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Tom Abrehamson
Tom teaches an Iyengar-based style of yoga.
Tom is a certified yoga teacher with a BA from Princeton and a JD law degree who has studied yoga since the late 1970s. He has taught over 5000 classes in the mid-peninsula area since 2000 and has taken hundreds of hours of teacher training with, among others, Manouso Manos, Aadil Palkhivala and Elise Miller.
Tom's classes are mixed-level classes that afford both beginners and more advanced students the opportunity to work at their own levels. His classes combine precise instruction with individualized attention and gentle humor. His students work hard, make progress and have fun.
Tom has taught at Yoga of Los Altos since its inception having had 25,000+ students in his classes over the last 8 years. Tom includes Pranayama in his classes on a regular basis.
Karen Alderete
Karen teaches a Vinyasa style of yoga. She has also studied Anusara Yoga. Karen first came to the practice as an augmentation to her overall fitness and has become devoted to Yoga for the positive effects it brings to every aspect of her life. She completed a teacher training program in 2008. She has since completed advanced immersion teacher training in Anusara Yoga. As a Certified Massage Therapist, Karen infuses anatomical alignment principals and injury-prevention techniques throughout her teaching.
In her classes students find a supportive and safe environment in which to explore the deep connection to the spirit through challenging the body and mind. All levels of practitioner are welcome to share the experience.
Karen also works at Stanford as a program manager for Alumni Travel. She travels the world in that role.
Arjun Bhagat
Arjun is a graduate of IIT Delhi. He spent his formative adult years working as a volunteer for AIESEC, a global non-profit student organization. In that role, he had the good fortune of traveling the globe. After getting a business degree he built and sold a couple of companies with some wonderful and amazing friends. Since 2000, he has been managing two investment funds focused on U.S. Real Estate and Indian based operating companies.
From early childhood, Arjun has been drawn to spirituality, which has been the primary focus and goal of his life. His human guru-ji was deeply immersed in Kashmir Shaivism, the knowledge of which she passed on to Arjun through lectures, meditational practices and Shakti-pat. His non-human guru-ji has been the Bhagavad Gita.
Arjun strives to continue his spiritual growth, and build a group of like-minded aspirants who want focus on their internal spiritual growth.
Andi Bruno
Andi thought it was high time for a yoga studio in Los Altos, so in August of 2003 she started Yoga of Los Altos. Andi feels extremely blessed that the studio is thriving and she is very grateful to all the wonderful students and superb instructors that are an integral part of the Yoga of Los Altos community.
Andi has been practicing yoga for more than 20 years, and started teaching yoga in 2000. She has also had a meditation practice for the last 25 years.
Andi's yoga practice has been influenced her many wonderful teachers including Laura Foley, Sarah Powers, Paul Grilley, Jim & Ruthie Bernaert, Noah Maze,and Hareesh Wallis.
Andi obtained her first teaching certification in Yin Yoga from Sarah Powers and Paul Grilley in 2000. She also completed a 200-hour advanced Anusara teacher training course at the Yoga Kula in Berkeley in 2004. Andi competed another 200-hour Anusara teacher training in early 2009. Andi then completed Advanced Teacher Training with Noah Maze and Darren Rhodes in September 2009. In early 2011 Andi completed another 100 hour teacher training with Sianna Sherman and Noah Maze. Andi just completed a 150 hour philosophy immersion in Non-Dual Tantrism with Chris (Hareesh) Wallis.
Andi loves all forms of yoga - Vinyasa, Yin, Restorative, Therapeutic, Iyengar, Anusara, and Yoga Nidra. She also believes that it is extremly beneficial for serious yoga students to develop a regular pranayama and meditation practice to accompany their physical asana practices.
Other than teaching yoga, Andi's favorite thing is to take yoga teacher trainings and to ski (which she plans to do alot this coming year).
Andi brings clear and precise instruction to each yoga pose. She also brings a fun tone into each and every class. Andi truly believes that all of yoga is to be enjoyed !
Robyn Capobianco
Robyn has been a student of yoga for over 10 years and started her formal teacher training in 2004. She has completed teacher trainings and continues to study with some of the most celebrated teachers in the Anusara and Vinyasa systems including John Friend, Sianna Sherman, Amy Ippoliti, Kenny Graham, and Shiva Rea. Robyn is trained in yoga therapeutics as well as sports injury and performance massage. Her yoga training has helped her complete numerous triathlons, including an Ironman, and running races ranging from 5k to marathons.
Robyn invites students to roll out your mat, work hard, laugh, and leave feeling better than you did when you arrived.
Daniella Cotreau
Daniella is an Anusara Inspired Instructor.
She is based in Los Gato and is the founder of Body Temple Yoga. She teaches Anusara-Inspired Yoga with great joy and a deep reverence for her teachers who have impacted her practice.
Her classes are heart-opening, uplifting, healing and filled with precision and playfulness. She is a gifted and inspiring teacher of yoga and has a unique gift in bridging the practice of yoga to worldly life using metaphorical yet clear analogies between the two, giving deeper meaning to why we practice.
Her most influential teachers include Anusara founder John Friend, Sianna Sherman, Noah Maze, Elena Brower, Desiree Rumbaugh, Ken Graham and Samantha-Shakti Brown. Her teachers of Shiva-Shakti Tantra include Douglas Brooks, Paul Muller-Ortega, and Chris (Hareesh) Wallis.
In May 2010 she received Neelakantha Meditation Initiation from Paul Muller Ortega. Daniella is currently working towards becoming a fully Certified Anusara Yoga Instructor
Suzanne Dong
Suzanne is a graduate of the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco and has studied under Geeta and Prashant Iyengar, Ramanand Patel, Manouso Manos, and Kofi Busia. Her love of yoga is infectious, challenging and energetic. Students appreciate her humor and depth of knowledge. Suzanne has significant experience in helping her students with back, neck, and shoulder challenges.
Hillary Easom
Hillary began practicing yoga in 1997 using a book recommended by a friend. Soon after, she started taking classes in Iyengar and later Vinyasa yoga and loved the energy created in a classroom of yogis practicing together. Yoga helped her develop body and breath awareness that worked wonders during two pregnancies and childbirths. Hillary then completed formal yoga teacher training.
Hillary’s classes combine breath awareness and physical postures in an effort to open the body, mind and spirit to all that is possible. She aims to ensure that every student—regardless of fitness level or experience—finds something magical in the practice. She loves teaching prenatal yoga.
Yogaworks Faculty
Hillary Skibell and Nikki Estrada will be teaching the 2012 Yogaworks Teacher Training that will be hosted by Yoga of Los Altos.
Marti Foster
Marti Foster, a native Californian from our own community of Los Altos. She was raised with a strong respect for physical health, intellectua growth, and spiritual awareness. From a very young age, dance, movement and music were an integral part of her everyday life.
From very early on, she knew that her life's work would be dedicated to the healing sciences. Her intense curiosities about human physiology led her into professions including the fields of Neurological Health Care, Cardiovascular Medicine, and Sports Medicine Rehabilitation.
Marti teaches Vinyasa Yoga, a form of yoga in which a sequence of asanas are linked to complement one another. This style of yoga often resembles a choreographed dance. Each class is individually choreographed and set to music, making each class one of a kind experience.
Today, her teaching has expanded into a new maturity. At the beginning of her yoga journey, it was only a method of attaining physical well-being and increased athleticism. However, she has found that yoga is also a vehicle to heal the mind and spirit. This powerful aspect of yoga, blended with Marti's creativity now brings a true integration of body, mind and spirit into her unique interpretation of Hatha yoga.
Amy Fowlkes
Amy is an Anusara Inspired Instructor.
She is a licensed physical therapist with master’s degrees in physical therapy (MPT) and exercise physiology (MS). Her interests in alignment and muscle balance led to studying of Anusara Yoga. She has studied with Kenny Graham, Laura Christensen, and Stacey Rosenberg. As a physical therapist, this style of yoga aligns and resonates well with her knowledge of biomechanics and therapeutic exercise.
Amy enjoys integrating anatomy, physiology, and precise alignment to her classes and workshops. She has a great passion for helping people to heal themselves and is highly recommended by local physicians and patients for her skill at treating patients. She is currently the clinic director and works full-time with patients at Mountain View Physical Therapy. The Tantric philosophy of intrinsic goodness and the alignment principles of Anusara yoga are a perfect fit with her background.
With a sports background in collegiate running, triathlons, and competitive road cycling, Amy likes to invite students to work hard and safely push their limits!
Chrissy Graham
Chrissy teaches Anusara Yoga.
Chrissy is a Certified Anusara Yoga Instructor. She started to practice yoga to heal her body. Chrissy was first introduced to Anusara Yoga through a chance encounter with Emily Dubin, also a Certified Anusara Yoga Instructor.
Chrissy went on to study directly with John Friend, Anusara Yoga’s creator. She has taken all of her teacher training directly with John, and has accumulated over 350 hrs with him.
Chrissy has also studied with a number of other highly skilled Anusara teachers. In addition to her studies with John, she has studied with fabulously skilled teachers, like Sianna Sherman, whom she now assists locally, and nationally, as well as Mitchell Bleier, and Amy Ippoliti. She has also spent many hours studying in the Philosophical traditions of Rajanaka, Tantra, with Dr. Douglas Brooks.
Chrissy presently teaches all over the Bay Area. Chrissy brings a dynamic, and supportive energy to her classes that blends philosophy,yoga therapeutics, and insightful wisdom, from her own life experiences.
Osha Hanfling
Osha teaches Iyengar Yoga.
Osha has been teaching yoga in the Iyengar Tradition since 1984, having studied directly with the Iyengars in India. She is a very well known and respected Iyengar teacher. She currently teaches in San Francisco at the Abode of Iyengar Yoga and at Yoga of Los Altos on Thursdays at 11am.
Osha takes a personal approach with her students, meeting them at their level and inspiring them to deepen their practice. Osha sees yoga as a tool for transformation and inner freedom. She believes that through the process of the asana we harness the mind, wake the sleeping body, and begin to discover and generate awareness of our psycho-spiritual selves.
Lauren Anas Hanoch
Lauren was a previous classical ballet dancer with a love for dance, yoga, and anything that helps the body open up and release stress from our daily life. She graduated from teacher training in Palo Alto, CA in 2007 and recently returned from India, a month long trip to deepen her yoga practice. Lauren has studied with teachers from different traditions including Ben Thomas, Richard Freeman, and Max Strom.
Yoga has helped Lauren physically maintain a healthy body and the meditation of it has created a foundation for her to live a much happier and sustainable life.
Lauren teaches yoga in order to share with others the freedom that yoga offers, freedom in the body and mind. Her style is Vinyasa and her classes are challenging, with the intention of building strength, flexibility, awareness, and confidence, using the power of the breath and the movement of the body. Lauren wants her students to find their edge, to find a place where they physically are working hard and still very much enjoying all that yoga has to offer. Class is a place to practice, smile, explore, and enjoy!
Doron Hanoch
Doron has superb training and transmits his vast knowledge of yoga and meditation to his students in a fun and enjoyable way. Doron recently returned from studying in India at the Mysore Mandala Ashram under the tutelage of MV Chidananda in the Krishnamacharya linage.
Doron is a certified 550 hour Yoga Teacher (RYI). He was introduced to yoga and meditation in 1992 while traveling and studying in the Far East. Doron has gone to India many times to deepen his spiritual and asana practices. He has studied under the guidance of Pattabhi Jois and his family including Sharath and Saraswati. He is fortunate to have studied with some other great Ashtanga teachers such as Richard Freeman (teacher training, Boulder, CO), Rolf and Marci, (Goa, India) Tim Miller (India), Adarsh and Heleen (Mountain View, CA), Amy Santos (New York), Gouda Hedwig (New York), and Shashadri (Mysore, India) and a Vinyasa teacher training with Mark Stephens (Santa Cruz).
Doron’s teachings are based on the foundation of tradition with a practical and non-dogmatic way. Movements flow from one to another in rhythm with the breath, emphasizing grace as the opening to a meditative practice. Doron is also a trained chef, a certified nutrition consultant (registered with the AADP) and an artist. He uses all his skills to create a holistic experience for his students.
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Kat Leilani
Kat teaches Mindful Flow, Prenatal Yoga and Meditation.
Kat fell in love with yoga more than ten years ago through discovering her own practice first. Yoga taught her to be aware of herself, her breath, all the physical sensations in the body, and all the emotional nuances. Her yoga practice grew, unfolding into a meditation practice on the mat, and off the mat becoming a part of her daily life.
Kat studied with Ganda White at the White Lotus Foundation in Santa Barbara mountains in 2007, becoming a certified yoga teacher. She continued exploring various expressions of yoga, proceeding to an Anusara Yoga Immersion with Kenny Graham in 2009.
Enjoying yoga as a path to mindfulness and self-acceptance, Kat became passionate about working with pregnant mamas. She studied with Jane Austin in San Francisco, becoming inspired to empower women to trust their bodies and their innate knowledge on their mamahood journeys, using yoga to ease the pregnancy discomforts and become aware of the experience of pregnancy more fully.
Misako Matsuoka
Misako is a lifelong student of yoga. She holds degrees in Biology and Engineering, she is a student of Chinese Medicine, and she is a certified yoga instructor registered with the Yoga Alliance. Misako is a beautiful teacher and a wonderful soul.
Misako’s first Teacher Training certification came from Avalon Yoga in 2005. She has since completed an advanced immersion in Yin Yoga with Paul Grilley, the world’s leading expert in Yin; has been certified in Restorative Yoga with the founder of and best-known specialist in Restorative Yoga, Judith Hanson Lasater; and has studied the Shadow yoga style with Scott Blossom. Her vinyasa style is influenced by Max Strom and Janet Stone, with a strong emphasis on the breath with keeping the flow playful with varied sequencing. Misako continues to study Anusara with Kenny Graham, Sianna Sherman, and Anusara’s founder, John Friend.
Misako has trained in Thai Massage and Shiatsu massage, and brings this healing sensitivity to her yoga students. Misako hopes to share her belief with her students that yoga can offer opportunities to discover the healing and vitality of the body and to open the heart and mind.
Cassandra McDonough
Cassandra is a Prana Flow and Kripalu certified yoga instructor with over 700 hours of teacher training. She invites students to practice the healing and life-affirming practice of yoga using her sweet and caring teaching style. Cassandra spent a year immersed in an intensive volunteer program at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, MA where she had the opportunity to study with many world-renowned teachers from many healing traditions. She continues to study with both the Kripalu Center and Shiva Rea.
Susan Morey
Susan teaches our community class - this class is by donation with the funds going to Family & Child Services
Susan believes that yoga reveals the possibilities within each of us. Through our kula, our community, we remember our intrinsic goodness. She has completed an Anusara Immersion program in 2010 at Willow Street Yoga, in her native Washington DC area, and is currently in Teacher Training with Sianna Sherman and Noah Maze. She has practiced yoga for 11 years, coming to Anusara by way of Vinyasa and Iyengar yoga traditions.
Community Yoga Class Description:
Equivalent to a level 1, this one-hour class is offered by donation. Pay what you wish: all contributions go directly to the local Family and Children Services organization (http://www.fcservices.org/). This is a moderately paced class, designed to build core strength, flexibility, and a calm nervous system. There is often emphasis on breathing and healthy alignment of the body/mind. Recommended for students with an understanding of basic yoga postures, or for those students that feel that they are physically fit and don't mind learning the basic yoga postures as they move through the class.
Marissa Nasca
Marissa teaches an Anusara style of Yoga.
Marissa loves yoga and it shows. Yoga has been a wonderfully healing practice for her and she started teaching to share it with others.
Marissa completed a 200 hr Vinyasa teacher training in 2008. Then Marissa started to seriously study Anusara yoga. She completed her Anusara Immersion with Madhuri Martin in Denver, Colorado. Marissa is currently enrolled in Sianna Sherman's Anusara Teacher Training and is enjoying the journey. Anatomy, philosophy, and heart felt enthusiasm are at the core of her classes.
Marissa's light spirit provides a playful atmosphere for her students to build confidence and expand.
Sheryl Nonnenberg
Sheryl Nonnenberg has been practicing yoga for 11 years and graduated last year with 200 hours of training. She has also studied with Tias Little, Sarah Powers, Paul Grilley, Rodney Yee and our own Rebecca Snowball.
Sheryl teaches Yin as she enjoys the passive practice, as well as a meditative experience
Sheryl is an art writer/researcher and live in Menlo Park with my husband, Lane. She has two adult children, Cara and Reid.
Dina Prioste
Dina has been teaching vinyasa yoga since 2004 and received her 500 hours of teaching certification from Atmananda Yoga and B Yoga, both in New York City. She’s also certified to teach Therapeutic, Prenatal and Kid’s Yoga. Dina’s classes incorporate mindful intention and flowing sequences to build strength, improve flexibility and increase confidence in her students.
Birgit Reimer
Birgit Reimer teaches the Iyengar Yoga style in the direct lineage of her deeply respected mentor Yogacharya Benjamin A. Thomas, a senior teacher in this tradition. Under her mentor's guidance she studied for 10 years and has completed more than 2000 hours of training. Birgit teaches level I-III asanas and pranayama. She continuously travels to India to study with the Iyengar family.
Birgit's classes are a fusion of asanas, pranayama, meditation, chants and the rare opportunity to learn the Yoga Sutras of Sri Patanjali. Birgit's deep roots in Soto Zen meditation, Shotokan karate and energy work - contribute to a well-balanced and harmonious atmosphere in her classes. She encourages the students to create balance and equalibrium through alignment and precision, to move with the rhythm of their breath and she encourages here students to keep both the heart and mind open, humble and free.
Anirudh Shastri
Shastri teaches a Dynamic Vinyasa Flow
Anirudh Shastri is a well-known and highly respected hatha yoga teacher with an extensive background in yoga philosophy. He has been teaching yoga for more than 20 years, bringing his deep knowledge of the physical and spiritual aspects of yogic philosophy to his many students on the peninsula and in the South Bay.
Shastri trained in India and studied under the guidance of Shri Vishnu Prasadji.
Rebecca Snowball
Rebecca is an Anusara Inspired Instructor.
Rebecca Snowball is an Anusara-Inspired yoga teacher and certified Vinyasa teacher. She training initially with Ganga White and Tracy Rich of the White Lotus Foudation and is currently on the path to Anusara Yoga Certification. She has completed over 300 hours of Anusara yoga study, including an immersion with Kenny Graham, Teacher Training Level 1 with Stacey Rosenberg, Teacher Training Level II and then a Teachers Intensive with John Friend. She will continue studying with John Friend, the creator of Anusara Yoga until her certification is complete.
Myra Sugiyama
Myra has been an advanced yoga practitioner for several years, and she continues to learn from her primary teacher, Anirudh Shastri.
Myra's classes are rooted in the teachings of Dynamic Hatha and Vinyasa yoga. Each of Myra’s classes may be different, but all are playful, vigorous, challenging and accessible to students of all levels.
Myra encourages her students to cultivate awareness of the breath, emphasis on proper alignment and discovering your inner self through the moving meditation of the asanas. Myra also encourages each student to discover their own interpretation of yoga with compassion, patience, tolerance, acceptance and an open mind, both on and off the mat.
Joanne Varni
Joanne’s commitment to fitness started at an early age while growing up in urban New York. Always an athlete, and always trying to keep up with her brothers, she participated in a variety of sports her entire childhood and into early adulthood. In her early twenties she began a fulfilling, but demanding career in high tech as well as starting her family.
To relieve the stresses of the high tech culture and newfound motherhood, she engaged in high energy, high impact workouts such as circuit training, body pump classes and running. She enjoyed the benefits of this form of exercise but was frustrated with the injuries and aches and pains that accompanied them.
After fifteen years as a marketing and communications professional at Apple, Joanne left the corporate realm to focus on raising her three children. Over time, she learned that yoga and meditation gave her a new awareness, and brought balance to her busy schedule as a mom and active community volunteer. Once she started, she was hooked.
The journey culminated with a trip to India where she decided to move deeper into the practice, a decision which brought not only profound changes to her inner life, but created the desire to become a yoga instructor.
Joanne’s philosophy as a yoga teacher is to help people find space and be more connected to their body and mind and to find balance as we forge through the ever-present chaos and stress of everyday life. By becoming present through breath work, meditation, and gentle asanas, we can become calmer, think clearer, become more caring and compassionate, and are better able to confront challenges.
Joanne is humbled by the quality of teachers she has been able to study with. She earned her 200 hour YA certification through Jennifer Prugh’s “Joy of Yoga” teacher training, completed the Yin Yoga Teacher training: Anatomy and Theory, under Paul and Suzy Grilley, as well as the Anusara 100 hour immersion with Kenny Graham hosted by Yoga of Los Altos. Most recently, she completed the Therapeutic Yoga Teacher Training with Cheri Clampett and Arturo Peal and is in the process of obtaining her YA 500 hour certification through Jennifer Prugh’s “Joy of Yoga” 500 hour training.
A twenty-year resident of Los Gatos, Joanne lives with her husband John, and teen children Anthony, Steven and Nicole.
Elizabeth Whalley
Elizabeth is a certified Iyengar yoga teacher. Elizabeth began her study of yoga with Mary Dunn in 1976 and has studied Iyengar yoga ever since. She studied with the Iyengars in Pune India twice and has studied with Gurji and Geetaji at the Iyengar Yoga Conventions in the United States.
She has been teaching yoga since 1985 and is known for insightful and joyous classes. In addition to her study of yoga,
Elizabeth is interested in improvisational theater and is a member of the improv troupe, Spontaneous Combustion, which plays in San Francisco and Palo Alto.
Janya Wongsopa
Janya teaches Yin Yoga, Restorative Yoga and Vinyasa Yoga
She received her formal yoga training in a 200 hour program under the mentorship of John Berg. Janya also received the Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist degree from California College of Ayurveda and American Institute of Vedic Studies as the class valedictorian. She has completed 200 hours certification course in yogic meditation and vedanta philosophy at Sivananda Ashram, Grass Valley. She also completed a 50 hours certification course in Somatic Psychology from the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute.
She has studied yoga with Scott Blossom, Judith Lasater and Sarah Powers as well as several gifted teachers in the bay area.
Janya’s teaching emphasizes body and breath awareness. She weaves spiritual teaching of yoga in to her classes while keeping participants constantly tuned in to the body. This allows participants to connect with all aspect of themselves and gain physical, emotional and mental health. Her teaching is gentle yet challenging. With sincere guidance and support she urges her students to take an active role in creating optimum practice for themselves.
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