Rodney Yee - Life and Career

Life and Career

Rodney Yee was born in 1957, the Chinese-American son of an Air Force Colonel, and spent his childhood on military bases in Altus, Oklahoma and Puerto Rico. He was a gymnast during his high school years and later became a ballet dancer, performing with the Oakland Ballet Company and the Matsuyama Ballet Company of Tokyo, Japan. He studied philosophy and physical therapy at the University of California, Berkeley. He dropped out in order to pursue ballet full-time.

Yee became a yoga enthusiast in the Iyengar school, but now teaches a blend of Iyengar Yoga and his own invented style. He began his Yoga teaching career at a studio called The Yoga Room in Berkeley; later, he co-founded the Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland.

Yee now teaches around the world at workshops, retreats and conferences.

He has three children from his first marriage to Donna Fone, which ended in divorce in 2002. He married former model Colleen Saidman in December 2006. They live in The Hamptons. Both yoga instructors continue to pursue their own careers (Yee with YeeYoga and Gaiam; Saidman with Yoga Shanti) and in May, 2008 opened an online yoga club / virtual yoga studio together called The Gaiam Yoga Club.