Melinda Atkins, MED, MSc, E-RYT 500, C-IAYT, is the founder and director of AUM hOMe Shala. She was a member of the first graduating class of the only university-based yoga therapy program in the nation, at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. A professional-level yoga teacher (E-RYT 500) with more than 20,000 hours of documented yoga teaching experience, Melinda received a 500-hour yoga teacher training certification from Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. She was one of the first yoga therapists in Florida to be certified as a yoga therapist by the International Association of Yoga Therapists through their grandfathering process, and has documented over 5,000 hours of yoga therapy experience. Melinda holds a B.A. and an M.Ed. degree from the University of Florida, and is a member of the National Yoga Alliance, the Kripalu Yoga Teachers Association (KYTA), and the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT), as well as being listed in “Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers.” Most recently, in May 2021, she graduated summa cum laude from the Master of Science program in Medical Cannabis Science and Therapeutics at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, where she was inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi honor society. At the University of Maryland, she completed coursework in pharmacology, pathophysiology and clinical assessment, with a special focus on advanced therapeutics.
Diagnosed with scoliosis in her early teens, Melinda began the study of yoga in an effort to avoid back surgery. Her success inspired her to train as a yoga teacher. A shoulder injury in 2008 led her to enter the emerging field of yoga therapy, in which specific yoga postures and pranayama are used to enhance health and combat both the roots and symptoms of disease. That year, she began building AUM’s Yoga Therapy Certification program, which now includes two course levels taught by nationally and internationally acclaimed experts in the field and a clinical practicum delivered in partnership with Active Sports Medicine, a physical therapy clinic owned by Dr. Osvaldo Perez, who serves as associate director of AUM’s Level I yoga therapy course.
Also a veteran high-school English teacher, Melinda recognized yoga’s ability to improve students’ focus and performance, and the yoga curriculum she designed during this time has been taught for more than a decade at a South Florida prep school. Melinda has incorporated yoga as a form of cross-training for student athletic teams and developed the yoga component of the annual Chill Out program, helping middle and high school students relax and focus in preparation for the FCATs. She has also conducted yoga programs targeting at-risk youth in elementary, middle, and high schools in inner-city Miami, and her work at Miami-Edison Middle School earned her a grant from Kripalu’s Rachel Greene Memorial Fund, which supports yoga teachers working in underserved schools.
Melinda calls on her background in education, yoga, and yoga therapy to develop curriculum for AUM’s 200- and 500-hour Yoga Alliance–registered yoga teacher trainings and clinical yoga therapist certification program, which is accredited by the International Association of Yoga Therapists and includes three course levels taught by nationally and internationally acclaimed experts in the field. She also directs free yoga therapy programs for Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and dementia; runs a free yoga therapy community clinic addressing a range of chronic and acute conditions; and partners with hospitals, community centers, universities, and schools to offer yoga therapy programming to the wider community.
What students are saying about Melinda:
“I was one of your students at Gulliver Prep in 2007/8, it was my first introduction to yoga and I could not be more grateful that it happened when I was in high school. Since then, yoga has helped me reduce anxiety and stress in a variety of situations, and find community in every new city I move to.
I will be graduating from my teacher training program in June, and I wanted to reach out and say thank you for offering yoga to us kids, and formatting it in a way that made it accessible, approachable, and memorable. I don’t know if I would be who I am without having taken your class when I was 15. That space that you held was so special, for me and countless others.”
“You were my FAVE teacher and you shaped my life by teaching me yoga which I still do every day! You also taught me a lot about spirituality from an angle I never knew before at an important time in my life; right after the loss of my favorite grandmother. I got a Master’s in Counseling Psychology in 2013, and now I have a flourishing private practice where I do past life regression! I honestly don’t know if I’d have chosen alternative healing if I hadn’t been exposed to those lessons at such an important time in my childhood.”
Click to listen to Melinda’s guest appearance on the Art of Healing podcast, hosted by Melinda’s former high school student Cara Silverman!