Yoga Instructor Profiles

Andrea Ahrens

Yoga and Meditation Instructor:

• Eldorado Shambhava Teacher Training Program, 200 hour, nationally certified program through the Yoga Alliance, Eldorado Springs, CO 1999-2001
• Shambhava School of Yoga, Grand Junction, CO 1990-1994
• Leopard Communications, Boulder, CO 1998
• Level3 Communications, Boulder, CO 2001
• Shoshoni Yoga Retreat, Rollinsville, CO 1987-2001
• Denver School of Yoga, Denver, CO 1995-1999
• CU Boulder Recreation Program, Boulder, CO 1985-1986
• Health Club, Grand Junction, CO 1991-1994

Workshops and Seminars:

• Workshop, Channel 9 Health Fair, CO 1995
• Information/Demonstration, Centrobe Health Fair, Louisville, CO 1998
• Guest Speaker: IMCA (Insurance Marketing Communications Asociation) Conference, Keystone, CO June, 1999 "Yoga in the Workplace"
• Gave 90 minute lecture/demonstration for insurance VPs and marketers from the US and Canada.
• Eldorado Mountain Yoga Ashram, Eldorado Springs, CO 1985-2001
• Private Yoga Classes, Grand Junction, Denver, and Boulder, CO 1990-present

Lori Batcheller

Lori teaches beginning, therapeutic, and drop-in yoga. She is a 500-hour certified Kripalu Yoga teacher (the yoga of compassion, also known as meditation in motion). Lori is also a writer, licensed physical therapist and registered massage therapist. In addition to teaching through Boulder Parks & Recreation, Lori teaches seasonally at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts—the nation's largest and most established center for yoga and holistic health.

Lori began practicing yoga in 2000, received her yoga teacher training in 2005, and her professional certificate in 2007. She lived and studied yoga at Kripalu Center from 2004 to 2005 and continued to study yoga and holistic health with world-renowned teachers there during the next three years. She is a Reiki Master and is also certified in Lakshmi Voelker Chair Yoga, LifeForce Yoga for Anxiety & Depression, and Meridian Yoga.

Lori earned her master's degree in physical therapy from Hahnemann University (now Drexel) in 1986 and a master's in journalism and mass communication from the University of Colorado in 1998. She combines her education, skills, and life experiences through her writing, yoga classes, and massage practice.

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Casey Beauchamp

Casey was born and raised in Colorado. In 2005, he was certified as a Hatha Yoga instructor through the Shambhava School of Yoga. Casey graduated from Naropa University with a BFA in Performing Arts and Traditional Eastern Arts with a concentration in Yoga Teacher Training. He is currently pursuing his Master of Arts degree in Contemplative Education at Naropa. Caseyʼs style of teaching is rooted in his personal interest of discovering awareness by means of contemplation and meditation as experienced through the movement, dance and embodiment of direct lived experience.

Bianca Bentz also teaches Pilates. View her profile

 Brian Burton

Brian teaches an easy flowing yoga which consists of mindful movement, classical poses and linking asanas in easy flowing sequences. He emphasizes mindfulness of breath, body and mind and uses poetry to enhance the yoga experience.

Brian teaches simple pranayama practices to release stress and allow for a natural yoga experience to arise. His yoga background comes from the Shambahava School of Yoga. Both his own practice and teachings have been strongly influenced by a 25 year mindfulness meditation practice and training in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction with Jon Kabbit Zinn.

Louis Carlino, MA

Louis has been practicing yoga for more than 25 years. He is an Integral Yoga® certified teacher with more than 500 hours of training. He is a graduate of Naropa University and is practicing psychotherapist. For the past five years, Louis has developed a form of psychotherapy integrating the teachings and practices of Yoga.

Integral Yoga® is a classical practice emphasizing awareness and mindfulness, which leads to increased flexibility and strength. Its primary focus is on quieting and focusing the mind. A typical class begins with a short centering practicing, continues with asanas (postures), and is followed by a deep relaxation, breathing practices and a brief meditation. Depending on the level of the students, it can be vigorous but never to the point of disrupting the harmonious relationship between body, breath and mind.

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Karen Nicholson Cobble

Karen practices different yoga styles, including Hatha and Anusara. She has enjoyed the opportunity of studying with John Friend (Anusara) and stays current through reading and workshops.

Karen received her yoga teacher training in the fall 2008 through Core Power Yoga Studio and is certified by the Yoga Alliance. She teaches adults at several studios in Boulder. Her style is a vinyasa flow set to music.

She will be teaching youth programs through the Boulder Parks and Recreation Center for children and their parents. Her classes are geared towards developing skills to allow children to feel at home in their body and develop the mind to feel powerful and loved.

She has a master's degree in counseling psychology and loves working with people of all ages. Karen taught preschool for five years and lives with her husband, twins and cat. They are avid environmentalists.

Juliana Dahl

Juliana has taught school around the world for more than 24 years. She has studied yoga since 1995 and began teaching in 1999. Her first practice was tantra yoga. Her teachers were Margo Anand and Charles and Caroline Muir. She presented at the International Conference of Shamanism, Sacred Sexuality and Enlightenment for five years and at the International Conference of Cosmic Consciousness in Brazil, as well as the Building Bridges Relationship Conference in Boston. Eventually she developed a teacher training program where students become trained to teach tantra yoga. In 1999, she began studying Ashtanga yoga with Richard Freeman and completed his teacher training program. Her other teachers include Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois, Shiva Rea, John Friend, and Rod Stryker.

As her yoga practice expanded, her interest in consciousness studies and meditation developed. She has studied meditation and consciousness with Jim Dreaver, Thich Nhat Hanh, John Wellwood and Stephen Levine. She currently teaches meditation and awakening of consciousness to private students.

In Juliana’s classes, there is an emphasis on presence with our own bodies, breathing and bonding of that breath with movement and awareness. Juliana is enthusiastic about teaching yoga and her teaching style reflects that. She imparts her enthusiasm to her students through sharing her knowledge with compassion and love. She is skilled at teaching children’s yoga, beginner and intermediate classes and restorative yoga. The greatest aspect of taking her classes is receiving the benefits of all the eight limbs of Ashtanga yoga as they are woven throughout her curriculum.

After completing her Ph.D in Transpersonal Psychology, Juliana expanded her career to include counseling couples and individuals in intimacy, and heart opening.

Karen Dowling

Karen is a dedicated yoga practitioner. Wanting to develop her flexibility and maintain her health, she discovered yoga at an early age. She has been studying and practicing yoga asana and philosophy for more than 20 years. Karen began teaching yoga eight years ago at the request of friends. Since then, she has gone through the arduous training and studying of the Iyengar Certification System and has become a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher.

"My classes offer radiant health, resilience and balance as well as a deeper understanding of and connection with your own body," Karen says. In her classes, Karen unites the spiritual and philosophical aspects of yoga with the physical postures giving her students the full realm of the yoga experience. Her classes are fun, challenging, lighthearted and insightful. Karen's classes work with the basic asanas to develop strength along with flexibility.

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Ravi Dykema

Ravi studied for four years in the 1970s under Swami Gitanananda Giri who was the head of a traditional Tantra/Raja Yoga lineage he called Rishiculture Ashtanga Yoga. Ravi created a yoga center in Boulder called The Laya Institute where he teachers beginning to advanced yoga and a two-year, 1000-hour teacher training.

Ravi was an adjunct faculty at Naropa Institute, which became Naropa University, from 1989 to 2005. He developed the curriculum for and directed the Bachelor of Arts Degree in Traditional Eastern Arts, Yoga Concentration, the only accredited B.A. degree in Yoga in the U.S. (that he knows of).

Drawing on the broad curriculum he developed at Naropa, Ravi wrote a college textbook on yoga for fitness and wellness (2006). It contains chapters on yoga history, philosophy and theory, which an unusual trait for a modern yoga book.

In Ravi's yoga therapy practice, he specializes in the rare condition known as disruptive kundalini, or disruptive body energy. Ravi has interviewed dozens of yoga and Eastern spirituality luminaries over the years for his magazine, Nexus, Colorado's Holistic Journal. Many of these interviews are available at NexusPub.com. He has also written a yoga column for his magazine, available at the same URL.

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Cassandra Field

Cassandra has been teaching yoga since 1997. A graduate from Naropa University, she received her MA in somatic (body-based) counseling psychology. Her teaching style is inspired by 15 years of body-centered education, in-depth yoga studies stemming from the Iyengar and Viniyoga traditions and a meditation practice. She incorporates aspects of various healing arts to synthesize a therapeutic style uniquely her own.

By blending breath with movement, stability in motion, and strength with flexibility, she creates a container for transformational growth and healing. Her approach to teaching is gentle yet powerful, meeting each individual where they are and working with them to achieve optimal benefit from their yoga practice. She believes that yoga is an essential and invaluable tool that creates a happier, healthier quality of body, mind and spirit.

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Caroline Goosman

Caroline Goosman has been practicing yoga since 1989. She was introduced to yoga by her mother, an avid yogi of more than 30 years. Caroline began her practice in earnest after the birth of her daughter in 1998.

Caroline has studied many different disciplines of yoga and incorporates them into a vigorous flowing asana practice. She has taken many classes from Richard Freeman, Seane Corn, John Friend, Judith Hanson Lasater, Ana Forrest, David Swenson, Patricia Walden, Rodney Yee and Cyndi Lee. She attends the Yoga Journal Conference annually to continue her education and pursue her passion for yoga.

Caroline is also a certified YogaKids instructor. Having completed her certification in 2003, she also facilitates YogaKids classes for ages 3 to 18 at the City of Boulder Parks and Recreation. Children learn skills that set the ground work for meeting challenges and growing strong physically, mentally and emotionally, cultivating self-esteem for a lifetime of successful achievement.

Alicia Grayson

Alicia has been an avid student of various styles of yoga for 26 years and has been teaching for 16 years.

She holds teacher certifications in Kripalu Yoga, Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, Todd Norian’s Anusara Style Yoga, Danskinetics and Stott Pilates Mat.

She is a teacher and performer of Contact Improvisation dance, a practitioner of Authentic Movement and has a daily meditation practice all of which influence her teaching. She encourages students to find the yoga or union within themselves by listening to the intelligence of their own bodies.

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Martha Griffin

Martha has been practicing yoga since 1989 while she was healing from a running injury to her hip. Yoga was the main activity that allowed her to relieve the pain and bring balance back into her hips. With those results, she fell in love with Hatha yoga and became dedicated to her own practice. In April 1994, she became certified to teach at the Yoga Institute of Colorado so she could share the benefits of yoga with others.

Since 1995, Martha has mostly practiced and taught Ashtanga Vinyasa style and pre-natal yoga. She has completed Richard Freeman’s Ashtanga teacher training.

Louann Harlow's information will be posted when it's available.

Angel Lin

Angel assists students in creating their personalized yoga practice, so they can experience beauty in their own presence and all beings. Her teaching style is dynamic, openhearted and accessible. She strives to bring physical, emotional and spiritual balance and harmony to her everyday life and hopes to convey the same to her class. She is also an excellent hands-on adjuster and an avid student in the language of Sanskrit.

Angel Lin has been practicing yoga since 1995 and teaching for the City of Boulder since 2003. She studied with Alan Finger from New York City and received her first 500-hours Teaching Certification in ISHTA tradition in 2002. She has also studied with many renowned teachers including David Swenson, Shiva Rea, Tias Little, Sarah Powers and Gabriella Giubilaro. A dedicated student of Richard Freeman, she has completed several of his Advanced Teacher Intensives in the past years. Her yoga practice and teaching are deeply influenced and inspired by her continuing study with Richard Freeman, Sarah Powers and the ISHTA Tradition.

Pamela Lippe's information will be posted when it's available.

Ines Manteuffel, CMT, BCST, RPP

Ines has been practicing yoga for more than 15 years and has been teaching for seven years. Her main inspiration has been her teacher Sofia Diaz and she has also studied in various traditions including Ashtanga, Iyengar and Anusara Yoga.

Her classes focus on breath and mindfulness, relating to the yoga poses with deep awareness and feeling, leading to deeper embodiment.

Her teaching is also influenced by 15 years of experience in bodywork: integrating massage, craniosacral, polarity and trauma therapies and body-centered psychotherapy.

Ines is certified in prenatal and labor support and postpartum massage and teaches prenatal and beginning yoga.

Dan Michael

Dan Michael unknowingly began his path in yoga in 1989 after being seriously injured in a fall while rock climbing. As a former world class climber, Dan's quest to reclaim some sense of his health and well being led him to study healing arts at Heartwood Institute. His formal studies in yoga began with Gayna Uranski, an Iyengar styled teacher. A year later, Gayna insisted that Dan revisit his hometown of Boulder and study with Richard Freeman and his croanies. Bravely facing his fear of Chief Niwot's curse, that one can never truly leave Boulder, Dan returned to Boulder and fully immersed himself in the Astanga yoga system. In 1998, he deepened his study of Astanga yoga with a visit to India to experience K. Pattabhi Jois's teachings. Dan continues his study of yoga with many senior teachers from varying systems of yoga. He also continues his studies in healing practices that support the body as a whole. Dan is a Certified Holistic Practitioner (Massage, Polarity, Neuromuscular and Cranial Sacral Therapies).

In the system of Ashtanga yoga, as taught by Sri. K Pattabhi Jois, one uses sequences of postures that flow with the movement of breath, to create balance for the practioner as a whole being. The benefits of this system are numerous. Some of which are building strength, flexibility, concentration and a sense of well being. Dan's style of teaching in the Ashtanga system is to focus on safe alignment while keeping a sense of the traditional system of asana (posture) practice.

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Kathleen Murphy

Kathleen has been practicing yoga since 1987 and teaching for the City of Boulder since 1997. She has participated in numerous teacher trainings, including classes in Iyengar, Ashtanga, Kripalu, Anusara and Kundalini yoga. She has taken a wide variety of classes from well-respected teachers from around the country including Eric Schiffman, Rodney Yee, Patricia Walden, John Friend, Shiva Rea, Dona Holleman, Elise Miller, Judith Lasater, John Schumacher and Richard Freeman. She attends the National Yoga Journal Conference each year and Continuing Teacher Education.

Kathleen is also the Mind/Body Programs Coordinator for the City of Boulder. She is certified through Peak Pilates to teach Classical Pilates Mat, Reformer, Tower, Chair and Barrel (Arc). She is trained to teach Swiss Ball as well.

Her yoga practice has deepened over the years and she incorporates what she has learned to assist students in their search for balance, strength and flexibility, and physical, emotional and spiritual growth.

Her beginner/advanced beginner classes focus on traditional Hatha yoga poses and breathing exercises, combined with some movements from other disciplines, i.e., Pilates and Feldenkrais. She occasionally uses props: blocks, belts and blankets, to encourage students to experience the postures more fully. She introduces variations of basic poses as well.

Kathleen's classes practice slow, simple and mindful stretching that absorbs deeply, giving students a wonderful sense of physical, emotional and mental well-being, while building body awareness and strength.

Students develop balance, focus and concentration and learn how to move more intuitively. The class ends with deep relaxation to incorporate a sense of peace and tranquility.

Beth Reninger

Beth is an acupuncturist, a poet, and has been practicing yoga in the Iyengar and Ashtanga traditions since 1986 and teaching since 1994. She is a student of Buddhism, and has practiced extensively with Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.

Her interweaving of these two traditions creates a classroom environment in which movement through yoga asanas is used as a tool to settle our awareness into the present moment, deepening our insight and compassion. Her primary yoga teacher is Richard Freeman.

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Arielle Schwartz, PhD

Arielle is a certified Kripalu yoga instructor and a psychologist. Arielle was first introduced to yoga during her childhood and began teaching yoga in 1995. Her classes include Hatha, Kundalini and Vinyasa (flow) style practices. Arielle enjoys blending forms, being creative and having fun. In class, you will often hear her say, "listen to your body," or "make this posture your own," for she believes that while alignment and structure of the posture are important the depth of practice lies in the subtleties of how sensation guides the practitioner.

Tom Schweda

Tom received Ashtanga teacher training from Ulla Lundgren six years ago and taught at his studio for the next four years.

Tom's practice and teaching are Ashtanga-based, focusing on strength and fitness.

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John Steele

Education and certifications

• Yoga Alliance Registered Teacher
• Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher
• Ph.D. in Psychology; Licensed Psychologist

Expertise and Areas of Specialty

John has studied with B.K.S. Iyengar, Geeta Iyengar, and many other senior teachers in the United States. He began practicing in 1970 and started teaching in 2001. John has traveled to India to take classes at the Iyengar Yoga Institute.

John follows the Iyengar teaching method, which emphasizes systematic instruction in the fundamentals of body alignment in a variety of yoga poses.

Classes cover standing and sitting poses, forward and backward extensions, twists, inversions, abdominal toning poses, relaxation poses, breath awareness, breath expansion and meditation. Students learn with step-by-step instruction and repeated practice how to safely and smoothly enter, maintain and come out of each pose.

Props and hands-on adjustments are provided as needed to promote an increased level of confidence, deeper understanding, and to make the poses more accessible to everyone. Accommodations are made for students with injuries, medical conditions or other special needs.

John specializes in body-centered and mindfulness-based psychotherapy in his private practice. He is also an adjunct professor in the graduate psychology program at Naropa University, where he teaches the psychology of meditation. John has practiced Zen meditation since 1993.

Students appreciate John's calm presence, clear and precise teaching, sensitivity to individual needs and his ability to inspire them through his passion for yoga, to go deeper in their practice.

Shawna Suzyn

Shawna has been involved in movement for over 20 years beginning as a gymnast. She has been involved in yoga for the last seven years, teaching all ages from 5 to 65 years old. Her style is flowing, meditative, and physically challenging. She is certified in classic Hatha yoga, and is currently studying Ashtanga and Anusara which mainly influence her teaching style. Shawna is also a psychotherapist, and aims to facilitate her students in the upliftment and healing of body, mind and spirit.

Her class is beneficial for everyone, from professional athletes to those new to exercise, as well as the experienced yogis who would like to give their body and spirit some time for restorative and rejuvenative focus. We will practice traditional pranayama (breathing exercises) and asanas (exclusively on the floor) in a meditative flowing style to create greater flexibility, core strength, and balance, combined with an intension to connect inward, reduce stress, increase clarity of mind, peace and upliftment.

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Matthew Tomatz

Matthew teaches yoga classes from various disciplines. He includes elements of yoga that he has learned over ten years of personal practice, including intensive study with Ana Forrest, Erich Schiffmann, and Richard Bird.

Matthew offers a deep experience of yoga. As a professional psychotherapist and addictions counselor, his classes include direction that encourages movement of deeply held patterns. This work fosters increased freedom, movement, and space within one's life.

He encourages his students to breathe deeply and move in a manner that supports intrinsic health while following the direction of one's spirit. Matthew is also trained as a professional educator and musician. These elements further enrich his classes and allow him to provide a learning atmosphere that offers the opportunity to cultivate a meaningful yoga practice. Matthew has been teaching for the City of Boulder since 2002. His popular classes support a wonderful community of dedicated yoga students.

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Kirsten Warner

Kirsten has been a dedicated yoga practitioner for more than 20 years. She is an Anusara-inspired instructor who continues to draw from her many years of training in several different styles of yoga. Her abundance of experience includes numerous teacher trainings, as well as comprehensive study in women's, prenatal and therapeutic yoga.

A certified instructor since 1998, Kirsten shares the wisdom of her teachers with grace, clarity and a compassionate heart. Her classes are infused with mindfulness and an invitation to embrace all of life more fully. Inspired by her background in psychology and her experiences as a mother, Kirsten makes each class memorable by weaving in meaningful themes and using the yoga to anchor them in the body. She artfully guides students to discover the freedom and joy that can come from paying close attention to the details of alignment while never losing their connection with the deepest reasons for their practice.

De West

De's teaching is grounded in keen observation and knowledge of the body as it relates to a balanced approach to yoga postures. She began pursuing the path of yoga in 1992, first practicing Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga in Seattle, then moving to Boulder to study with Richard Freeman.

De's teaching reflects her experience and study in both Ashtanga Vinyasa, and Iyengar yoga as well as a deep interest in anatomy and philosophy. She has studied yoga with K. Pattabhi Jois, Rodney Yee, Aadil Palkhivala, Norman Allard and Gabriella Guibilaro.

She also has worked extensively designing yoga therapy programs for patients with specific physical needs at various Osteopathic medical offices since 2002. De has experience in teaching prenatal and postpartum yoga. De's teaching style is warm, precise, and detailed. She also brings a sense of enthusiasm for the interrelated nature of mind and body into her classes.

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Last Updated on Tuesday, 04 December 2012 11:46