When Didi von Deck first started Ashtanga yoga, three weeks after her third child was born, she recognized that Ashtanga is not like any yoga she had ever done before. After her first class, she found herself trying to get more yoga into her life.

Despite the challenges of raising her family and her busy orthopedic practice, she eventually started a daily practice under Kate O’Donnell and she has studied with David Swenson, Nancy Gilgoff, David Williams, and Richard Freeman.  She completed both 200 and 300-hour teacher trainings with Rolf Gates in order to further her understanding of how yoga works its magic.  She travels to India frequently to study Ashtanga yoga with the Jois family, and is authorized by Saraswathi. While in India, she continues her studies of Sanskrit, chanting, and yoga philosophy, and she takes time to work with the Odanadi Seva Trust, an organization that works to rescue, rehabilitate, reintegrate and empower trafficked and sexually exploited women and children (Yoga Stops Traffick).

In line with her desire to help people through movement, Didi is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais® Practitioner. Didi started working with the Feldenkrais Method even before she discovered yoga in order to help her career as an international competitive ballroom dancer. She was so impressed by how the Method allowed her to appreciate and feel comfortable in her body that she eventually completed a rigorous four-year Feldenkrais training program. The Feldenkrais Method uses small, gentle movements to rewire the brain so that movement becomes more comfortable and efficient while the mind becomes more flexible. 

The Feldenkrais Method is excellent for people with injuries or repetitive strain, artists and performers, and anyone who wants to move and feel better.  Didi teaches Awareness through Movement® classes and offers private Functional Integration® at the Down Under School of Yoga. Didi is passionate about making yoga and mindfulness practices accessible to all and helped create a yoga program for the patients at Cambridge Health Alliance where she is an orthopedic surgeon. She has deep gratitude to her teachers and her students for all they have taught her and to her patients for allowing her a place in their lives.