Mathew White

I grew up in Fountain Valley, California. While attending Monroe Elementary School, I enrolled in shotokan karate and continued practicing it until I was 17. While in high school, my interested turned to football and wrestling. In 1993, I took what I though would be a year off to live in Japan and study Japanese. I stayed for 4 years and earned my first degree black belt in judo. I returned to the United States to finish my bachelor's degree in Asian Studies at California State University, Chico. As part of my Asian Studies major requirement, I studied Chinese in addition to assiting with Japanese classes. I spent one summer at the Monterey Institute for International Studies improving my Chinese, and I was awarded a scholarship from Chico State University and completed my final semester of college in Chengdu, China. After graduating from college, I returned to Japan, where I taught English while completing my M.A. through the University of Birmingham, U.K. I am an associate professor at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies. I'm also a runner, and I enjoy half-marathons and marathons. However, over the past couple of years, yoga has really transformed my life. I am a member of YMC Yoga Studio and Medical Training School in Nagoya, Japan, where all of the training is done in Japanese. In August of 2017, I completed an RYT200 yoga teachter training in Bali. Since then, I've been sharing my love of yoga and offering private and group lessons in addition to integrating yoga into my university classes. I am researching the effects of yoga on student motivation at my university.