Student Testimonials

One huge silver lining that came with the global pandemic and lockdown – Bay Area students got Yiwen back as our teacher! Yiwen's zoom teaching is not like a typical flow yoga class used to be, either online or in person. Classes are limited in size and to students already familiar with yoga. We all have our cameras on, and are seen on screen. Yiwen, with the keen eye of a master teacher, guides us through nuances of alignment, stability, breath, giving individual attention as she used to do in in-person workshops and retreats.

My yoga journey started late in life at age 57. I have been practicing consistently for almost 10 years, 6 of those years with Yiwen Chang. Practicing under Yiwen's guidance is a privilege and an honor. As I age, I appreciate more and more Yiwen's emphasis on alignment and stability, absolute essentials for a safe, sustainable practice. Her yoga sessions are an "anti-ageing" program designed to build strength, endurance, flexibility, and balance.

When I first met Yiwen, I had been practicing yoga off and on for a few years, though with little progress or awareness of correct posture. I made more progress with Yiwen in six months than I had in all of my previous years of yoga. For the majority of my life, I have struggled with body awareness. I often felt clumsy and insecure about my ability to engage in physical activities. Yiwen quickly and correctly identified my challenges with proprioception and was able to help me improve body awareness from the ground up.

I came to yoga as a beginner at the age of 68, knowing that I needed to improve my balance or suffer consequences in my "Golden Years." Six years later, I am certain that I have more strength and endurance and better posture and balance than I had when I was 40. I think there needs to be a new, specific name given to Yiwen's form of yoga. Her unique focus is on correcting the weaknesses produced by the years of postural misalignment accumulated during our sedentary lifestyles.

I've noticed so many positive changes in my body since beginning practice with Yiwen in 2018 — from strength, flexibility, and balance to a greater awareness of unnecessary tension and misalignment. I really appreciate that she has multiple ways to cue an adjustment, and she's not afraid to give corrections. Yiwen also strikes the perfect balance between challenging her students and encouraging us to listen to our bodies when it's time to back off.

The impact Yiwen's teaching had on my health and well-being is tremendous, and I cannot thank her enough. She is a truly gifted yoga teacher whom I felt honored to call "my teacher". She opened the door for me to experience my own body and mind through a completely new way. Her teaching on yoga philosophy and emphasis on achieving balance through pairs of opposite helped me beyond yoga practice.

I've been practicing yoga for 15+ years and have spent many hours in studios across the country, primarily in Boston, Ann Arbor and San Francisco, taking part in workshops & classes run by the likes of Baron Baptiste, Ana Forrest, Jill Miller, Manouso Manos, Sianna Sherman and Shiva Rea. Yiwen ranks way up there among the teachers I can say, without a doubt, as excellent. She has been teaching me new things/fixing old messed up things at each class I've attended, and I dare say I've been around the yoga block more than most!

I came to Yiwen to get therapeutic help with recovering from an injury. I'm very impressed with Yiwen's knowledge, compassion and care. She is very knowledgeable in physiology, movement and healing. She has been very patient with me, but also encouraging me to work at my recovery. I'm always greeted cheerfully, and I feel welcomed. Every private session has been thorough, and I'm learning lots about how to move, balance and breathe.

I started my yoga journey with my guru Yiwen. I was trained by her for over 2 years and I see myself growing in my practice each and every time I am on the mat. The way she provides instruction on the alignment and various yoga postures are still deeply ingrained in my mind that it helps me keep up my self practice as well as practice with other teachers. You will never hear about the importance of "Spine" from any other teacher and so many times!

If you are going to dedicate time to a yoga practice, it makes sense to get the most out of it. You'll get the most out of yoga with Yiwen. Yoga is not making shapes with your body. It is strengthening, lengthening and aligning your body. After over 10 years of yoga practice, I studied with Yiwen. She corrected my most basic poses. I had been, unfortunately, doing these poses incorrectly. Doing them correctly now, I'm deriving maximum benefit.

It has been over ten years since I began practicing yoga with Yiwen. Since the pandemic, our classes have been held via Zoom, but the quality and consistency of Yiwen's instruction remain just as high as her in-person classes. She watches students onscreen with a discerning eye and provides productive feedback for improvement. In addition, her classes integrate yoga elements with anatomy and physiology so that students understand the reasons behind her precise and detailed instruction.

Yiwen is the best yoga teacher ever. She can see your energies and nuances of alignment. She knows the nature of each Yoga pose and can breakdown to you how you can train to access the pose more deeply. Every class is different, with interesting variations and sequences. Yiwen always takes time to delve a little deeper into some related topic area, give a mini lecture, constantly expanding our knowledge of the yogic realms.

I feel very fortunate to be a part of Yiwen's yoga community. I appreciate Yiwen's style of teaching with her intricate attention to detail for each student allowing us to use proper body alignment. Her discussions have helped me to understand the concepts of body mechanics and breathing and have been able to transfer it in my everyday life. With her knowledge and guidance, I feel grateful that I am the best yogi I can be and look forward to continued growth and strengthening in my practice.

First of all, I have to admit that I was very skeptical about yoga before I started a few months ago, mostly because I have always been into fast paced sports and I tend to have a very short attention span. Anyway, because my stress levels were way too high, my friend convinced me to give it a try and we scheduled private classes with Yiwen. Now, after about 3 months, I can honestly say that yoga is helping and I have found an appreciation for it. Yiwen has been fantastic, she obviously knows her stuff incredibly well, she's been a great teacher and even though I started from absolutely zero experience or knowledge, she patiently pushes forward.