ABOUT US

About Kidding Around Yoga:

Kidding Around Yoga became official in June of 2009. Cassie Dixon attended Haris Lender’s prenatal Yoga classes and than came back for regular adult classes post natal. She also had the joy of being able to watch Haris teach classes to her own fourth grade classroom at Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Pete. Cassie ended up moving away for a year. When she was contemplating a new career as a kids yoga teacher and possible move “back” to the St. Pete area, Haris encouraged Cassie to join her as her assistant Director at Camp Yogaville. Both have achieved great success and so much reward, and are extremely grateful to each other for the gifts they have given each other. They have gone on to teach many local classes and trainings together. Nothing gives them more joy than to share this with you. Kidding Around Yoga is local classes in St. Petersburg, Florida, trainings galore, and an expanding list of tools to help you in your class or with your very own kids at home.

Haris Lender

Haris “Harini” Lender is a certified Integral Yoga™ teacher at the 500 level. She has also been certified in Prenatal, Raja, Childrens and Stress Management.

 

Haris has traveled throughout the world, including climbing Mt. Kenya, living with the Masai Warriors, and completing a month long Outward Bound program. She was the president of the Outing Club at her University, owned a Laundromat-Pub after college and has had two Yoga studios of her own! She lives in St. Pete with her husband and four kids and has also raised: Dogs, Ferrets, Ducks, Hamsters, Birds, and more. Haris spends much of her hard earned vacation time in her lovely yurt in Yogaville. Although she didn’t know it at the time, Haris has spent her lifetime preparing to create this imaginative style of Yoga for kids. Growing up in the Lender family it was a common occurance to be thrown into a skit for the family business that might have any of the kids dressed up as a penguin, sporting a plastic tushy, or singing along at a huge convention, or family reunion to a silly song written by either of her creative parents.

During her 11 years of running Camp Yogaville there were many opportunities to show off these skills. She wrote songs and skits, managed her counselors, teachers, and kitchen staff, and developed many more skills that would help her along the way to create Kidding Around Yoga. Haris is extremely grateful to her teacher Swami Satchidananda, and to all of the Swamis, her friends and teachers at Yogaville that have helped to guide her. To her parents who gave her this insanely creative ability to write songs and invent lots of fun activities for the kids, her husband who is right there by her side writing great yoga stories and songs with her….. and especially to her partner and friend Cassie Dixon who keeps her on her Yogi toes and loves kidding around as much as Haris.

Cassie Dixon

Cassie Dixon is a teacher in more ways than one! She is a mother to a wonderful 5 year old daughter and a wife. She has a Master of Arts in Education, a Bachelor of Arts in Education, has taught 4th grade and 1st grade, and has one adult yoga class in a corporate setting.

Cassie met Haris while she was teaching 4th grade in St. Pete, FL. Haris was the after-school yoga teacher, and Cassie had lent the use of her classroom while cleaning up at the end of the work day. While trying to complete all her work, Cassie was continually distracted by all the kidding around the children were doing. A few months later, Cassie became a Prenatal Yoga student of Haris’. After moving out of the area, Cassie was not very happy with how events in her life had turned out. She needed a new start and turned to Haris for some guidance. Haris offered Cassie the chance of a lifetime-to become the assistant director of Camp Yogaville, the sleep-away camp in Virginia that Haris ran each summer for 11 years. With the support of her family, Cassie joined Haris for an intense week. It was “sink or swim” and Cassie survived with the best of them! Continuing to teach together, once returning to Florida, Cassie and Haris formed a traveling yoga company to teach children all over Pinellas County. Cassie helped Haris to develop parts of the training manual and has become the assistant trainer in Kidding Around Yoga Teacher Trainings.

Cassie graduated from the University of Florida in 2003 and 2004 and has maintained a Florida Teaching Certificate with multiple Professional Development programs and classes. With an education background, Cassie can be counted on for integrating classroom curriculum into the yoga curriculum and for behavior management suggestions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swami Vidyananda

Swami Vidyananda has been teaching Integral Yoga since 1973. She specializes in Yoga Stress Management and Yoga for Emotional Balance. She has taught around the world since 1975 (including Australia, Canada, Europe, and India). She taught Yoga to children with Down Syndrome and children with ADD in public schools for many years. She has also taught University students, people with eating disorders, broadcast journalists, and many other groups. Swami Vidyananda has been a friend and teacher to Haris for many years. With her knowledge of Stress Management and extensive background and Haris’ creative ways of working with Children, the two are developing a fantastic “Stress Management for Children” curriculum. Swami Vidyananda currently is on assignment in St. Petersburg Florida, and returns often to teach at the Satchidananda Ashram Yogaville VA, her home base.