Christen Bakken left her job in the classroom to follow her passion for teaching yoga.

“I taught second grade…for about three years,” Bakken says. “I left teaching not because I didn’t love what I was doing during the school day, but I really felt a desire to work with kids’ hearts more so than their test scores.” 

So she combined her love of teaching kids with her love of teaching yoga. 

“Yoga is beneficial for everybody,” Bakken says. “It brings [kids] a sense of control to say, ‘I can. I can sit still. I can disconnect.’” 

Bakken opened Yoga for Young Warriors in 2008. She offers yoga classes in schools and at her studio in Denver. She works with kids as young as 18 months all the way up to 13 year olds. 

Seventh-grader Lindsey Young enjoys taking the classes. “Yoga is a great way for me to relax and relieve my stress from school,” she says. 

Bakken says the key to her success is doing it from the heart. 

“My hope for the future…is to really foster independence and self-confidence in kids as they play,” Bakken says. “These kids are so incredible. They are my best teacher.”