VISION
I am a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT Yoga Alliance) with a Certificate in Music Therapy. I’m actively working on advanced qualification as a Yoga Therapist.
I teach yoga and music wellness for individuals, groups, and communities with a focus on seniors.
I currently provide wellness classes, spiritual companionship, and guidance to support my students in coping with life’s physical and emotional challenges.
I help them to thrive through movement, laughter, song, joy, meditation, peace, and acceptance.
GOALS
Continuing and deepening my practice teaching Individual and group Yoga and Music Wellness Classes and Workshops —
- A combination of Hatha and Kundalini with an emphasis on breathing (pranayama), spine and joint flexibility, core strength, positive self-talk, movement, laughter, and meditation
- Music Wellness encourages the expression of feelings that are present and invites joy through transformative sounding, singing, and moving to music
Pursuing a Master of Science MS in Yoga Therapy and an International Alliance for Yoga Therapy recognition as a ERYT 500 and a Certified Yoga Therapist CIAYT-800 qualification.
- Preparing myself to offer individual and group therapy and workshops in healing trauma through yoga, sound, and song.
- Growing in abundance by developing tools for accessing my offerings via this Yoga Song Wellness website and social media.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Wellness Instructor, City of Austin, Parks & Recreation Department, June 2023-Present
- Gentle Morning Yoga Senior Wellness, Conley-Guerrero Senior Activity Center
- Healing through Music, Conley-Guerrero Senior Activity Center
- Yoga for Children 5-12, Mexican American Cultural Center, June 2022-May 2023
Early Bird Yoga for the Environment, March 2020-present
Weekly private online group and individual Yoga for Seniors, via Zoom
Yoga Song Wellness Workshop, Third Eye Lounge, September 4, 2023
90-minute class taught as part of Austin’s annual Free Day of Yoga
Organic Gardening and Nature Wellness, Sustainable Food Center, 2018-2020
Movement for the Chakras, Sacred Journey School of Herbal Wisdom, Fall 2012-Spring 2013
7 classes, each focusing on movement and meanings for each of the body’s energy centers
Sunrise Yoga, Soma Vida Wellness, June 2007-May 2008
Twice-weekly studio class
EDUCATION
RYT Hatha 200-hour, Yoga Yoga, Austin, TX 2007
Teachers Mehtab Benton, Siri Bahadur, and Laura Gurukaram Benton
RYT Kundalini 200-hour, Yoga Yoga, Austin, TX 2008
Teachers Mehtab Benton, Siri Bahadur, and Laura Gurukaram Benton
Re-Evaluation Co-Counseling, 2000-2022, Teacher Beverly Bajema
Sacred Journey School of Herbal Wisdom, October 2014-April 2015
Teacher Herbalist Ginger Webb
Health & Harmony with Yoga & Ayurveda, June 2016
Teachers Genevieve Gilbreath, MSED, and Steven Ross, Co-Founder Eastside Yoga
Music Therapy Certificate, Texas State University, 2023
Other Teachers Angela DiNunzio, Terry Cortes & the Plum Blossom Sanghita, Brother Insight Thic Man Tue, Hugh Byrne, Kathleen Ellis, Steven Ross, Mary Richardson, Joy Nischala Devi, Srivatsa Ramiswami, Jogi Bhagat, Randall & Kristin Brooks, Barbara Germershausen, Shannon Potts-Hickey
Bachelor of Science in Communications, Radio-TV-Film, University of Texas, Austin, TX
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BIO
After years of activism, organizing, and advocacy communications for social justice, human rights, and the environment, I am now in my third act, teaching Yoga and Music Wellness and becoming a Yoga Therapist.
Originally from the Gulf Coast of Texas, I began the practice of yoga in 1988 while living in Syracuse, New York. I’ll never forget the sparkling eyes of my first teacher, a statuesque, quiet, and smiling woman in her 60s. She drove up from Ithaca to teach a small group of students at the Syracuse Community Center. I’m pretty sure she was a Kundalini teacher based on the way we rolled. And laughed. I remember she wore the traditional Kundalini white.
I had a love for yoga from earlier on. My mother’s party trick was to easily balance on her head. I saw how easy that was and I was easily able to balance on my head until I stopped doing that in my 40’s to protect my neck. Another childhood impression came from seeing Lilias on her program Lilias, Yoga, and You on the local PBS Station in Corpus Christi.
After living in Syracuse, I lived in Dublin, Ireland where I practiced yoga in a Georgian house in the city center with Western Friends of the Buddha and returned to Austin where I practiced at Austin Yoga House across from UT Law School with with Barb Germershausen and Shannon Potts Hickey.
In my forties, I amplified the frequency of my practice and in 2007 and 2008, I trained with Mehtab, Guru Karam, Siri Bahadur and other Yoga trainers at Austin’s first big yoga franchise Yoga Yoga.
I completed my Hatha 200-hour and Kundalini 200-hour teacher training, registered as an RYT-200 with Yoga Alliance, received mentorship from Jogi Bhagat, and began teaching at Soma Vida Wellness in central East Austin.
I currently teach private classes online for groups and individuals and public classes at the City of Austin, Parks & Recreation Department’s Conley-Guerrero Senior Activity Center.
Because of my love of music and the power of the Shabd sound current, I completed this year my Music Therapy certificate from Texas State University. I teach group Music wellness aka Karaoke at Conley-Guerrero.
I practice seated and walking meditation and dharma sharing regularly with Plum Blossom Sangha in the Order of Interbeing established by Vietnamese monk Thic Nhat Hahn.
MY TEACHERS
I’ve been most strongly influenced in my study of yoga and meditation by yoga teachers Angela DiNunzio, Mehtab Benton, Joy Nischala Devi, Srivatsa Ramaswami, Jogi Bhagat, and Steven Ross, meditation and habit change teacher Hugh Byrne, Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hahn (Thay), and teachers of the international Order of Interbeing established by Thay — Dharmacharya Terry Cortes, the teachers of Austin’s Plum Blossom Sanghita, and Qi Gong teacher Brother Insight of Deerpark Monastery in California. I offer a deep bow of gratitude to my teachers.
I also follow and offer a bow to the wisdom of the community of spiritual leaders at Hill Country Unitarian Universalist Church in Kerrville, Texas, to former Unitarian minister Kathleen Ellis, HeartBlessings spiritual companion, and Jen Goodner our amazing choir director for Tapestry Singers: Austin Women’s Chorus. Her ministry of music heals.
It truly is rich to have a village of teachers.
From Buddha and Patanjali, through you, I teach. Thank you.
CONTACT
Contact me at donnaleehoffman@gmail.com to book a private yoga or music wellness session online or to schedule a class at your business, studio, school, or event.
Or feel free to drop in and join my weekly Monday, 10 AM Gentle Morning Yoga Senior Wellness class or my Friday, 10 AM Karaoke class at Conley-Guerrero, 808 Nile St, in Austin, Texas 78702.
I grew up on the Gulf Coast of Texas. I have come to believe that my home town, Corpus Christi truly is, like the PR says, a sparkling city by the sea. From my experience of working successfully with the legal team at Sierra Club to bring refineries to clean up pollution emissions violations on the Texas Gulf Coast — I have come to imagine the shoreline transformed in the future by the light reflected off energy-producing waves and solar installations on rooftops . I come from that place of hope and belief for people and the planet.
I have worked in advocacy communications with nonprofit organizations in Texas, upstate New York, and Dublin, Ireland — for a healthy environment, for fair and affordable housing, for access to health care, for women’s rights, and for improved wages and conditions for working people.
- I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Communication from the University of Texas at Austin;
- I worked as Instructional Television Operations Manager for KLRU, Austin’s public broadcasting station and have utilized my communications degree in many ways.
- I worked as a Tenant Organizer for Syracuse United Neighbors in upstate NY and helped a group of tenants to place ownership of their apartment complex in the hands of a non-profit neighborhood development corporation.
- In Dublin, Ireland, I produced a twenty-six week radio program on news and cultural affairs.
- I attended three international conferences of the World Association of Community Oriented Radio and presented at one.
- After traveling in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. living in Syracuse, New York and Dublin — two years in each city, I returned to live in Austin.
- I produced an annual International Women’s Day Community Media Festival for five years; and,
- Represented the Texas/National Organization for Women as their liaison in the state Legislature — not an easy, but certainly an interesting gig!
- In 2000, I earned a teaching certificate and taught English Language Arts at Del Valle and LBJ High Schools in Austin. I couldn’t stay away though from advocacy and organizing.
- As Communications Coordinator for the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club and the National Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign from 2004 through 2011, I produced over 30 press events including the largest ever environmental rally at the Texas State Capitol. I worked with scientists, policy analysts, legislators, and activists to influence state and local policy decisions through coverage on radio, tv and print media and engagement on social media.
- I managed two contracts with the Texas Department of Transportation. I created, marketed, trained trainers, and distributed a College Active Transportation Safety curriculum (CATS) for BikeTexas. The curriculum was adopted by seven Texas colleges and universities and utilized for incoming students in the Summer and Fall, 2012. In the Winter and Spring of 2014, I hired and managed a creative team for Please Be Kind to Cyclists.
Most recently, I stepped forward to found a community-based nonprofit Blackshear Bridge which is dedicated to creating a diverse and sustainable community in central east Austin. Blackshear Bridge brings resources and builds sustainability at Blackshear Elementary School, an Austin Independent School District campus in the African American Heritage District of central east Austin. We coordinate community partners — Huston-Tillotson University, the City of Austin’s Office of Sustainability, the Sustainable Food Center, Keep Austin Beautiful, Blackshear-Prospect Hill Neighborhood Association and other organizations work with students, staff, and community members to create a community food hub — including Yellow Jacket Garden and the Bread & Roses Community Farm Stand, a wildlife habitat on the school grounds, and to support diversity through programs at Huston-Tillotson.
I am also working on archiving key documents for Women on the Border.
Feel free to contact me at donnaleehoffman@gmail.com or 512-299-5776.
Thank you, Donna Hoffman
YOGA SONG WELLNESS 