ZELINDA

Zelinda Yañez is the founder of The Yoga Room. She, her husband, and their two school-aged sons, have called Round Rock home since 2005.

Zelinda began practicing yoga when she started her first job after college, in California, in 1999. She remembers feeling nervous and intimidated during her first visits to the local yoga studio, an experience which helped shape her vision for The Yoga Room years later.

For nearly 12 years after graduating from college, Zelinda worked in engineering and marketing roles at HP and Dell, during which time she was increasingly drawn to yoga. While still working at Dell, Zelinda enrolled in a local 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training Program, where she began to learn that there is more to yoga than just the physical postures.

During a trip to visit her husband’s family in India in 2007, Zelinda was able to take a few lessons at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in Chennai, India. Krishnamacharya is considered to be one of the most influential yoga teachers of the 20th century, and KYM was founded in 1976 by Krishnamacharya’s son and long-time student, Desikachar, to continue his teachings.

Zelinda’s small exposure to the tradition during that 2007 trip demonstrated to her the value of customizing the yoga practice to suit the student and influenced her teaching for the next 9 years.

In 2016, Zelinda applied and was accepted to the 500 hour International Yoga Teacher Training Program at KYM. She was thrilled for the opportunity to learn from this tradition but also nervous at the prospect of leaving her children and spending 3 months on her own in India over the course of the 18 month long program.

In August 2018, Zelinda graduated with her class, the only American in the group. She learned more than she expected, especially on the topics of Āsana, Philosophy, Ayurveda, Prānāyāma (yoga breathing), and Philosophy of Teaching.

In July 2019, Zelinda began the 500+ hour International Yoga Therapist Training Program at KYM. The program was interrupted by the pandemic and is expected to resume in 2023.

Zelinda is fascinated by the gap between American yoga and Indian yoga and is honored to share the Krishnamacharya tradition of yoga.

Zelinda teaches yoga classes and workshops, provides one-on-one Yoga Therapy, and is available for speaking and teaching engagements.