When Nancy Stromp came on vacation to St. John, she was frustrated because she couldn’t locate yoga classes. As she later found out, there were plenty of people teaching yoga but there was no central way to find them.
After she moved to the island four years ago, she put together a website that provides a schedule of yoga classes.
“And it lets everybody talk about health issues,” she said.
Stromp, 55, is now the yoga director at Concordia Eco-resort, where she teaches yoga, and does private classes. She practices Vinyasa Flow, a type of yoga where one pose flows into another.
She was introduced to yoga almost 20 years ago while working in the New York City corporate world. A certified public accountant, her job was stressful. The company nurse suggested the staff do yoga at lunch to relieve some of that stress, and Stromp was hooked.
With slews of yoga teachers practically at her doorstep in New York, she began studying yoga. She holds certification from Brahma Yoga School.
Meanwhile, the native of Struthers, Ohio, was commuting many hours a day from her home in Little Silver, New Jersey, to her job in the city. Hers was a high-powered finance career with jobs in Singapore as a chief financial officer. She last worked for Marsh and McLennan in New York as a strategic project manager.
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center were a wake-up call for Stromp. Her company lost 300 employees, and Stromp said she knew about 30 of them.
She changed her mindset to living in the moment.
“Don’t wait for that someday,” she said.
Stromp was introduced to St. John by a friend, and she was a frequent visitor for about 10 years before she and her about-to-be-husband, Jayson Hayman, finally made the move.
“I was depressed every time we had to leave,” she said.
Hayman, a contractor in New Jersey, now runs a charter boat, Knot E Buoys.
The couple got married in 2010 at their house, with the reception at the nearby Miss Lucy’s Restaurant.
The two settled right into St. John, with Stromp joining the board of the Island Green Living Association, where she is now the treasurer, and running a feeding station in Hard Labor for the Animal Care Center of St. John.
She works one day a week at the Tourist Trap restaurant, a roadside spot not far from her house. Stromp said that she’s the kind of person who would stay at home with her husband, eight cats, two dogs, and a good book if she didn’t make herself go out, so the Tourist Trap job pushes her to be social.
When she’s not teaching yoga or working at the Tourist Trap restaurant, Stromp keeps tabs on her rental apartment Pelican Beach, located beachfront at Friis Bay on the lower level of her house.
As for her spare time, she and Hayman ride around the island on their Harley Davidson motorcycle, snorkel and swim, take vacations – such as the six weeks they spent last year in Europe – and work on community fundraisers when the need arises.
Yoga will always be part of her life, Stromp said.
“It’s an inner practice,” she said.
Stromp can be reached by calling 1-340-775-0533. Her website is at www.doyogastjohnvi.com.
