nathaniel gonzalez
YOGA INSTRUCTOR, REIKI MASTER, FULL SPECTRUM DOULA
nathaniel gonzalez, teaches yin, Hatha, and Vinyasa and shares a little more about practice with them. In 2008, nathaniel completed his 32 hour Street Yoga training, a trauma informed intensive that brings pranayama and asana to youth experiencing homelessness. Truth be told, it wasn’t until later that year that he found out he had a body after stumbling into a Bikram class post doing needle exchange in the middle of the winter.
With a semi-regular practice, in 2012 nathaniel, became a 200hr RYT with Beyond Asana. In 2013, with his partner, he started Philadelphia’s only Queer & Trans yoga class, out of Studio 34. In 2014, he received certification in Yin from Wake Up Yoga. That year he also became a Reiki Master of the Usui-Rhyo lineage, training with Philadelphia’s Reiki School and Clinic.
In October 2019, nathaniel completed Pre/Post natal yoga training with Lovechild based in NYC. Particularly skilled at supporting individuals and groups through transitions with a compassionate rigor, nathaniel completed full-spectrum doula training with the International Center for Traditional Childbearing in 2009, is lay surgery doula, has been leading organizational development interventions since 2012, and is a facilitator by trade with over 1000 hours training. He has a BA from Eugene Lang College, accidentally dropped out of Pepperdine’s Graziadio Business School’s Organizational Development program and has completed many of Training For Change’s workshops. He has facilitated work in France, 15 US states as well as DC and Puerto Rico.
nathaniel has been a bodyworker and community based practitioner longer than he was willing to admit because of self-inflicted embarrassment and shame. Now, slowly untying his self-worth from the idea of upward mobility, he’s attempting to be less of a brat and appreciate the gift of holding space for others. Organizing collectively in healing justice spaces for 9 years, he is the founder of For the Culture, a project committed to creating decolonial spaces rooted in rest, relationship building and resource sharing for Trans (& sometimes Queer) Bodyworkers & Healers.
He teachers are: his mother, silence, and public solitude. His tools are: his hands, his intuition, and music.
Take class with Nathaniel
