Archives

Stacy Joyce

Stacy Joyce had mild childhood scoliosis that progressed rapidly as a teenager. At 16 years old, she had a spinal fusion from T5-L3 with Harrington rods, and wore a brace for months while healing. Two years after her surgeries, she tried her first yoga class in 1996, which she credits for uniting her back to her body.

Stacy studied International Business and Spanish, and traveled abroad extensively during college. After graduation she was in the Peace Corps Honduras for two years. Upon returning to the States, she moved to New York City, and worked office jobs until that was not physically manageable anymore. Even while attending four yoga classes per week, she wasn’t able to counter the long hours of sitting, and decided to enroll in yoga teacher training. Stacy received her 500-hr certification from YogaWorks in 2012. During her 300-hr training, she met Deborah Wolk while attending her Scoliosis workshop, and Stacy’s trajectory for practicing and teaching yoga fundamentally changed. Until that point, she did not know how to practice in a way that took her scoliosis or spinal fusion into consideration. In 2020, Stacy completed Elise Miller’s Yoga for Scoliosis Teacher Trainer program.

Stacy loves to share her knowledge, and believes that consistency in our practice comes from having a deep understanding of our WHY? Stacy’s yoga practice has brought her a strong sense of agency through the waves of life, and a community of fulfilling friendships. She welcomes lots of questions, as she is constantly asking them herself as a lifelong student.

Stacy moved to North Carolina in 2023 with her husband and son. You can learn more about Stacy at www.spinalfusionyoga.com

Joni Wellness

Joni Wellness has been practicing and teaching yoga since 1970, with special expertise in hands-on assists, yoga therapeutics, Back Care, Pre-Natal, is a trainer of The Great Yoga Wall, and more.  She served as a Doula (childbirth support), Hospice volunteer, Nutrition, Health and Life Coach, and Massage Therapist of the Joffrey Ballet and to elite athletes and dancers.  She has been immersed in studying the Iyengar Yoga method since 1988, and received her first Iyengar Yoga teaching certificate in the 90’s. She was certified as a Jr-I Iyengar Yoga Instructor in 2009.

Joni was Deborah Wolk’s first yoga teacher, way back when.  In 2023, she received two total hip replacement surgeries and is loving being a “beginning” yoga student again, re-activating the intelligence gained from a long yoga life.  She especially enjoys passing on the game changing yoga poses and tips that brought her out of back pain and maintain her back pain free.  If you saw x-rays of her spine, you wouldn’t understand how she couldn’t be in pain, and she attributes being virtually pain-free to the specifics of Iyengar Yoga along with an understanding of spiritual healing.  Her approach to bringing Sama, evenness, and symmetry includes use of peripheral references such as the floor, walls, and chairs, which reverbs to a more even posture and spine, as well as creative visualization. www.joniwellness.com

Brooke Moyse

Brooke Moyse is a yoga teacher, visual artist, and art educator based in Brooklyn, NY. Brooke taught art to students with special needs in Brooklyn, NY where she integrated her yoga, meditation, and fine art training to give students a creative outlet and language for communicating their experiences. She brings this same commitment to individualized learning and agency to teaching yoga and strives to empower individuals to develop the tools to care for themselves with awareness and compassion.

Brooke received a 200 HR yoga certification from YogaWorks in 2016, and shortly after developed debilitating back pain which led to the realization that she had scoliosis. After her diagnosis she made her way to Iyengar Yoga to discover a more integrative and therapeutic approach to managing her condition. She has been assisting Deborah Wolk’s classes at Samamkaya Yoga since 2017 and has completed Samamkaya’s Advanced Studies Program focusing on teaching integrative and embodied yoga for back care techniques. Brooke has also studied extensively with Elise Browning-Miller, having completed her Yoga for Scoliosis Teacher Training and Practicum to become certified to teach Yoga for Scoliosis. More recently, Brooke has been fortunate to study regularly with Abhijata Iyengar, Raya U.D., and Hugh Millard, all of whom bring clarity and insight to yoga therapeutics and the mind/body connection. Brooke also has an ongoing interest in meditation and completed a 100 HR yoga and mindfulness training through the Nalanda Institute under Mary Reilly Nichols, with whom she continues to study.

Christine Walderhaug

Christine Walderhaug‘s experience with yoga began in 1998, the same year she started her career as a middle school English teacher. With Rodney Yee videotapes and a foundations course at the Colorado School of Iyengar Yoga, she learned enough to feel the power of yoga to ground, support, and nurture. Her practice has evolved over the years as she continues to study with Craig Kurtz, Leslie Bradley, Kelly Moore, and Robin Thorpe. Iyengar yoga provides Christine with a sustainable practice to manage chronic back pain due to scoliosis.

“I frequently attend classes and workshops and enjoy continuing my yoga studies. I’m very grateful for the bounty of tools yoga provides to navigate life’s ups and downs. When I’m not practicing downward facing dog or grading papers, I enjoy traveling and spending time in the great outdoors of Colorado.”

Lou Rajhas Iyengar

Lou Rajhas Iyengar (born Lou Alexandra Asselin Marante) was born in Venezuela to a French father and Venezuelan mother. She grew up around Yoga, occasionally seeing both her father and step father practice it. When she was 16 Theresa Rowland (family friend, Iyengar Yoga teacher and the owner of Studio Yoga in New Jersey) invited her to her first Yoga class at Studio Yoga in Madison-New Jersey. But it wasn’t until she was 19 that she started practicing consistently. She completed her Iyengar Yoga teacher training with Theresa Rowland in 2005. In 2007 she moved to New York City and met Deborah Wolk and Alison West with whom she studied extensively Yoga for Back Care and Yoga for Scoliosis.  Lou also met Arun at Studio Yoga and studied with him for over 15 years.

Lou’s first trip to India to study with the Iyengar family in 2013 was a major turning point for her and her relationship to Yoga and life. She was exposed for the very first time to Prashant Iyengar’s teachings, which gave her a much greater scope of what Yoga encompasses. It was then that she began to see “YOG” everywhere and in everything. Prashantji’s teachings of philosophy and esoteric thought opened the window to help her go “beyond posture” and lead her “closer to Asana”.

After 20 years in the US, she relocated to Paris with her husband Rajhas where they spent 5 years teaching and making a family. With their little boy Abhimanyu they have recently moved to a remote area in Les Cevennes (Lozere) where they continue to teach and conduct residential workshops. Lou’s teaching style is firm yet compassionate.

Lou has been teaching since 2002 and is an Iyengar Yoga certified teacher.

Jen Krakowsky

Jen Krakowsky: At the age of 14, Jen went through major spine surgery to halt the progression of scoliosis. Many years later, suffering from chronic back pain and a gripping stiffness in her neck as well as stress and anxiety, Jen felt drawn to yoga. She immediately fell in love with yoga’s physical and mental benefits and came to realize that yoga offered her a path to understanding her fused spine as well as her underlying scoliosis.

Jen teaches with a focus on healthy alignment, body mechanics and breath. She approaches her students with the belief that each body is unique and carries with it its own history, limitations, strengths and weaknesses.  In her own practice, she modifies or abstains from certain poses due to her spinal asymmetry and limited range of motion.  Despite this (and even because of this), she has found that the possibilities to move and learn through yoga are endless.

Jen received her teaching certification at Yoga Haven in Westchester, NY under the direction of Betsy Kase. Jen has also studied with Elise Browning Miller, completing her program to become a Certified Yoga for Scoliosis Teacher Trainer. Jen is grateful to share her passion and knowledge with others.

Sara Mahowald

Sara Mahowald came to yoga in 2015 to help alleviate constant pain and discomfort from scoliosis and was relieved to find Iyengar yoga, specifically a Yoga for Scoliosis class with Robin Thorpe in Denver, Colorado. Since then she seeked to deepen her understanding of spinal asymmetries and how yoga can help folks live a fuller life. She assisted Robin in her Scoliosis classes, and in 2019 she took yoga teacher training courses with Leslie Bradley and Craig Kurtz. She has also attended multiple workshops with Elise Browning Miller and Deborah Wolk. She currently mentors under Kelly Moore and is under the guidance of Robin Thorpe.
Sara started teaching in 2021 at Living Yoga Denver, including a Scoliosis/Back Care class. She strives to make her yoga classes a safe place and as inclusive and accessible as possible, where judgment is left at the door. She loves to teach beginners and aims to help folks understand and develop a relationship with their own bodies. Her classes are dynamic, gentle, yet strong. You can learn more about Sara at www.mendbend.com.

Brette Popper

Brette Popper: Through the ages, texts have described the body as a field that requires ploughing, a cloth meticulously woven or a pot strengthened to hold the process of transformation. Since everyone’s field, cloth and pot are different, I see my role as a teacher to introduce you to postures, breathing exercises and concentration techniques that you can use on your individual journey.

The sequences I design combine movement and help poses. They encourage students to increase balance, strength and flexibility. I use alignment, anatomical and philosophic references to help students deepen their understanding of their bodies and frequently suggest the use of props like blankets, blocks, belts, bolsters, chairs, ropes and walls to increase perception.

My own yoga journey began in 2000 after a more than 20 year career in publishing. I left a position as COO of a small publically held company and wandered into a neighborhood studio. I feel in love with the practice, rediscovering my body after years of living in my head.

My first yoga certification was completed in 2005 with Alison West’s Yoga Union and for more than a decade I have been a Yoga Alliance registered 500 hour E-RYT.
I have over 2,000 hours of certified training including Ms. West’s Backcare Program,  Dr. Ganesh Mohan’s Svastha Therapeutic Yoga Training, Amy Matthews’ Practices in Embodied Teaching and Nikki Costello’s Enrichment Program  and have worked in several yoga lineages and healing modalities. Currently I take classes in asana with Genny Kapuler. I also actively study Tai Chi, Sanskrit, Yoga Philosophy and Buddhism.

A New Yorker, I am engaged in art, natures, current events science and the world around us.
I look forward to meeting you wherever you are.

Liza Toft

Liza has been studying yoga since 1991 and teaching yoga since 1999. She was first introduced to yoga when she was a student at the School of Visual Arts in NYC, where she was studying fine arts. She explored many styles of yoga before committing to the study of Iyengar Yoga in 2003.
Liza is also a licensed Creative Arts Therapist, graduating from Pratt University with a masters degree in 2000. Other major appeals of Iyengar Yoga are the psychological and emotional benefits she gets from the practice and the science and creativity of sequencing asanas, observing how it affects the deeper layers of our being. As an art therapist who focuses on the body in therapy, Liza has a unique insight and sensitivity into what her students’ bodies are communicating about themselves and what would be beneficial to them.

Liza deepened her commitment to Iyengar Yoga by completing the teacher training at the New York institute and receiving her certification in September 2018.  She had the privilege of traveling to Pune, India for Iyengar’s 2018 Centennial Celebration in December.

She is deeply grateful for what Iyengar Yoga has given her as a method to enable her to understand and work with her own physicality and all its obstacles, imbalances, asymmetries, and struggles.

She took Karen Stephan’s therapeutic intensive in 2006 where Deborah Wolk taught the portion on scoliosis. She has worked over the years with all of her teacher’s to better understand her own scoliosis not only for her own body, but to better understand and help her students.

Christy Kokami

Hello! My name is Christy and my yoga journey started in Hawaii in 2003 (where I was born and raised). I was a practitioner since childhood and into my early career as a researcher and lab instructor in anatomy and physiology at the University of Hawaii. Unbeknownst to me, it became my career and lifestyle that reached past my work.

Combining the methodical approach of scientific research and the therapeutic applications of yoga I completed my 500 hour training at Yoga Union Center for Backcare & Scoliosis under Alison West in NYC.

I offer my students insight into their own bodies and ways in which to heal themselves holistically. Whether working with an injury (such as herniations, spondylolisthesis, etc.), scoliosis, general neck/back pain, or posture training (for overall spinal health), my intention is to empower you with the information and mindful movements that help you live with comfort and ease.

A holistic, kind, and conscious approach to flowing with life is what my practice offers and it starts on the mat. I look forward to meeting you.