Andrea Martinez
As a former dancer, I have spent much of my life in the relentless pursuit of an unattainable perfection—physically, emotionally, artistically and spiritually. For better and worse, that path led to a winding journey chasing some foggy idea of what I 'should be'… an external image of what life would be and look like if I only did things 'Right' and was 'Good Enough'… as if it were all going to cumulate into a neat package one can arrive at. It was yoga that brought the impossibility of this hunt clearly into my awareness and opened up possibilities for transforming my relationship to myself and the world differently—with less fear, less assertion and more gentleness, more acceptance. It is, as they say, 'a process,' with some days moving more smoothly than others.
I began teaching yoga as a complementary method of training dancers to create balance both physically and emotionally. It slowly dawned on me that I clearly did not want to propagate in others the same patterns of being externally-motivated and performance-based. Yoga allowed my students to slowly move toward an authentic sense of their humanity and all of its complexities and I wanted to be part of guiding that evolution. In 2008, my partner and I decided to quit our jobs and move to Chapel Hill to create a different life together that was more in line with our values. He began a PhD program in Culture, Curriculum & Change at UNC and I began teaching yoga as my primary, full-time job. I currently teach vinyasa and yin yoga—both of which speak to my personal dualities and those I often observe in my students-- the need to move stagnant energy around and the equally important need to sit in sustained stillness and discovery. I am a 200-hour registered yoga teacher through Yoga Alliance and am near completing my 500-hour certification. I have had the pleasure of studying with a wide variety of teachers—some of the best of whom are here in our own community. I live in daily gratitude with my greatest teachers-- my husband Trey and our two children, Mateo and Wahya.
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