YOGA IS FOR EVERYONE … AND SO IS ART

“My understanding of the human body began with years of studying and drawing the human form—still, moving, expressive, and alive. Art trained my eye to observe the outer world; yoga taught me to listen inward. Together, they guide the way I teach: helping students connect with their bodies, breath, minds, and emotions so they can experience presence from the inside out.”

SO HUM…

ENERGETIC. CREATIVE. PLAYFUL. COLORFUL. CONNECTED. PERSONAL.

I am a professional artist, potter, certified yoga teacher, and lover of life. For as long as I can remember, I have explored my connection to something greater through art. Color, texture, rhythm, line, shape, and pattern inspire the way I see the world and live from the heart. I have always been moved by the small, beautiful details of everyday life—the way dust dances in morning light, or water moves across a windshield—because they remind me that everything is shifting, unfolding, and becoming.

A year after a near-death experience during childbirth, I came to yoga for healing and health. From my very first class, I felt that yoga on the mat could be deeply transformative—but I soon learned that yoga travels with you everywhere. Through practice, I discovered that yoga is my art and art is my yoga. That realization became the heart of Heartful Yoga by Dani: a place where movement, breath, creativity, self-inquiry, and art making meet.

My personal practice existed long before I chose to become a yoga teacher. At first, teacher training was simply a way to deepen my own healing. Over time, I worked through the vulnerability of sharing my practice and learned to teach the way I create art—not by copying someone else’s form, but by listening to my own lived experience, intuition, and knowing. I am deeply grateful to theteachers who helped shape my path, including Charles Matkin, Lisa Bennett, Amy Pearce-Hayden, Julian Paik, and Gabriel Halpern.

I hold 200-hour and 500-hour Yoga Alliance certifications through Amy Pearce-Hayden’s Raja Hatha Yoga School and Aubree Saia’s Breath of Life. I have also sampled a certified Iyengar Teacher - The Great Yoga Wall,- with Brian Legere, and hold a certificate in teaching trauma-informed yoga with the Cross Over Yoga Project by Elisha Simpson. I continue to learn through workshops in New York City, the Hudson Valley, Omega Institute, Garrison Institute, and beyond. I believe we are all students and teachers when we keep our eyes and hearts open to living an awakened life.

Today, Heartful Yoga by Dani brings together my lifelong creative practice, my years as a professional textile designer in the fashion industry, and my devotion to yoga as a healing art. Through classes, private sessions, and Heartful Yoga Art Making experiences, I invite students to explore personal alignment, self-expression, body awareness, and creative connection. My classes are playful, soulful, and thoughtfully supportive—an invitation to breathe in, shine out, and live more fully from the heart.