Namaste & Hari Om,
Thank you for your interest in my training, world experiences & path to teaching yoga and meditation. I completed my training at Yoga Vidya Gurukul, an affiliate of the Bihar School of Yoga, which complies fully with U.S. Yoga Alliance 200 hr RYT standards in Nasik, India in July/August of 2007. I also took a week long Ayurveda course at Yoga Vidya Gurukul. I spent nine months on my trip through India. My main goals were to complete my yoga training, a silent meditation course & attend the Dalai Lama's teachings. I cannot say for certain how many different teachers I explored and yoga classes I attended on my travels through India, from the deep south of Kerala & Tamil Nadu to Rajasthan, while living with a family in Mumbai for over a month, to Rishikesh & the Himalayas. I plan to go back to India to finish my advanced yoga course & certification. A few years before my trip to India, I lived in Thailand, where I met one of my closest teachers, Dr. Chatree, a venerable Thai Buddhist Monk, who has opened four meditation centers in Thailand and others around the world. He is currently opening centers in Russia & often speaks at UN conferences and at the Annual International Buddhism Conference. I took his meditation courses, studied with him personally in his monasteries & returned this last year to his Abbot's monastery in Thailand to complete a 2 week silent monastic meditation retreat with the intent of being prepared to teach Vipassana & other forms of meditation while exploring the monastic lifestyle. I correspond regularly with Dr. Chatree, Guru G, Gandar G & other teachers from Yoga Vidya Gurukul, Dr. Yardi (the Ayurvedic doctor whose course I completed in India), Amaro (one of my first teachers, an old Rajasthan yogi), Surindar, a great yogi in Rishikesh, & other yoga teachers from India. Often they offer me advice in regards to my private students & private meditation classes. I have also stayed in contact with many monks, laypeople & Dorges that I met during the 3 weeks I spent with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala where I completed his 14th Annual Spring Teachings and took my Bodhisattva vows . During his teachings, I also took nightly courses with Dorge Dumdul, the Dalai Lama's main English translator.
Having moved to Washington, DC from Boston nearly two years ago, I feel so lucky to be intergrated into the DC yoga community. Just before my arrival in DC, I had been teaching yoga full-time in Boston & Cambridge, MA. While taking a graduate semester at Harvard University, I was able to teach yoga in the area though Spotfire/Tibco Corp, Hult International Business School, Centro Corp., Cambridge After School Program, Art & Soul Studio, Healthworks, & many wonderful private clients. You can see my original teaching schedule in Boston by clicking on the Schedule link at the right of this page. I still work with private clients in Boston and with my lifelong Sadhaka, with whom I do meditation classes over Skype. In Boston, I also practiced with Patricia Walden, B.K.S. Iyengar's Master Teacher, for some months through her classes for yoga teachers. I still train with Patricia when my schedule allows.
Prior to Boston, I first expanded my yoga teaching in Idaho Falls, ID for approximately one year. I returned to Idaho Falls to be with my family after my intensive training in India. During this year teaching yoga, I held & instructed 3 yoga workshops: Exploring the Yoga Path (focused on the eight limbs of yoga) & the Joyful Lotus Yoga Workshop (focused on advancing one's asana & meditation practices). The last workshop, The India Workshop, I was asked to put on by the Apple Athletic Club for all of their yoga instructors; this workshop was mainly focused on Sanskrit, mudras, bundhas & chanting. The workshops have been a great joy. In Idaho, I taught classes for kids at the Apple Athletic Club (8-12 years old) while also teaching a Gentle Yoga for Healing class at Namaste Yoga Studio to a group of women aged 50 and older. I also taught classes mainly done in chairs for seniors at Lincoln Court Retirement Center. I enjoyed instructing an array of drop-in classes at the studio, three of which were held in the park during lunch time in the summer months. I was blessed to work with many wonderful private yoga & meditation clients. Testimonies from my many private clients can be read by clicking on the link on the left hand column of this page.
While I was teaching in Idaho, I managed Namaste Yoga Studio prior to returning to Idaho after graduate school and teaching at the White House and dozens of other government centers in DC. I have since worked with USSA ski and snowboard teams and several Olympic athletes, while running a large 3-4 location community wellness non-profit organization that I founded in 2013. The "co-op's" have been beacons of health and wellness in our communities, from Idaho Falls, to Driggs/Victor, to Jackson, WY. We have hosted large wellness festivals, been vendors at local health and wellness festivals, and hosted over 200 events in our 11+ years of operation. With 300+ teachers, contractors, wellness practitioners and assistants, having served over 20,000 individuals in our communities, the co-op's effects are large. We have trained over 70 yoga instructors in the region, and have a wide network of non-profit partners regionally and internationally. From women's empowerment retreats, to regional retreats, to taking students to India and the International Festival of Traditional Yoga, the co-op's widespread influence spans oceans. We are honored to have played a central role in the lives and wellness of our community, and are grateful beyond words eternally for all of the support we have been offered.
Namaste & with loving kindness,
Hari Om Tat Sat
Daysha Hampton