About Arielle
Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Arielle grew up in Millbrae in a Chinese + French home. As the product of foreign parents, Arielle spent summers traveling to Europe and Asia with her sister Avril and parents Niki and Daniel. Exposed to diverse cultures, religious beliefs and traditions, her radical acceptance and appreciation of the beauty in all beings started young. Following in her big sister's slippers, she started ballet lessons at age six and continued on for twelve years with dreams of becoming a prima ballerina. This set the foundation for her sense of body awareness and flexibility, but more importantly, it taught her to feel fully expressed. Adventures in movement continued with various athletic trainings throughout her life; she also learned gymnastics, hula hoop dancing and aerial acrobatics.
Arielle attended UC Davis and studied English Literature with the intention of working in journalism. The 2008 recession, however, had other plans. After returning to the Bay Area, Arielle began working at lululemon athletica; a yoga-inspired athletic wear company that invests in it's employees with goal-coaching and personal development seminars; Arielle completed the entire Landmark Curriculum for Living in 2012. Staff is also encouraged to take yoga classes in surrounding studios, which launched Arielle's practice. She began with Bikram Yoga and after two years realized there must be more than 26 poses! Vinyasa Yoga felt so familiar to her dance experience; linking dynamic movements with breath soon inspired Arielle to create her own sequences.
During the five years she spent with lululemon athletica, Arielle was promoted to manager and attended the annual conference in Vancouver. There she met Global Ambassador Eoin Finn and took his class for the first time. He led them with humor and soul; she was slithering around like a snake and crawling as a lizard. The memory of this smart yet fun practice stayed with her, and when it came time to leave lululemon athletica, Arielle chose to follow Eoin to Bali, Indonesia, in 2013 for a 200-hour yoga teacher training. With no job to come back to, Arielle took a leap of faith. She declared her life's mission to inspire full self expression through movement, and thus her path to becoming a yoga teacher began.
But really, this seemed to be her path all along. She discovered that all she sought was already within. The ability to feel movements from the inside out began as a ballerina, the complexity of more challenging asana had been adapted through acrobatics, and the ability to flow with grace came from spinning within her hula hoop. Meditation was a new practice, but she later realized that the time spent focusing on specific body parts in all forms of movement is meditation itself.
When Arielle returned to San Francisco she began teaching yoga and managing Nandi Yoga Studio. Fully immersed in all that she loved, Arielle continued training in anatomy, prenatal yoga, and hands-on adjustments. She assisted Eoin Finn at Wanderlust Yoga Festival in Tahoe and Yoga Journal Conference in San Francisco. The more she practiced yoga, the less she wanted to do anything else!
In September 2014 Arielle traveled to sunny San Diego for Eoin Finn's level two trainings in Adjustments & Advanced Postures and The Fluid Body. Arielle spent two weeks in yoga heaven and didn't want to leave; she surfed before class, ate fresh-caught tuna poke bowls for lunch and watched the sunset every evening, which led her to think, I could get used to this. She also spent this time healing a broken heart. On day-one of this training, a three-year relationship came to an unexpected end. She would be going home to an empty apartment that she couldn't afford and ultimately move in with Mom & Dad. Going through a heart-wrenching break-up during a training where her heart was urged to "burst wide open" somehow allowed all the pieces to fall in the right place.
A longtime friend from college encouraged her to move to the mindful community of Encinitas in North County San Diego. David has lived there for seven years and knew this yoga mecca was the perfect place to start over. It is home to the Self-Realization Fellowship founded by Swami Yogananda in 1920, which developed a rich spiritual energy you can feel. Kids grow up practicing yoga in the Encinitas School District and yogis travel from all over the world to practice with Tim Miller at his Ashtanga Yoga Center in Carlsbad and hear talks from Deepak Chopra at his Chopra Center. Exactly six months after visiting Encinitas for yoga teacher training, Arielle made the move south and called it home. And David called her girlfriend. She immediately began teaching at Yoga + Bergamot in Leucadia and soon after Yoga Six in Carlsbad & Solana Beach. Now you can also find her at the Equinox in La Costa.
As the teaching jobs came rolling in, Arielle was also asked to demonstrate her asana for various local companies specializing in yoga products like stretchy pants and mala necklaces. You can find her visage on marketing materials for Vuori Clothing, Toesox, Yoga Six, Manduka Yoga, Mika Yoga Wear, Padma Design, Pura Vida Bracelets, Glyder Apparel, Manna Activewear and more. Photographers couldn't resist the beautiful costal landscape to create content for their portfolios, and yoga-modeling was added to the list of Arielle's activities.
The last bit fell into place in August 2016 when she and David adopted a cute and mischievous pup by the name of Charlie. Three years later we walked down the aisle and were married by my teacher, Eoin Finn. The translation of my name now is: Arielle = lioness of god; Leon = lion. With this new title of Lioness Lion, courage has been driving me to step full heartedly into my dharma, my responsibility, of expanding consciousness and transforming our world into the highest versions of ourselves.
