This 11-year-old could be the youngest certified yoga instructor in the country


Tabay Atkins, 11, had no inkling in 2012 that he had inadvertently selected his mission in life. He was 6. His mother was battling cancer. The son of Larry Atkins and Sahel Anvarinejad observed first-hand the dramatic emotional and physical lift that his mother’s discovery of yoga contributed to her recovery from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. By year’s end, she was cancer-free and had completed a 200-hour certification as a yoga instructor. Tabay, being 6, tagged along at some of her training and soon found himself assimilating the flow. Today, Tabay is a certified instructor – perhaps the youngest in America, or anywhere, as far as his mother can tell – having earned his certification last summer when he was still 10. The Orange County Register | January 2017