Nicole Arbig

Nicole Arbig (originally Nafuna Abdinasir) is a Kenyan Refugee of Somali ethnicity. She'll identify as Kenyan, Somali, Ajuran, Sunni - still gets annoyed being called Black.

When she was 14, her parents saw an opportunity and took it. And Nicole saw an opportunity for what getting rid of a name she disliked and overwhelmed asylum-seeking parents bought into the "English sounding" argument.

"Nicole" is fine... "Arbig"... iffy. But now she's extremely concerned about what changing it again would do to her immigration status.

Late in declaring her major (she got significant financial support via scholarship) she settled on Physical Therapy as a middle ground between what she wished when could do and what might pay.

Before her residency - Doordash funded the car. And. Well. Yoga was a big deal. The ethnically-Indian population of Wajir was far from huge, but strongly knit. And welcoming enough. 

Let's say that very little hindu thought settled in her mind, but the stretch junky was encouraged. Nicole had no outlet for that before.

After the move, the new name she grew to dislike in a different way, she was into the competitive yoga scene as it existed in the states. She knew the lingo. Even if she was told repeatedly that she was "merely a contortionist". She's acted as such in university  productions, no worries there.

...She was convinced to try and make a DVD.  Not that she was certified to teach yoga. It ended up being more about showing off what wasn't allowed in American competitions - where things like poise count.

Nicole appears in Ultimate Yoga

(Which predates... everything above. And was not written by me.)