Dee Dee Knoche

Dee Dee Knoche discovered yoga in 1995 as a stressed out New Yorker having minimal success in starting an acting career while also sidelining as a model of the " plus size" variety and working as a hair and makeup artist. 

Thinking the way to better fitness was to take 2 spin classes in a row then lift weights at the gym, she never would have taken a "hippie stretch class" if her agent hadn't suggested it and the teacher hadn't  "invited" her. That teacher was Dana Flynn of Laughing Lotus fame before the studio and the fame. This was also probably a way to get her to stop bothering people in class when she would interrupt to get weights. 

After that transformative first experience where she thought she was  going to take it easy from all the cardio and instead had a spiritual epiphany, she was hooked. She attended the  Jivamukti yoga teacher training program in 1999 in NYC taught by Sharon Gannon and David Life  and took regular workshops at Om with Cyndi Lee and continued learning from Dana Flynn and her partner Jasmine Tarkeshi  until moving to Chicago in 2004 for her then husband's job  with their young son.  She then completed her 200 hours of  training with Sianna Sherman and Desiree Rumbaugh  in the form of Anusara at Yogaview. This led her to be  pointed the direction of teaching alignment based vinyasa flow, restorative, therapeutics and prenatal yoga classes and once she started in 2004, she turned to full time teaching to all ages and levels all across Chicago and has made it her mission to impart the same wisdom, warmth, sweaty challenge, deep soul connection as well as intelligent somatic awareness that she was granted and so much more from her  previous teachers and the practice itself. Her classes often incorporate stories with themes to include philosophy as well as copious amounts of joke telling. She encourages honoring your own uniqueness as well as the qualities of patience and perseverance in your practice and beyond. 

She is very much looking forward to the next phase of learning/teaching which will begin Fall 2015 with a yoga therapy certification program and to being a part of  the Namaskar community.