a travelling software trainer living an unhealthy harried lifestyle and a self-proclaimed workout junkie. I would go to the gym and hit the treadmill with book in hand, earbuds in ears, a TV on nearby, anything to distract myself from the very thing that was supposed to keep me healthy. The first time I tried yoga, I absolutely hated it! The teacher did not 'teach' anything, just led us through a pre-prescribed sequence - calling out pose names and demonstrating. I felt like I was playing a grown-up version of Simon Says!
I have suffered from back pain since a high school gymnastics injury and sitting at a desk for 10 hours a day was making matters worse. I found a welcoming yoga community in Oakland, CA with real teachers who truly taught the practice of yoga and I began to realize the peace that came from only focusing on one thing at a time. This is what I had been missing and trying to find through less productive channels for so many years. Then after being laid off from my tech job in the Bay Area, I knew I loved to teach adults but was looking for another vocation to fulfill my hearts desire to help others. Under the guidance of my first yoga teacher, Vickie Russell Bell, I enrolled in teacher training and fell in love with the practice all over again.
I have suffered from back pain since a high school gymnastics injury and sitting at a desk for 10 hours a day was making matters worse. I found a welcoming yoga community in Oakland, CA with real teachers who truly taught the practice of yoga and I began to realize the peace that came from only focusing on one thing at a time. This is what I had been missing and trying to find through less productive channels for so many years. Then after being laid off from my tech job in the Bay Area, I knew I loved to teach adults but was looking for another vocation to fulfill my hearts desire to help others. Under the guidance of my first yoga teacher, Vickie Russell Bell, I enrolled in teacher training and fell in love with the practice all over again.
The yoga therapy components of my teaching are based on my 800 hours of training with the Integrative Yoga Therapy
school and certified as a C-IAYT, through the International Association of Yoga Therapists, not derived from my status as an
E-RYT 500 with Yoga Alliance Registry.
