The human spirit is one of perseverance, courage, and passion. No Face Yoga Teacher represents that better than Marka Danielle, an outstanding graduate of the Face Yoga Teacher Certification Class of 2021!
Marka’s incredibly inspiring story of transformation shows how the Face Yoga Method can ignite the power within every Face Yogi. Keep reading to find out how this woman with disabilities found joy in life as a Certified Face Yoga Teacher!
Long before she became a wheelchair user, Marka knew she was different.
“I had a difficult childhood,” she says. “I was never given permission to be successful at what I loved to do.”
Marka displayed talent in dance and theatre from an early age. She studied dance at the Boston Conservatory and chose to pursue a career in the fine arts, despite protests from her family. Their rejection made Marka feel unaccepted and alone, but she was determined to follow her dreams.
Deep down, Marka knew that she was doing what she loved most because she would return to ballet and musical theatre time and again. Yet she never felt like it was okay to be happy and successful in her work.
Marka carried this hurt in her heart. While she became aware of how her guilt and self-sabotage were themes that seemed to repeat themselves over and over, she still felt powerless to break the patterns. That all changed when Marka discovered Face Yoga.
The Journey Of A Teacher
Becoming a teacher is about making a difference in the world. Teachers thrive on learning, on overcoming challenges, and on sharing the light they find when they push beyond what is known and understood. A teacher’s journey is filled with trials, tribulations, and obstacles to overcome, but also exciting experiences that shape us into who we are.
A devastating accident left Marka with a cervical spinal cord injury. To this day, she has limited function and sensation from the chest down. That didn’t stop her from continuing to teach ballet and yoga. In fact, Marka has been teaching for almost 51 years — and for many of those years, she’s taught her students from a wheelchair.
Being a wheelchair user was what made the concept of Face Yoga even more interesting to Marka. She was already a strong believer in the Mind-Body connection, but encountering Fumiko’s techniques for the first time revealed the missing link: the Face!
While waiting to board a flight, Marka explored more of the Face Yoga Method online. Intrigued, she immediately started mimicking Fumiko’s Poses. She only noticed what her face was doing when the people around her started staring!
Marka laughed it off, but inside, she felt giddy about her discovery. How had she never thought about exercising the muscles of the face? What else had Fumiko uncovered about this Mind-Body-Face connection? Marka couldn’t wait for her flight to get to its destination so that she could learn more.
Within hours of landing, she immersed herself in the world of Face Yoga. Marka signed up for the 6 Week Face Toning Bootcamp and began her Practice. Just one week into the Program, Marka was certain — she needed to learn the science of the Face Yoga Method for herself!
Yet despite her enthusiasm, Marka had lingering doubts about her ability to commit to the Face Yoga Teacher Certification Course. She already had a full schedule of classes to teach, on top of the daily challenges she faced as a person with disabilities. Her heart warred with her mind:
Could she really handle the 6-month Course?
Did she have the time and physical energy to complete it?
Was this really something that she could afford?
It wasn’t a decision she could make overnight.
Yet once more, Marka’s resilient spirit overtook her inner critic. She had already gone almost 65 years living through her heart-centered approach towards life, and she was ready to choose purpose again. She knew that taking the Face Yoga Teacher Certification Course would be in alignment with her values.
In the end, Marka’s final decision to take the leap came from the excitement that she felt about helping others. As she spoke to members of the disabled community about Face Yoga and its potential to improve their mobility, Marka realized how many lives would be changed by her teaching. A new path had appeared on Marka’s teacher Journey — one leading to knowledge that would allow her to nurture those most marginalized by their disabilities.
When Marka began the Course, she wasn’t sure she was ready to teach something new. Now, she doesn’t want to teach anything else but Face Yoga!
Marka doing Face Yoga
Transformation, Inside And Out
The Face Yoga Method is a transformative experience. It’s why our motto, Change Your Face, Change Your Life, is so fitting. The repetition of the small, loving moments of self-care that make up a Face Yoga Practice leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, the things that begin to happen are life-changing.
Marka’s Before and After pictures are proof of the incredible results of Face Yoga! In her own words, the difference in her appearance is “like night and day!”
More importantly, how she feels about herself has changed.
Marka quickly made strong connections with other students in the Face Yoga Teacher Certification Course Study Groups. It was enlightening to find out that other women were struggling with self-worth, and that they all shared similar experiences. As they worked through the Course Modules on mindset together, Marka found the strength to question her beliefs and challenge her negative thoughts. “Why am I doing this to myself? It feels so much better to be happy than unhappy.”
Her relationships improved, and she began interacting with the people in her life differently. Marka says that her whole way of seeing other people changed — especially the way she sees other women. Inside the Face Yoga Method Community, Marka found the strength to overcome her personal struggles with self-esteem. She is celebrating not only who she’s become, but who she could’ve become and fought not to.
Marka shares this personal experience in her own words…:
“They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. For far too many years I felt my soul was broken, that my Karma was so tainted that I’d never be whole, never worthy of being loved!
My mother always tells anyone who will listen that I was so ugly when I was born that she cried. I have spent so many hours staring at my eyes hoping to see something different but dysmorphia is real and I continued to see only darkness and heaviness! Most people would never have known this as I hid these demons well.
I’ve had bad eyes since I was a child. I wore glasses at an early age and then contact lenses that caused irritations. I had allergies that always left me with swollen and puffy eyes. And, of course, eye bags run in my family! Becoming a smoker didn’t help! (I quit a long time ago)
When I discovered Face Yoga at nearly 65 years of age, I found myself looking into my eyes in a different way, thanks to Fumiko’s teachings. I spent a lot of time working on my face, but especially my eyes. When I finally looked at some before and after photos I was stunned!
I did the 6 week Bootcamp and loved it! I’m fairly disciplined but this helped me stay accountable to… no one but myself because each day was planned! I did it twice a day and soon realized there were so many daily habits that I could change to help me feel better and look better as well. I did exercises at all different times of the day too!
Through self-awareness, daily self-study, and affirmations, I was changing. I worked on, and continue to work on, removing past negative thoughts from my self-dialogue and recognizing what is real about myself.
With the help of Face Yoga Method’s teachers and community, I began changing. I found a way to love who I am, to look into my windows, to my soul, and see that all souls are whole and all souls are worthy of being loved! I am as whole as you or any other soul in this Universe and we all have the right, no, the need, to learn this about ourselves!
I wish for everyone here to be able to look into the mirror and see the beautiful souls first and then work on the external things that you might like to change but don’t make you who you are!
Much Face Yoga Love!!”
When Marka finally gave herself the love she deserved, her entire life changed. If you’re looking for what you contribute to the world, look at your own wounds. Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. When you learn how to heal your own wounds, teach others. It’s what Face Yoga Teachers like Marka do, and when you become a Face Yoga Teacher, you’ll be able to do the same!
Being vulnerable within the supportive environment of the Face Yoga Teacher Certification Course Community always encourages new friendships across international borders. Marka formed an exciting bond with a tight-knit group of women, who dubbed themselves, ‘The WOW Girls’! These Certified Face Yoga Teachers have never met in person, but gather online at least once a week and chat with each other every day!
Marka’s personal connection with Fumiko took her Course experience to the next level.
“Each Workshop impacted me personally and every interaction watered the seed and nourished the plant that just kept growing.”
“She understands what real life is like,” Marka says about Fumiko. “Her teaching style is natural. The way she teaches organically, her ability to reach people through a screen. She shows how it’s okay to be imperfect. Imperfections teach us so many lessons.”
The Modules of the Face Yoga Teacher Certification Course allowed Marka to learn those lessons step-by-step. She had a lot of prior experience with online wellness education, and had taken many other courses that were “full of fluff and no substance.” But the sheer volume of value that the Face Yoga Teacher Certification Course delivered exceeded all of Marka’s expectations.
“It is set up so beautifully. Your Team is unbelievable! From Customer Support who allowed me to be in TWO study groups to the TCC Program Leader who answered every question I had, to your Tech Team who’s in the background helping put all this together, all of the Coaches…
It was just so easy to follow.
With each lesson and each workshop, I was feeling like, “Wow, I might really have enough information to do this WELL. Because if I can’t do it well, I don’t want to do it.”
After graduating from the Face Yoga Teacher Certification Course, Marka feels very confident and fully equipped to teach Face Yoga! With the support of the South Carolina Spinal Cord Injury Association, Marka launched an online course for people who can’t move anything but their facial muscles. She also teaches Face Yoga classes for disabled persons.
There is no doubt that Face Yoga will be life-changing for the individuals she reaches with her focus on those with limited or no mobility. Marka’s Journey through the Face Yoga Teacher Certification Course shows the ripple effect of empowerment: Changing one life can change so many others!
Taking the Face Yoga Teacher Certification Course helped Marka to let go of her past so that she could let something new and wonderful in. Marka will pass on not only these Face Yoga techniques, but a mindset of self-compassion: Accepting, loving, and helping her students to overcome their insecurities through forgiveness and self-respect.
“For the first time in my life, I can say I’m proud of who I am.” ~ Marka Danielle
Teaching is far more than just a job — it’s a calling.
To all the truth seekers, outsiders, warriors of light, healers, visionaries, guides, and teachers:
You shine your light when others struggle to find their own. You illuminate the way that leads your students home.
As a Certified Face Yoga Teacher, you will carry the torch that lights the fire in the hearts of your students. You’ll be a part of their Journey to self-love, and with this Certification, you’ll have every tool you need to guide them along the way.
If you feel called to join the Face Yoga Teacher Certification Course and make a difference as a Face Yoga Teacher, we urge you to follow that inner voice!
Give yourself permission to evolve into the person you’re meant to be.
