Today we’d like to introduce you to Arden Dalzell
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My yoga journey started while I was in high school. I have been a runner for 15 years of my life running competitively throughout high school. During my junior year I suffered an injury and yoga was founded as a form of cross training. I began when I was 17 and just like running, yoga has been a foundational part of me since I started. When I had started I fell in love with the practice. My best friend in high school used to tell me that when we come to our high school reunions she can’t wait to hear the stories of me being a yoga instructor that travels the world and teaches my children this practice every morning. We used to laugh all about it and I would tell she’s crazy and that I’m gonna be a lawyer or a writer. Unfortunately she passed when we were 20 before I even began teaching or even made up my mind that this was the career I wanted to pursue. The universe and god are wild! To think if she could see me now, and I know her soul can somewhere, I would tell her everything she thought came true and I’d have to look her in her face and admit she was right all along. She knew I was a yogi and would love to led the teaching long before I did.
Truly my practice began as movement before reaching the depths and realms of spirituality I have reached now. When I was 19 I met a friend at my job at the time who our form of connection was through yoga. We got to know each other through going to classes and expanding on our personal practices together. She is STILL one of my biggest supporters through this amazing journey that I get to be on. She single handedly helped me broaden my ideas and beliefs on what’s beyond. Being raised fairly religious though, I already had a decent faith base since going to church with my dad young was our form of bonding. Yoga was my first outlet in beginning to deepen my own faith based/ spiritual beliefs.
Unfortunately when the pandemic hit I lost my job as I was working in the restaurant as a server. Fortunately, I had LOTS of personal time on my hands. I was a 20 about to be 21 years old living alone, didn’t go to college, and finally had the mental space to figure out what I wanted to pursue! I began looking into what it takes to become a yoga instructor since I was filling all of my extra alone time with meditation and yoga. My mom, my A1 since day 1, and I were talking, and since I had so much time on my hands and my birthday was around the corner, I asked if she would gift me online yoga teacher training for my birthday that year. It was my 21st! A big birthday and she didn’t even hesitate. School was self paced which was perfect because I could really dive into yogic roots, fundamentals, and take every bit of isolated time to this practice and improving my knowledge to become the best teacher I could! My mom would always ask me how it was going, and keep pushing me even when it was difficult to log on and self motivate to get through the next lesson.
After about a year I was fully certified and was ready to teach. I called a few studios with no call backs and then I was leaving work one night and there was a pamphlet on my windshield of my car of a new studio that opened in my city. the address numbers were 122, which at the time, numerological speaking struck a cord with me. I called the studio the next day and asked if they were looking for teachers. They were! I went in for an audition and got my first studio gig. When I got that studio gig I also started self promoting as yogi friend Arden. I created a yoga instagram @yogi_friend_arden, I created a website, and made my first ever set of business cards. I was so excited!
About a year later I was moving to Cleveland and had to leave that studio and was on the hunt for a new studio to teach at! Went on indeed and found a studio that had just opened, I applied and very quickly landed that gig! Urban Haven in Ohio City is beautiful! I still teach there to this day and am proud to say that with our studio owners and fellow teachers, and massage therapists help, we have very quickly grown that studio to have a decent student base with so many familiar faces.
I personally always practiced at Lakewood Yoga as a student for a couple years at the time. a couple months into 2024, I went to a class being led by our studio manager wearing a grateful dead t-shirt. He commented on my t-shirt and then we started chit chatting about yoga and he asked if I had any interest in becoming certified. I very happily told him I actually already teach and he immediately asked me if I was interested in getting in for an audition! in my head I thought ABSOLUTELY!! To have the studio you are a student at ask you to even come in for an audition is in and of itself a ginormous compliment! It was a dream to say the least. The amount of classes, the amount of savasanas, the amount of manifesting meditations I had taken on my mat in that classroom felt like it fully paid off when I got that opportunity. Little did I know it was the blast off that I had been working towards for the last 4 years.
I was set to have my audition when I got a text a couple hours beforehand letting me know that the teacher who teaches the class I was gonna go to before my audition had needed a sub. The studio owner stressed she had never done this but had heard such good things about me so figured why not give it a chance and have me lead the class, knowing I was already a teacher elsewhere. I remember being pretty at peace but also soooo nervous. Teaching this class was my audition and it was the biggest class I had taught thus far at the time, being about 18 students, as well as the first time I was meeting my new studio owner. I found out quickly I got the gig at Lakewood Yoga too.
My studio owner also owns The Studio Cleveland and about a month later there were a few classes that needed a teacher and she reached out to me seeing if I was interested. Of course I was! within 3 months of moving to Cleveland I was in 3 studios and everything was taking off. Throughout the spring and summer I was teaching at these 3 studios, had a set class schedule and students, was being asked to led events, and really promoting myself and the studios!
A few months into the summer, PopLife Cleveland was looking for instructors! Was asked to come in to have a meeting with the sister duo studio managers and quickly fell in love with that space as well and got on their schedule too! At the same time I was doing a bunch of content on my instagram and started a yoga for everybody on YouTube (Yogi Friend Arden)! I’m beyond blessed I have the time, space, and support to be able to launch a YouTube as everybody’s yogi friend Arden to help promote this practice. I make quick, easy style yoga flows in video form that can be done from your home made for everyone!
I want to make this my full time career. It is still a grind and I’m almost there! I am determined to make yoga my entire focus and be able to spread my knowledge of the practice through my teachings. I want to reach as many people as possible to help them through meditative breath work, intentional movements through the body, and finding peace within the brain. This practice has not only given me this amazing career I am beyond grateful for, but it has taught me and given me a deeper sense to the betterment of myself, my personal relationships, living a life of grace and ease, finding peace in everything, and a deeper connection to MY higher power. My only goal is to do the same for everyone of my students whether they are one time students, returning, in person, or online. We grow together, we find betterment together.
Namaste friends.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Struggles are with everything. Promoting yourself in class and online you want to provide this perfect image. You can’t. My struggles were with my own practice and certain poses, such as any type of inversion, and struggling with disordered eating and body image problems. Always seeing yourself in a camera or in a way that maybe isn’t always appealing can be hard to deal with. There has definitely been times where critiquing my body has been a challenge. I’m still on the path of accepting and loving it, but for the first time I am extremely confident about it even though it still can’t do what some other yogi’s can do, and still doesn’t look like ‘perfect’ TO ME. I still return to appreciating everything MY BODY can and does do for me!
There has also been lots of doubt that fills my brain on how I teach, what I teach, whether or not my students agree with my teachings. And personal relationships that have failed because of rude behaviors, and discouraging words and conversations when people don’t believe in what you’re preaching getting in your head making it seem as if you’re not gonna be good enough. I’ve just stayed true to what I believe and kept a strong faith, which has shown me to not worry as much about what others say and do since they are not living my exact life. They are living theirs, and their journey is that of their own just like mine is mine.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
What Do You Do: Yoga Instructor/Teacher
What Do You Specialize In: I can teach everything but am praised for my creative Power Vinyasa Flows and healing Chakra Balancing Slow Flows
What Are You Known For: Bringing spirituality, peace, and gentle energy to the practice and beautifying my content with everyday life, food, yogi fit checks, poses, meditation advice, and understanding how breath work changes your practice and mental state.
What Are You Most Proud Of: My work ethic. My mom and dad raised me to grind. I have been working since about 8 years old in our family business at the time helping clean while they still made sports and school a priority. I now put all of that energy into teaching my classes, helping sub many fellow teachers classes, staying healthy, creating content and working 2 part jobs on top of all of it to one day make yoga my everything! I am most proud of my determination to really achieve what I believe is possible and grinding everyday to do it. Waking up with a smile on my face, a positive thought and speech pattern is vital to preserve the momentum of self motivation!
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
Studio owners/Managers who have founded me, given me the chance, the push, and the promotion:
Sara Syed; Lakewood Yoga, and The Studio Cleveland
Dave Miller; Sara’s studio manager who founded me and got me the initial audition for Lakewood Yoga
Erin Whelan; Urban Haven Wellness
Elizabeth Rogers; PopLife Cleveland
My Mom; Shelly the woman who even made any of this possible,
My family especially my brother; Brenden and sister; Kaitlyn
My friends; Dzsenifer Heygi who helped deepen my practice and still my yogi date go to, and my best friend Nicole Lungaro; who pushes me everyday!! When I’m feeling unsure she’s my phone call to remind me how inspiring I am to her and she is to me. As well as keeps me in check with a work/life balance not letting me become too consumed by work and unplugging!
Pricing:
- 45$/hour local private lessons
- 60$/flow events (10 people or less)
- contact for pricing on 11 people or more events through email
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yogi_friend_arden/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@yogifriendarden
- Other: gmail: Yogifriendarden@gmail.com
