MELT Stories: Her Secret Is Out
In 2005, Edya Kalev and her mother were walking on the Upper West Side of Manhattan when they spotted the recently opened Jewish Community Center. She recalls her mother dragging her inside.
Amidst the yoga and Spin classes, one class caught Edya’s eye: It had something to do with connective tissue, and Edya thought that it might help with her new hamstring injury.
This was Edya’s introduction to the MELT Method and she’s been hooked ever since.
“It was a very exciting time for me. I felt like I knew a secret, a secret no one else knew, about how to heal on a deep cellular level,” she says.
One of MELT creator Sue Hitzmann’s most dedicated students, Edya is now one of the six Master Trainers who can teach others to become MELT instructors. Prior to undergoing a year-long training as part of the Master Trainer program, Edya helped create MELT video tutorials so trainees could experience MELT in their own bodies before attending live MELT trainings.
“I’ve really discovered it’s the little details that can change a person’s experience,” says Edya, “and by taking it slower, you can help deliver a better result.”
Edya’s first fitness love is yoga. She is a Registered Yoga Teacher who has studied extensively with some of the most respected teachers in the field, including Leslie Kaminoff and Amy Matthews. For 10 years, she has taught a yoga camp for kids at the Sivananda Yoga Ranch in the Catskill Mountains with children’s yoga specialist Tara Rachel Jones.
Like so many who teach the MELT Method, Edya was sold by how it transformed her own body. She previously traveled to India twice to study yoga – an experience that she says was life changing but very hard on her body. MELT immediately improved the post-trip fatigue in her legs as well as lingering digestive issues.
Edya believes that the disciplines of MELT and yoga are different but entirely complementary. In fact, Edya teaches a class called MELTed Yoga, which uses MELT soft rollers and balls to prepare the body for yoga poses, as well as integrating MELT into the flow itself.
“MELT allows me to feel things more deeply and feel more connected to my spine, legs, and pelvis while practicing yoga,” Edya says. “It feels less like I am forcing anything. It’s more of a flow rather than getting into a position and then fixing that position.”