Our Story
Deborah Uma Sheetz is certified as a yoga therapist by the International Association of Yoga Therapists. She is also certified by Satchidananda Ashram - Yogaville to teach Integral Yoga Hatha at the beginner and intermediate levels and stress management. She is certified by the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center to teach Yoga Nidra.
Debbie completed the 300- hour Inner Peace Yoga Therapy program focused on the therapeutic benefits of yoga as applied to pain management, mood management, complementary cancer care, heart issues, back problems and other structural issues, addiction and recovery, principles of Ayurveda, grief, and providing customized instruction to individuals. She also completed Nischala Joy Devi’s 10-day Yoga of the Heart training for cardiac and cancer care and Amy Weintraub’s 8-day LifeForce Yoga program for anxiety, depression and trauma. She is registered with Yoga Alliance at the E-RYT 500 hour level.
Debbie has been taking workshops and trainings in a wide variety of specialty areas for more than 20 years and can customize classes or workshops for your particular need. She is expereienced in helping individuals apply yoga practices therapeutically for their specific needs and specializes in creating customized home plans for indivudual practice. Clients have come to her for help in help in managing a range of challenges to include anorexa, anxiety and depression, pain, back issues, fibromyalgia, PTSD, stress, breast cancer recovery, sleep issues, MS, aging and mobility issues, grief and more.
Debbie teaches hatha yoga, chair yoga, gentle yoga, adapted yoga, meditation, raja yoga, and yoga nidra at a variety of locations in Alexandria and Arlington. She has provided workshops for caregivers and cancer patients with area hospitals and a hospice. Debbie has presented yoga studio workshops on topics such as yoga for trauma, yoga for better sleep, yoga nidra and the koshas, meditation, mood management, yoga for the heart, maintaining inner peace, and weathering change with yoga. She has also presented on stress management at Virginia and Washington, DC area businesses.
Debbie began her personal Hatha yoga practice in 1993 to reduce the stress associated with the loss of a loved one. She floated out of the class and has been hooked on yoga ever since. She is particularly enthusiastic about the benefits of her daily meditation practice and loves to share the power of pranayama, meditation, and chant with students in addition to yoga asanas. While hatha yoga is not a religious practice in itself, she encourages students to use the peace that comes from yoga to deepen ones own personal spiritual practice.
Upon completion of a 200-hour teacher training progam in 2000, Debbie was given the Sanskrit name Uma, meaning luminous and serene. She strives to honor this name by imparting the peacefulness and serenity of yoga practice during each class. Students can expect to leave class feeling energized, yet lighter in body and calmer in mind. She enjoys teaching all types of students and is particularly drawn to sharing the benefits of yoga with underserved communities, caregivers and grieving people, cancer survivors, individuals in recovery or suffering from PTSD, gracefully aging boomers, and anyone looking to make peace with the challenges life has dealt them. Having spent 25 years in a rewarding, yet demanding federal and state government career in the field of criminal justice, Debbie especially relates to the legions of stressed out Washingtonians looking to yoga to maintain sanity in high pressure environments.
Debbie was particularly drawn to Integral Yoga for its incorporation of all aspects of yoga and adaptability to all body types and abilities. She enjoys sharing the practice as a way to realize the goal of Integral Yoga’s founder, Swami Satchidananda, to return to and maintain the natural state of an easeful body, a peaceful mind, and a useful life. Other yoga influences she enjoys sharing come from the works of Paramahansa Yogananda and his emphasis on meditation and bhakti yoga, as well as the energizing aspects of Kundalini Yoga and the power of the breath.