About Arielle

 

Arielle Thomas Newman, MA, E-RYT 500 is an Experienced Registered Yoga Alliance Teacher with over 28 years of professional yoga teaching experience. She has developed an eclectic style of teaching yoga, drawing from her study with world renowned yoga teachers such as Judith Lasater, Erich Shiffmann, Gary Kraftsow, and Rodney Yee. Her lyrical Vinyasa Flow sequences reflect her career as a modern dancer and National Endowment for the Arts - funded choreographer.
 

“Dance, art, and music have always been a part of my life. My father was a jitterbug dance champion and my mother was an artist. I watched football every Sunday with my brothers and dad, which is where I got my first examples of improvisational choreography!

Arielle Thomas Newman
 
 

When I began teaching yoga in the 80’s, I was dancing professionally. What I loved about yoga was how it slowed movement down enough for me to have my body, breath and mind in the same time zone. I endeavor to share this in-the-moment awareness with my students so together, we can enjoy this aliveness of balance, form, and energy.

One of my strongest traits as an instructor is to be able to read energy and structure swiftly, noting when people are in their optimal yoga form and when they might benefit from adjusting their stance or extending their energy.

I urge students to be ‘body honest’ which means practicing each pose in a way that suits their body, without competing with the person next to them. Each individual body has things that come naturally and things that are more difficult to execute. Learning to listen to our body is one of the lasting gifts yoga can give us.”

Arielle's classes are light-hearted and presented with thoughtful attention to anatomical detail and connective flow.

Her teaching experience includes Hatha/Flow Yoga, Yoga Dance, modern dance for children and adults, choreography, Yoga Teachers Training, and faculty positions at the University of Sydney, Australia, University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Missouri, Kansas City. She holds a MA in Dance from UCLA.

Arielle was a founding Co-Artistic Director of City in Motion Dance Theater in Kansas City, Missouri and Kinetic Energy Dance Company in Sydney, Australia.

For over ten years, Arielle was the Executive Director of Yoga Center in Kansas City, a school dedicated to offering quality yoga classes and retreats in the heartland of America. 
Arielle’s columns on dance, yoga, and theater have appeared in the Kansas City Star, KCUR FM, and Dance Magazine.

She has hosted Yoga By The Sea Vacations in the Riviera Maya since 1999 and maintains a yoga studio with ongoing classes and Yoga Teachers Training Courses in Playa del Carmen, Mexico where she lives with her husband photographer Don Newman and their cat, Jungle Kitty.

Arielle’s latest addition to her teaching certifications is one in Floor Barre. In 2018 she got trained in the Zena Rommett Floor Barre technique and is now certified to train her students in this technique. 

 
“May your true inner essence shine forth brightly & radiantly!”
— Arielle Thomas Newman