Timothy Whitney

President and Co-founder of the Double Dog Center, Timothy Whitney has always had a passion to better understand human existence, as well as his own place in this world. In founding the Double Dog Center, he is combining this passion with the joy he finds in sports and arts, and his desire to help people find peace and self-expression.

A life-long athlete, Tim loves playing baseball, hockey, surfing, biking, running, skateboarding, swimming, and among other sports, sculling. In fact, it was through his sculling career (single person rowing) that Tim first started to formulate the concept behind the Double Dog Center. Tim rowed in high school and throughout his time at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, where he received a B.A. in American Studies. After graduation, he moved to Long Beach, CA to follow his dream of becoming a world-class athlete. His sculling career culminated with the U.S. National Championship and 15th place at the 2001 World Rowing Championships in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Tim first practiced yoga in college, and it later became an important part of his training regimen, both for his physical strength and flexibility, and for his mental preparation. In the winter of 2002, he moved to Craftsbury, VT and met Diana, who was an avid athlete, yoga instructor and writer. With her assistance, Tim deepened his practice of yoga as well his interest in meditative arts. Though he continued to race and train, he realized that if he were to truly "follow his bliss" he would be better served adapting his life focus.

Diana and Tim were married in March of 2004 and moved to southern Vermont in the fall of 2005. Since then Tim has taught rowing and sculling at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center, Putney Rowing Club, and the Putney School. Tim has solid experience working with children through leading after-school programs and coaching.

Tim has a strong interest in dreams and completed a "Dream Tending" workshop at the Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, CA. He has also finished the first year of the professional training program for counselors in Psychosynthesis at the Synthesis Center in Amherst, MA. He is a member of the American Society of Dowsers, a student of modern astrology and alchemy, and the manager of the Brattleboro River Rats men's baseball team. Tim loves the outdoors, animals, singing and playing guitar, and loving his wife and baby daughter Ava.

In this context, Tim has decided that he, his family and community would be best served by founding a visionary organization to combine his loves in a way that would most benefit all of us.

Diana Whitney

Diana Whitney is a yoga instructor and writer who combines her training in Kripalu and Ashtanga yoga to create an energizing and deeply relaxing practice. She discovered yoga ten years ago as an elite cross-country skier and oarswoman, looking for a way to release tension, increase flexibility, and restore her tired muscles. Diana skied and rowed for Dartmouth College and rowed for Oxford University, where she also received a Masters in English Literature and immersed herself in the study of poetry. After coaching club rowing at Oxford, she moved back Stateside and coached novice crew and varsity cross-country skiing at Williams College, while racing at an elite level in both sports. She learned how to scull at Riverside Boat Club and won a gold medal at the Canadian Henley.

In 1998, Diana moved north to an isolated old farmhouse in Craftsbury, VT, where she sought (in true Gemini spirit) to bring into balance the various aspects of her personality: skier, sculler, writer, yogi, gardener, poet-mystic, and more. She worked as a sculling coach, ski instructor, and yoga teacher at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center, while teaching creative writing at Sterling College and pursuing her MFA in poetry at the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. Yoga became a powerful way for her to remain grounded, connect to her center, and explore her spirit during this time of changes.

In 2004, Diana married Tim Whitney and together they developed a holistic workshop integrating the practices of yoga and sculling. When the Whitneys moved to Southern Vermont, Diana became ski coach, rowing coach, and yoga teacher at the Putney School. Since the birth of daughter Ava in August, 2005, Diana has focused her attention on being a mama, a new practice she loves intensely. She still teaches yoga in Putney, though, and has also created (with novelist Suzanne Kingsbury) a series of workshops called "Memoir and Movement" – an inspiring combination of yoga and creative writing, which the Double Dog Center will present in the future.