Lead Yogini for YOGA in COMMON

 

I practice yoga because it changed my life. I teach because I want to share with others the love that yoga awoke inside me. Yoga found me over ten years ago. I completed Ashtanga (Vinyasa Flow) teacher training in 2004 at Gaea Yoga Center in Charleston, SC. Since then I’ve been blessed to practice and study with incredible teachers like Erich Schiffmann, Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, Saul David Rea, Shiva Rea and many others whose names may not be recognizable, but whose effects on my life and practice are unending. My most influential teachers taught me that the greatest teacher is within. In order to hear, though, we must learn to be still and listen.

According to Patanjali, the author of the Yoga Sutras, there are Eight Limbs of Yoga. Asana (physical postures) is only one limb. I commited to a yogic lifestyle because the Eight Limbs made sense to me. I have to recommit to my path daily. Remembering ahimsa, to not harm others in thought, word or deed is a choice we make hundreds of times a day. The same goes for satya, or truthfulness. Abe Lincoln’s declaration resonates well with me, “When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad.” Practicing yoga feels good.

In my classes you can expect to be challenged and nurtured, to sweat and to take rest, to hear a mix of music from Jack Johnson to Krishna Das to an occasional Justin Timberlake to Bach. I aim only to facilitate your growth. I teach from my heart because that’s where yoga resides.

Peace, love, and headstands– Angel Grant

 

Affiliate Instructors at YOGA in COMMON

Lauren Davis -Lauren started practicing yoga in 1989 and teaching in 1994. She was the co-founder of a yoga studio in northern California for 10 years. Her background is Iyengar yoga, but she teaches many different styles and fuses them together to create a wonderful variety of classes. Lauren teaches challenging classes but understands the individual needs of people’s specific issues and has many alternatives, so you can trust that she will create a safe space.

Yoga has a huge palette of practices to choose from so in my classes I love to create a well-rounded practice that will incorporate everything. I love the use of props, not to get in your way but to enhance your practice. With my strong Iyengar background we will work on alignment so your poses flow with the natural lines of the body, and we will work on the breath, to help you understand how to relax and ground, and we will laugh a mighty because sometimes life is just too serious. Sometimes I use Vinyasa and music, and other times it may be a silent practice. Trust that I will create a space that you can feel safe and I will honor wherever you are with your practice to help you work toward what you want to achieve.

Jessica Durivage – Yoga has been a part of Jessica’s life for the last 8 years. She met her first yoga teacher, Jessica Graham Stout of Sacred Space Yoga and Healing Arts Center during a beginners class and truly felt like she found her long lost friend in the practice. Jessica was trained in the style of Ashtanga-Vinyasa and recieved her Teacher Training in 2002. She takes a real world approach to teaching yoga in her classroom. Her love is teaching the beginnger yogi and her passion lies at the heart of empowering students to discover what has brought them to the mat and build their foundation of practice from that on a daily basis. She studies with Para Yogi Devi Das Karina Ayn Mirsky and is blessed to receive her teachings. Jessica also honors Todd Geiser as one of her dearest friends and teachers in her life. Jessica’s physical teaching style can be described as a slow flow vinyasa practice mixed with metaphors and humor.

Mimi Rose –

 

Michelle Sabido – As a philosophy major in college, I was particularly interested in the study of the nature of consciousness, morals and ethics, religion, and the mind body connection. After graduation, I had difficulty finding a place to fit my passion- philosophy – into my life and still function in the everyday world. Then, as fate or synchronicity would have it, I found yoga and an amazing teacher, Kelly- Jean Moore, at Blue Turtle yoga in Charleston, South Carolina. Her teaching style drew me in and kept me inspired, humbled, and rooted. After some time, I began to view yoga as a functional philosophy. It allowed me to dabble in the deeper existential profundities of life and at the same time I found a functional and relative connection to the world around me through my body.

It amazes me how life hands you what you need when you’re ready for it. It also amazes me how many fascinating people step into your life when you try to better yourself.

The great thing about yoga is that you don’t have to be interested in philosophy to walk away with the health benefits that a regular practice provides. My intention as a teacher is to bring my students fully into the present moment through conscious breathing and challenging flowing postures. The intended result is the calming of the mind, reduction of stress, and a healthier body. My wish is that the consciousness cultivated on the mat is carried into the student’s daily life. When we are able to be still, we are able to receive all that is being offered to us on a daily basis. Otherwise, we are too busy rushing around from task to task, thought to thought, desire to desire, without fully understanding that we are the ones that get in the way of ourselves most of the time.

 

Anita Anandi Thebeau

My yoga practice earnestly began in 1994 with a very compassionate, encouraging Sivananda teacher and I became addicted to the positive benefits (i.e., more energy, increased flexibility and ability to focus and handle stress – to name a few) of yoga.

Wanting to increase my knowledge of the yogic teachings and learn the nitty gritty of how yoga affects the body and mind as well as sharing with others the benefits that I had received, I enrolled in the Integral Yoga® Teacher’s Training at Yogaville, Virginia in early spring 1997 and mark that time as one of the most wonderful experiences of my life.

Back in the ‘90’s yoga still carried a certain stigma in certain areas and my Dad, having a miss-guided idea of what yoga is all about, asked why I couldn’t just go into ballet. I explained that ballet is tough after 40. Now, he and Mom check periodically if my practice is going okay. They have witnessed the benefits of yoga and I am grateful to have been able to share some of the practices with them. After all, when you come right to it, they were my first yoga teachers – as they taught me the Yamas (non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence and non-greed), the Niyamas (purity, contentment, not causing pain and the worship of God) and Pratipaksha bhavana (when disturbed by negative thoughts, positive ones should be thought of).

Since receiving my teacher’s certification, my hope is that I have and will continue to convey to my students at least a part of the beautiful benefits of yoga. I am so grateful to them for surely THEY have become some of my greatest teachers.

 

Sue Ward    Taking the first step in anything can be intimidating and beginning a yoga practice is no different…. It was not until I had been practicing for quite some time that I was able to let go and just be. Having come from a high charged background in my ever changing career path of retail sales and management and most recently as a real estate broker, just allowing myself to live in the moment was a challenge. Looking for something to compliment my workouts which had always included more high energy routines like step classes and spinning I tried yoga after months of urging from a friend and client who later became the catalyst to what has become the direction for the second half of my life. In my middle 50’s I finally found the balance through yoga that opened my eyes to how wonderful life can be. It was the dedication of my teacher Marilyn Rubin that put me on my new path and encouraged me to teach others what I have learned. Marilyn has been teaching yoga for 30 years and has studied and practiced Iyengar yoga instilling in her students that attention to detail that gives one the necessary foundation to build on. My wish as an instructor is to have that impact on those around me awakening in them the inner peace that I have found and the ability to accept what life gives us … each day is a gift and each practice allows us accept the gift with humble gratitude.

We all experience the feeling of being the new kid on the block, finding our way around a new neighborhood, or the first day of a new job… I hope you will join me for your first days in your yoga practice

Namaste

Sarah Waylett I have been practicing yoga since 2003 when a close friend of mine decided to buy a yoga studio in DC while in graduate school. Until 2006, my practice was solely to offset the stress of my job as an accounting and finance consultant and was sporadic at best. During the summer of 2006, I read the book, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, and realized that I needed to make a meaningful change in my life.

I signed up for teacher training through Yoga Yoga studio in Austin, Texas and became a Registered Yoga Teacher in August of 2007. After struggling with the decision to leave consulting for a more balanced life, I now work full-time from home doing consulting research and development and teach yoga part-time. Yoga has become the most important thing in my life as it affects every other aspect of my being from my state-of-mind to my relationships with others. I would not be where I am today without my teachers: Christina Sell, Jessica Stout, and last but certainly not least John Friend and Anusara Yoga Community.

Everyone needs an outlet to find peace in their busy lives and that is what I bring to my yoga students in every class: A place to challenge our minds to be silent, our bodies to work, and our hearts to find a sense of peace in the world. Come take a class and see for yourself!

 

GUEST Instructors

Jessica Graham Stout

NOTE: Jessica is the owner of Sacred Heart Yoga and Healing Arts Center. She will be a featured instructor at YOGA in COMMON teaching workshops and specialty classes such as prenatal yoga. We are glad to have Jessica teaching “in common” with us from time to time!

Maribeth MacKenzie

Maribeth began practicing yoga as a means to compliment her biathlon training.  Her first class was in a cold, dance studio in a community college next to the weight room with hard bodies and loud music – a far cry from a yoga studio – but she was hooked immediately.  As a former classroom teacher and current yoga teacher, Maribeth uses her teaching skills and sense of humor to inspire and motivate her students to the joy of practice. Since meeting Beryl Bender Birch, her teacher, mentor and friend, Maribeth has embodied the yogic lifestyle and currently teaches yoga and designs yoga inspired jewelry. Om Sweet Om Yoga Inspired Jewelry Designs evolved as a natural transition from time spent on the mat.   www.omsweetomjewelry.com  Maribeth is grateful for every teacher and student she has ever had and she recognizes that each of these souls has helped her to where she is today.  Besides yoga and jewelry, another passion of Maribeth’s is golf.  She has combined her love of these two hobbies and is certified by Katherine Roberts as the only KR Yoga for Golfers Instructor in South Carolina.  Maribeth currently resides in Myrtle Beach with her husband Bill and two cats Bogey and Mulligan.