Mary L

Nicki Doane is an internationally recognized yoga teacher, known for her ability to make the practice of yoga accessible to every body. She began her study of yoga at the age of 18 while attending the University of Massachusetts. From her first class, she knew she had found something special and deeply familiar. While she began to practice yoga on a purely physical plane and because it felt good, it became apparent some years later that there was more to Yoga than she originally thought. In 1991, Nicki traveled to Mysore, India to study with Sri K Pattabhi Jois, the master of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. She fell in love with the practice and continued her studies with Pattabhi Jois until his death in 2009. What she experienced on that first trip was a radical realization that yoga is much more than a physical practice. The yoga affected her deeply on an emotional and spiritual level. After that she was hooked! As she delved deeper into the Ashtanga practice she became curious about her teacher’s teacher and his lineage. She learned that Tirumalai Krishnamacharya had been Pattabhi Jois’ teacher and also the teacher of BKS Iyengar. This led her to study Iyengar Yoga with Mr. Iyengar, his children and with many of his senior teachers as well including Gabriella Giubilaro and Patricia Walden, at his institute in Pune, India. Nicki has always believed that her practice continued to grow and evolve due to her study and practice of both of these systems of Yoga. Nicki continues to study to study yoga with senior teachers and believes that a great teacher must always remain a dedicated student. Nicki’s teaching has grown out of her practice and her deep faith in yoga and she chooses to honor her students as individuals first and foremost. Nicki’s style combines asana, pranayama, philosophy, and poetry and her classes are strong and accessible to everyone. Nicki uses humor in her teaching to set her students at ease and she is considered to be very relatable and down to earth. She is known as a Teacher’s teacher and loves igniting the spark of yoga in her students. Nicki lives on the beautiful island of Maui, Hawaii, where she owns and directs the Maya Yoga Studio on the North Shore of Maui. She has been featured in numerous articles and has graced the cover of Yoga Journal magazine. She is featured in 2 Ashtanga Yoga videos available through Gaiam and in 9 videos entitled Maya Yoga Vinyasa on her youtube channel. She is currently finishing a book on Yoga for beginners. Nicki teaches workshops and teacher training courses at her studio on Maui and travels all over the world conducting workshops, teacher trainings, and retreats.

Sarah Grace Powers is a double Certified Life and Weight Loss Coach and EFT Practitioner with a 30+ year background in natural healing and herbalism. For the last 10 years, she has supported women in unleashing their radiance and brilliance at midlife and beyond. Her clients create new healthy habits, learn to love the skin they’re in, and find the courage to make the leap into lifelong dreams that they thought it was too late to pursue. Sarah uses a variety of intuitive tools, somatic work, and mindset techniques in her practice, allowing clients to release old blocks and limitations and raise their frequency to become who they know they are meant to be. "

John Moore is a compassionate spiritual guide and mentor who empowers spiritually inclined, busy professionals to uncover their true purpose and embrace their inner wisdom. Having spent two decades immersed in the technology sector, John discovered the transformative power of ancient shamanic practices during a personal turning point. John passionately believes that each of us carries a unique spark of divinity, connecting us with everything and everyone around us. Through this connection, we co-create the reality we experience. As an accomplished writer, John has contributed insightful columns on the intersection of spirituality and holistic well-being for The Good Men Project. John's extensive spiritual journey includes years of shamanic apprenticeship, advanced initiations, and comprehensive teacher training. In addition to his spiritual pursuits, he holds a master's degree in Information Technology, an MBA, and a BA in Mass Communication. His diverse background includes a 3rd-degree black belt in ketsugo jujutsu, hypnotherapy certifications, and meditation instructor expertise.

Hari-kirtana das is a yoga teacher, spiritual mentor, and the author of 'In Search of the Highest Truth: Adventures in Yoga Philosophy.' He's been practicing devotional yoga and other yogic disciplines for almost 50 years, has lived in yoga ashrams and intentional spiritual communities, worked for Fortune 500 companies and Silicon Valley start-ups, and brings a wide range of spiritual knowledge and life experience to his classes, workshops, and presentations. Hari’s mission is to illuminate the many ways in which the yoga wisdom tradition can guide us toward meaningfully transformative spiritual experiences. In addition to a lifetime of practice, Hari-kirtana has an 800-hour yoga teacher certification from the Jivamukti Yoga School and has been teaching yoga and meditation classes for the past 12 years. He's on the faculty of numerous Yoga Teacher Training programs and his articles about the enduring relevance of yoga’s ancient wisdom frequently appear in various forums and journals. His forthcoming book, Journey Into the Bhagavad-gita, will be released this summer. He currently lives in Washington DC. with his wife, Elizabeth. Hari’s talent for making complex ideas easy to understand, his keen sense of humor, and his passion for critical thinking and meaningful dialog have made him a sought-after speaker and podcast guest. You can learn more about Hari-kirtana by visiting his website: https://hari-kirtana.com/.

Dr. Craig Martin has been in practice for 25 years as an astrologer and spiritual guide. He is the author of “Elemental Love Styles”, a guide for finding relationship success. As an interfaith minister and holistic healer, Dr. Craig has spent his life studying worldwide, cross-cultural, metaphysical practices. From those studies, he developed his unique approach to counseling and astrology. Find more information at https://www.sageofstars.com/

Daisy is a seasonal wellness educator, experienced yoga teacher and culinary nutritionist with a passion for the connection between nature, mind and emotion. After experiencing debilitating grief for over 15 years, she began to turn to slower, nourishing practices as a way to work with her mind through her body. With training in a variety of holistic practices, she believes we can all fire up an integrated sense of Self by nurturing our most valuable resources - mind, body, and the environment we surround ourselves with. When not guiding others through chronic stress, inflammation, and emotional burnout, Daisy can be found somewhere in nature with her dog and husband - or experimenting in the kitchen with something sweet.

Howie Shareff founded You Call This Yoga in 2007 as an organization to share yoga that was adaptable for people with physical ailments. As a 52-year-old practicing dentist and recreational athlete, he was managing his own severe arthritis for many years with gentle yoga – using the practice to prepare and recover from surgery. Through these positive experiences, he found that the practice of yoga to enhance healing and comfort could be accessible to anybody willing to breathe, focus and move mindfully. Howie’s goal for the organization was to serve the community in an effort to improve social, emotional and physical health. He believed that yoga should be accessible for all people, delivered by skilled, passionate and professionally supported teachers. In 2010, Howie succeeded, with help from the NC Center for Nonprofits, in having You Call This Yoga recognized by the IRS as a 501c3 non-profit organization. He has grown in the role as Executive Director with advice from the Small Business Center at Wake Tech, the Board of Directors of You Call This Yoga, and many coaches in our region. Howie enjoys engaging prospective yoga teachers, host partners, team members for YCTY, sponsors and students. He welcomes your contact to learn more about your interests. You can find him regularly playing disc golf to stay active and laughing at Raleigh’s Cedar Hills Park.

Known internationally as an outstanding yoga teacher since 1997, Caroline Klebl specializes in Ashtanga Yoga, which she learned from world-renowned Yoga Guru Sri K Pattabhi Jois in India. Klebl's knowledge of the ancient art is extensive and reflected in the fact that her Yoga Teacher Training courses, workshops, and retreats have been enthusiastically received in the United States, Central and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. She has a background in Tibetan Buddhism, Iyengar and Viniyoga yoga, and studies of Sanskrit, Yoga Philosophy, and traditional Ayurvedic medicine, and is also a chef specializing in vegetarian cuisine. In 2010, she received a PhD in Yoga from the Indian University of Alternative Medicine. Since that time, she has created and marketed two Yoga DVDs and published the book, The Illustrated Guide to Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. Photographs of her asanas (yoga postures) were featured in a 2007 Ashtanga Yoga Calendar and a 2008 Yoga Calendar. She has written numerous articles for Yoga magazines and has trained over 500 people to become Yoga Instructors.

My name is Leanne Holitza, I am an intuitive wellbeing coach and energy healing practitioner. My goal is to help people, who are aware they are energetic beings, to align themselves to their highest potential through the work of intention and energy clearing. I use my ability to see energy and thoughts to help you align with what you want in life. My gift is the ability to see your subconscious connections and help bring them back into consciousness. I teach classes and offer group healings to help empaths and energetically sensitive individuals find a way to protect their energy field so they can feel grounded in their own manifestation fields. I want to teach you how to know yourself in this way! I have been helping people clear their energy and find themselves again since 2007.

Wendy Schofer, MD is a pediatrician, lifestyle physician, wife and mom who learned firsthand that modern medicine has shortcomings and even contributes to our diet culture. She is the Founder of Family in Focus, the only group coaching program specifically for parents who are worried about their family's weight. She helps parents understand weight bias and stigma, and how it has been operating in the background of our homes for years. Utilizing her extensive medical practice and knowledge of nutrition, Wendy incorporates positive psychology, yoga, mindfulness and the power of human connection to help parents create healthy relationships with food, body and family for themselves and via a powerful ripple effect, their children.

Suzanne is a certified Senior Anusara Teacher. Her teachings encourage students to dissolve barriers, to dance and to move through an intelligent practice in order to restore and evolve on all levels. Her classes are devotional, dynamic and diverse…bold, mighty and introspective, weaving progressive sequencing, anchored in ancient teachings, and woven to attune to modern duty. As a former certified Yoga Works ™ Instructor, Suzanne dove into the reverent and integral offerings from the Iyengar and Ashtanga lineages with her teachers while living in Los Angeles. Suzanne also bountifully studied Anusara Yoga with Founder John Friend and several exceptional Anusara instructors since 2005. Suzanne is Co-Founder & Co-Owner of One Yoga for the People in Vancouver and holds a doctorate within Educational and Counselling Psychology. Suzanne conducted postdoctoral studies at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) within the Neuropsychiatric Institute. Her focus was on mental health and addictions. Before exploring this population, Suzanne worked with adolescents and young children. Suzanne also facilitated sessions with various professional athletes. After her postdoctoral studies Suzanne began to focus attention into the dimensions of cancer patients and survivors (and Suzanne began working with cancer populations in 2007). Suzanne currently teaches 40 Hour, 200 Hour, 300 Hour Teacher Trainings as the founder of Bindu Yoga School. She conducts teacher mentorship programs, international retreats and workshops. She is a primary faculty member for Yoga Therapy International and One Yoga Teacher Trainings. Suzanne is also the founder of The SARA Foundation, a charity organization aimed at yoga for cancer prevention & management.

Keenly interested in health, both physically and mentally, Donna (Amrita) took her first yoga class in college. As a competitive runner in high school and college, she regained her strength after breaking her back skydiving in 1979, determined to run a marathon within a year of being bedridden for a month. After receiving her Masters in Nutrition and living for three years in Europe (working as a model) she avidly returned to studying yoga. One of her last running competitions was a half marathon in Paris in 1985. That same year she began teaching Kundalini Yoga in New York City, producing her first video Strength and Serenity in 1990, creating a Chakra booklet in 1993, the same year she promoted Yoga Journal's first videos on QVC. In 2000 Yoga Journal chose her video The Challenge (1996) as one of their top ten choices. She received her name Amrita directly from her teacher Yogi Bhajan in 1987. She continued to study with varied senior Kundalini yoga teachers to grow her experience as a teacher and student. In 1996 Donna (Amrita) was hit by a cab on her bicycle in New York City, using the healing power of yoga to help her heal from her second impactful injury.