When she was diagnosed with scoliosis at age 10 and put into a hard plastic brace that stretched from below her hips to under her arms, Graham Williams had no idea that her scoliosis would lead her to her life’s passion and vocation. 30 years later she became the First Certified Iyengar Yoga Instructor in Raleigh and has the only Iyengar Yoga Center in the Triangle. Graham is passionate about empowering her students to enjoy the positive physical and emotional benefits yoga has brought her.

 Graham was introduced to Iyengar Yoga in 1993 while living in Crested Butte, Colorado. Her first teachers, Donita and Gary Reitze, told her about Elise Browning Miller when they found out about her scoliosis. Elise specializes in Iyengar Yoga for Scoliosis, and Graham took her first scoliosis workshop with Elise in 1994. In 2004 she completed Elise’s scoliosis teacher training in California. 

Graham has practiced Iyengar Yoga for more than 30 years. She has taught children, teens, and adults in Colorado, Virginia, and North Carolina. She has made three trips to Pune, India, where she has studied with the Iyengars to enhance both her personal and teaching practices. During her second trip she was a “patient” in one of the medical classes where she got individual attention and help setting up numerous props to help her with her scoliosis. More about this trip is on her blog. 

Graham has taken thousands of hours of teacher training and has attended conventions and workshops led by nationally known Iyengar teachers. One of the first conventions she attended was in Estes Park, Colorado, with Mr. Iyengar. She also attended the Therapeutics Convention in Portland, Oregon with Geeta Iyengar and more recently attended a convention in Florida led by Iyengar’s granddaughter, Abhijata. Since COVID she has been able to attend several workshops and classes via zoom with Abhi and other senior teachers.

She has been studying with Dean and Rebecca Lerner for over 10 years. They are her mentors and have helped her through her JR Intermediate I and Jr Intermediate II Assessments. She continues to study with them on a regular basis in person and now on zoom.

Graham’s business experience includes her role as production manager of Critter Mountain Wear in Crested Butte, Colorado where she helped the owner manage and run the company for six years. When she moved to Denver, she accepted a position as purchasing agent for Textile Network. While in Denver she attended classes with Donita and Gary Reitze who moved from Crested Butte to Denver to open The Iyengar Yoga Center Of Denver. While subbing as a teacher in some of their classes, she decided this was the path she wanted to pursue. After moving from Denver to North Carolina she studied and took classes with Certified Iyengar Instructor Cindy Dollar in Asheville; she later managed Cindy’s studio, One Center Yoga, where she taught classes as well. Cindy was her mentor and helped her become a Certified Instructor. In 2006 she moved to Raleigh where she taught in several locations before finding and renovating a space for her own studio. 

Graham is very proud and happy to have had her own studio for over sixteen years. She has mentored four students who are now certified Iyengar instructors. Graham is committed to continuing her own learning of Iyengar yoga and passed her Junior Intermediate II (CIYT) Assessment in September 2017. She is also certified with the International Association of Yoga Therapists, (C-IAYT)   

She is grateful to her own teachers and mentors as well as the dedicated students who have helped her along this tremendous and most fulfilling path of study and teaching.