THE CHRONICLES OF BRIAN CASTELLANI

On December 4th, 1993, at 13th and Pine Street, I was involved in an altercation while I was living in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, in Seattle, Washington. There were friends there, also strangers.  Inevitably, what happened would alter the course of my life forever.

I was beaten to death and I went from being relatively unhindered physically, to suffering a frontal lobe head injury where I was forced to learn to walk again.

After four days in a coma, I woke up in Harbourview Hospital with double-vision, and very bad balance. My balance was affected to the point of needing a wheelchair, then graduated to a four-point cane, then a single point cane.  My ability to speak was impeded and in the beginning, I would often forget what I was saying.

Recovery from something like a head injury is a life-long process, and when I started practicing yoga, my life changed fairly drastically. I finally felt I had found – not only the answer for myself but also maybe the answer for other people with head injuries too.

But – unfortunately, medical yoga is not an accepted form of rehabilitation for most people.  Anyone who teaches yoga knows that we are not properly equipped with the necessary and specific knowledge to instruct people with head injuries specifically. So we are forced to fit inside a commercial definition of homogenized yoga.

Today, I am still recognized by some in the yoga industry for methodically and consistently bringing awareness into yoga education since 2009… (also with the help of a handful of other Yoga Teachers from NY, TX, WA, LA, and CA – we changed American Yoga without any help from Yoga Alliance).

Everything I have accomplished since then has been for only one real reason: to help yoga teachers be better teachers and expand education based yoga.