NICOLE PAYSEUR – PRIVATE YOGA AND CORPORATE YOGA INSTRUCTOR
During the Pandemic, Nicole pivoted to teach virtual private yoga. After logging over 3,000 zoom hours while teaching yoga, her capacity to strengthen students on the zoom platform has had a ripple affect in everyone she serves. She opened “virtual studio” and offered her yoga trainings, corporate classes, group chair yoga and meditation curricula all over the world. As a result, she has kept her students safe and strong while being energetically together yet physically apart.
Once upon a time, a tough, urbane New York litigator took a yoga class. She had been trained as a verbal assassin and used her rapier wit to slice and dice her opponents in Brooklyn Housing Court. Upon completing the yoga class, she immediately fell under a yogic spell of calm, quiet strength. A shift occurred guiding her from the subtle art of vituperation to unflappable compassion. At first she did yoga for vanity. Then she did yoga for her sanity. Finally, she began doing yoga for humanity. She held tree pose while she drafted memos to her paralegal. Instead of beginning her day at with Dunkin Donuts ice coffee and five chocolate, Munchkin Doughnut Holes, she began taking 5AM breathing classes with the Yoga Guru Mary Dunn at the Iyengar Institute of Yoga in New York City.
Yoga crept upon her like a sweet tranquil voice that soothes a fussy child. She attended yoga during lunch breaks and then at 6PM, when coworkers invited her to rinse stress from her mind with Cosmopolitans at the Algonquin, she declined. Instead, the attorney killed stress and unfurled her mat in bikram studios, hatha studios, kundalini studios, ashtanga studios, restorative classes, Sanskrit classes and vinyasa classes all over NYC.
Finally, the yogic transformation emboldened her to take yoga out of the Yoga People Studio and into Brooklyn Housing Court where she began using pranayama (yogic breathing) to calm difficult opposing counsel. Just as the snake charmer calms the cobra, she ensorcelled the snake attorneys to stop their ugly hissing and slow down their breathing. They became mindful and often ceased their bullying and to comply with the Housing Maintenance Code and gave her clients, the Citizens of New York, better living conditions by fixing buildings.
Yoga transformed the vituperative attorney who stood in mountain pose and squared her tiny, 115 pound, 5’4.5” frame to the scary, menacing 6’5”, 250 pound judge who scowled at her from the bench. Instead of suffering from an unhappy stomach which normally writhed in pain from the emotionally toxic environment of land lord tenant court, this lawyer morphed into the healthy, radiant OM YOGA DIVA. Opponents commented on her remarkable calm. They requested to work with her. Even in the most adversarial court antics, things went Matrix smooth; while reporters and camera crews stood outside to hear the verdict of a case for a very neglectful landlord, she became the eye of the storm, calm, centered and peaceful no matter what.
Truth is stranger than fiction. Not all fairy tales involve a Disney Princess getting a castle and a Prince but this yoga tale involves an attorney leaving law to teach yoga full time! In so doing, Nicole Payseur, the OM YOGA DIVA saves students from boring yoga to enchant them with yoga that brings laughter to their hearts, flexibility to their spines and tranquility to their minds. Today, although Nicole Payseur still holds her law license to sling in NY State court, she elects to save students’ bodies and minds imparting her 25 years of yoga knowledge to every class from private yoga sessions, yoga in the park, corporate yoga and yoga for children.
The OM YOGA DIVA uses her powers for good. She is richly rewarded when her 79 year old student gets yoga strong, has no need of her ashma medication and balances without the wall in the center of the room in King Dancer Pose. Her wry unorthodox humor sends students into paroxyms of joy. She zaps students with diabolically placed humor to coax one more sun salutation when they would rather melt into a sweaty heap on their mats.
She dissects each sloppy pose the way she would dissect a poorly wrought legal argument and shatters the myths students have about their bodies, minds and souls. They come into alignment under her watchful eye and do things they never thought possible. She advocates for students to be stronger even when they think they are weak. Students take her classes and gain the fortitude to make real changes in their lives: they leave their jobs, pursue PhDs, become better parents and they save the world by being healthier and happier in their bodies. The OM YOGA DIVA, Nicole Payseur, lives by example and generously offers her time and energy by creating yoga classes to address her students’ needs. She charms her students. They learn to smile and live happily ever after.
RESUME
TEACHER TRAINING CERTIFICATES
OmBalance Teacher Trainer Yoga Alliance Certified http://ombalance.com/prenatal-yoga-classes-trainings-ceus-dallas-tx/yoga-teacher-training/(December 2016-present)
Yoga Therapy 500 Hour Training (2013-2014)
Yoga Works 300 Hour Training (December 2009)
Yoga Works 200 Hour Training (August 2006)
Yoga People 50 Hour Module (September 2001)
YOGA WORK EXPERIENCE
Yoga Diva, Private Instruction for the Diva in every Yogini Spring 2005 – present
Solo-preneur with private yoga clients pleased with the results they see.
Dallas Yoga Center Dallas, Texas 2007-present
Yoga Teacher – Yang Vinyasa Level I-II
Uptown Yoga Dallas, Texas Spring 2010 – present
Deep Stretch
Equinox Fitness Spa Dallas, Texas Spring 2009
Yoga Teacher – Deep Stretch, Hatha Flow
YOGA ELECTIVES (OVER 1500 HOURS OF STUDY)
Science of the Private Lesson, Spring 2020
OmBalance Restorative Flow Certificate 2019
Surya Little – Prajna Yoga, Fall 2015
Jason Crandall Optimize Your Yoga Practice – January, 2015
Dice lida-Klein and Briohny Smyth Fit Flow Bryce Yoga Teacher Training Intensive – 50 CEUs Inspire Yoga Spring 2015
Amy Ippoliti – Weekend Workshop Spring 2012
Anusara Training: Rama Nina Patella Mentor New York, NY 2006-present, John Friend Light the Sky Tour Austin, TX Summer 2008, Desiree Rumbaugh Back-bending Dallas, TX Spring 2009, Becky Klett Immersion 105 Hours, Dallas, TX
Iyengar Institute : Pranayama I & II with Mary Dunn Winter 2001, Sanskrit Winter 2001
Ashtanga Training: Sarah Willis Mentor Brooklyn, NY 2002-present, David Williams Workshop Austin, TX
Yoga People Brooklyn, NY: Anatomy with Amy Matthews Fall 2002
Yoga Sutra New York, NY: Yoga and the Thyroid with Sarah Willis Winter 2007
Integral Yoga Center New York, NY (2004-2007): Mukunda Stiles Yoga Therapy Teacher Training; Sanskrit & Philosophy; Manorma; Chanting; Pranayama; Yoga for Depression; Yoga and Money; Yoga and Writing; Yoga and Scoliosis; Yoga for Restoration; Meditation and Chakras.
Dallas Yoga Center: Meditation with Sharon Salzberg Spring 2009; Sanskrit with Manorma Spring 2009
Tias Little, Lower Back and Shoulder workshop, January 2010.
EDUCATION
Juris Doctor May 1995
Tulane University Law New Orleans, LA
Admitted to practice in New York State
BA in English Literature May 1991
University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA
LANGUAGES
Proficient in Spanish, Portuguese, French, learning Hrvatski. Studying Sanskrit.