About your teacher

Background [TW- information on her mild acquired surgical past, ahead]:

Melanie Waldman is a right-arm amputee and—as a registered yoga teacher—specializing in teaching “adaptive & accessible (chair) yoga”, which is specifically designed as a practice for both people with disabilities, as well as their allies and caretakers!

Melanie is visibly disabled--a right arm amputee-- and also lives with autoimmune diseases: RA, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and more. 

She is based in the Tristate/NJ area and is native to Atlantic City, NJ. She’s a graduate of Rutgers University and holds her Bachelor's Degree, double majoring in degrees within the School of Communication and Information and Mason Gross School of the Arts.

She has been teaching yoga since 2017 and now teaches to the disability community. She has also formatted her classes into corporate office yoga workshops.  In those sessions, she teaches corporations, companies and small businesses about the disparities of people with disabilities and their access --or lack thereof-- in both yoga spaces, in media, and the professional work place.

Acquiring her disability:

After her college graduation—while working in the 2013 Disney College Program—Melanie developed a blood clot in the artery of her right wrist. This caused her medical team to eventually give her heparin. However, after many clot-busting methods, Melanie suffered an extremely rare and life-threatening reaction, known as a heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT). When she came to, she remembered her medical team's words "Surviving a HIT is like seeing a unicorn"--it just doesn't happen sometimes. Her right arm was eventually amputated below the elbow, and she still celebrates her "Alive Day" each year. This will be Melanie's 10th year, living as an amputee, as of Sept 18, 2023.

In the past, she has worked as a model and actor with brands like Nike Adaptive, Aerie by

American Eagle, and Taska Prosthetics--to name a few! She's served as a yoga instructor for the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF), Lucky Fin Project, and Amputee Coalition of America. She's also been posted as a public speaker for both Pfizer & Medtronic, as well.

Melanie is a true example of how life can always turn itself around.  "Though Waldman’s Disney dreams were halted following her hospital stay, she set out on a journey where she learned that “the most magical place on earth” was already within her"

-Krystle Bailey,