Wayne Oliver,     CFT, CHt. RYT

"We must be the change we wish to see in the world."  Mohandas Gandhi
Wayne Oliver is a professionally trained yoga instructor, a double certified personal Fitness Trainer (since 2000), a certified chi gung (Taoist yoga) instructor, a level 3 Reiki, and was certified as a Transformational Hypnotherapist in 2004. In addition, he is a certified combat martial arts instructor, with 2 black belts and 2 honorary black belts who also practices and teaches tai chi for health. These days he much prefers helping people live a more healthy and holistic lifestyle instead teaching how to damage the human body. In 1985, Wayne developed a serious degenerative bone and hip disease called Legg Cal Perthis. As a result, he spent the next 4 years in leg braces and using crutches to move around (during those wonderfully pleasant high school years). Eventually, using tai chi, and later discovering power yoga, Wayne was able to rehabilitate and train his body enough to begin martial arts training again (in Kodenkan jujutsu). Concurrently, he began training and exploring both Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do and the Bujinkan budo arts.) While still plagued by constant hip and knee pain and considerable loss in range of motion, he still uses tai chi, chi gung (qigong), and yoga as therapy for his condition. (He is too chicken to go under the knife for the required hip replacement.) Wayne's first yoga instructor training was in fitness yoga (2000 0r 2001), and he later received his traditional Vinyasa Hatha yoga certification. His true passion falls with the meditative practices, upon which he heavily draws during his classes, stressing mindfulness, full body awareness, and deliberate action and intention, while throwing in a few internal practices drawn form Chinese chi gung. Since November 2005, Wayne has been working with the Volunteers of America Hurricane Coping Assistance Program for Hurricane Rita and Katrina and has been team leader for the Stress Management Team for half that time. In this capacity, he also teaches yoga, tai chi, and meditation to first responders who worked during hurricanes and in the recovery efforts. Also in 2005, Wayne was granted study into some of the yoga practices of the siddhar yogis of southern India. He has also received prema shaktipat and mukti diksha from different yoga traditions. Wayne is a voracious reader and his favorite movies include Gandhi and Kingdom of Heaven. He's made it his life's goal to try and educate folks in alternative methods of health preservation and rejuvenation, as well as yoga, tai chi, stress management, and martial arts programmes for children. His other passions include Interfaith Tolerance, bad humor, western wisdom traditions, Sufi poetry, experimenting with different tea combinations, EBay and Amazon.com, and adopting way too many animals.