Finding Lynne Nicole’s yoga class has been a godsend for me. I literally feel it has changed my life. At the age of 61, I feel I was returned to my body—the body that I picked apart and criticized as a young woman, and then abused for decades with academic and office work. Or rather, my body was returned to me; for the first time since I can remember, I enjoy and love my body, my whole body and, with it, myself.

Of particular importance for me have been her emphasis on breath, her integration of movement into yoga and her willingness to have students move at their own pace. Because I tend to breathe quite slowly, in most other yoga classes I find myself rushing to keep up with the pace… and thus unable to enter the poses as deeply as I’d like. Only recently, Lynne put a name on the practice that makes me the happiest: moving meditation, riding in the breath like a stream.

Lynne is an amazing yoga teacher. Her classes bring together the mind, body, and spirit in a gentle way. She teaches with great sensitivity and knowledge about how the practice of yoga can improve the quality of one’s life. She incorporates various exercises that focus on breathing to calm the mind and relieve tension in the body, and postures to improve flexibility, balance, and strength, and that also promote health. I have a stressful job and look forward to the peacefulness I always come away with from her classes. During the rest of the week I use the techniques Lynne has taught us, especially the ones on “letting go” of worry and tension, and find this to be very helpful. Those of us “regulars” in her class are grateful we have such a fine teacher.

It is with great enthusiasm that I write this testimonial for Lynne.  I have taken Yoga and Qigong classes with Lynne for almost five years now.  She is a skilled and compassionate teacher and I have especially appreciated her instruction in Tai Chi Easy.  It has never been easy for me to remember movement sequences, but Lynne’s patience and skill in teaching this form has enabled me to internalize this beautiful and powerful form and incorporate it in my daily practice.  The knowledge of the form is now in my bones, and the vision of Lynne teaching it to us with her gentle grace and soothing voice continues to serve as an inspiration each time I practice it.  What an incredible gift this has been!

Lynne imbues her classes with healing acceptance, grace and beauty—from the movements she models, to the music she plays and the words she speaks. It is clear that she herself has gone very deeply into issues of self-love and self-healing. Out of this, she enables her students to find calm, and approach whatever physical, mental and emotional state they find themselves in with mindful acceptance. She gently reminds us that we are part of nature and the changing year. Like Lao Tse, she shows us how to greet our own, all too human fallibilities with a laughing shake of the head.