Gateway Yoga, Raleigh, North Carolina
-- Henry Thoreau
About Lila Pierce Brown
Lila Pierce Brown, E-RYT, is a Certified Anusara Yoga Teacher and the founder of Gateway Yoga. She is dedicated to the life-affirming and transformational aspects of Anusara Yoga and feels blessed to share such an elegant practice with the community. A devoted student of yoga for over ten years, Lila has been teaching for the past seven and was certified by Anusara's founder, John Friend, in 2005. She has & continues to train extensively with Friend, to whom she offers her gratitude. Lila also expands her understanding of yoga philosophy with Dr. Douglas Brooks & Dr. Paul Muller-Ortega, two skillful teachers & world-renowned scholars of Hindu Tantrism. Lila enjoys offering Anusara Yoga Immersion programs and teacher trainings throughout the area. Her teaching flows from the heart, intertwining Anusara's intricate philosophy with its brilliant Alignment Principles. In this way, Lila encourages students to tap into their limitless potential and joyfully reveal the radiance from within.
About Lydia
Lydia Pangborn, RYT-200, has been teaching yoga since 1998 and became Hatha Yoga certified through the Asheville School of Yoga in 2002. Currently, she has obtained Anusara-Inspired status (Anusara.com) and expresses a commitment to the Anusara style of yoga created by John Friend. Lydia is thankful to all of the teachers she has studied with in the past and hopes to inspire others with her teaching as she continues to learn and grow. Please visit her website at: www.luminousyoga.com for more information.About Lindsey
Lindsey Waite, RYT, practiced yoga for four years prior to attending her first yoga teacher-training program at Frog Lotus Yoga in the Berkshire Mountains during the summer of 2005. Upon returning to the Triangle area, she was introduced to the Anusara community and immediately fell in love with the heart-oriented practice. Eager to learn as much as she could about Anusara, she began a serious practice with local Anusara teachers, Patricia Mickelberry, Paul and Sommer Sobin, and Lila Pierce Brown. During the summer of 2006, she went a step further on her path and spent a week in Costa Rica participating in an Immersion with Anusara Yoga's founder, John Friend. Lindsey is currently embarking on an Anusara Immersion and teacher-training program with Lila Brown and Paul and Sommer Sobin. She is immensely grateful of the support of the Anusara kula, whose love and energy she finds completely fulfilling.About Melinda
Melinda Thomas Hansen, RYT, is an Anusara Inspired yoga instructor. She has been practicing yoga for 10 years & has devoted her studies to the heart opening, life affirming teachings of Anusara Yoga since 2005. She is a graduate of the Triangle Anusara Institute and is working toward Anusara Certification. Melinda feels blessed to study with some of the most skillful & bright teachers in the world including Certified Anusara Instructors Sommer and Paul Sobin & Anusara's Founder, John Friend. She especially offers immense gratitude to her primary teacher, mentor, and friend, Certified Anusara Instructor & Founder of Gateway Yoga, Lila Brown. Through Anusara's rich philosophy & transformative Universal Principles of Alignment Melinda seeks to empower students to live brilliantly from the heart by viewing embodiment as a gift & loving the life we are each given.About Michelle
Michelle Corey has been teaching in the physical health and fitness community since 1987. She loves the transformational power of yoga and delights in sharing this with her students. She is a graduate of the NC School of Yoga and is a Registered Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance. Currently, Michelle is on her way to becoming an Anusara-inspired yoga teacher. She loves the attention to alignment as well as the message of acceptance and love in all things that the practice of Anusara Yoga offers. Her classes provide an environment for both an invigorating experience and a heartfelt journey.About Holly
Holly Sansone is a teacher and an enthusiastic student of local Anusara Certified teachers Lila, Patience, Sommer and Paul. She hopes to offer her students the chance to find empowerment and joy in their lives through their yoga practices, and encourage them to embrace themselves and all of life's beautiful diversity. Through Anusara's Universal Alignment Principals and its focus on Tantric philosophy, she seeks to help students gain the courage to step into the possibilities of where their bodies can go and their spirits can lead them.About Carolyn
Carolyn Mabry, aka Caroleeena, is an internationally recognized teacher who has been teaching poi and hoopdance since 2005. She also performs professionally. Caroleena brings a cheerful, encouraging attitude to her teaching and incorporates aspects of dance from a wide variety of cultures. Most importantly, she is a great teacher and her classes are fun!About Meghan
Meghan knows she is here to help people connect more deeply with their hearts, spirits, & bodies, to inspire others to shine in their own unique ways, and to help each person discover the “Amazing Grace” that is within. Using the hula hoop as a key to help people open to their own creative essence, inherent goodness, and inner child, she truly knows that creative play with one's heart leading the way can transform a person's entire life, as it has done with hers. When Meghan teaches hula hooping she teaches from her heart and integrates her studies of Anusara Yoga, Dahn Yoga, Qi Gong, Tantric Philosophy, Energetic Healing, & Meditation. She is a certified Reiki practitioner, weaving this modality of working into every facet of her life, most especially when she teaches. She is thankful for life itself and offers much gratitude to her son Marley, her yoga teacher Lila Brown, Reiki teacher Ann Ehringhaus, & Anusara's founder John Friend. Blessings, Balance, Bliss & Much Love!About Aiya
Kim "Aiya" Rothwell attended her first yoga class 10 years ago and immediately knew she'd found a lifelong passion. Since that day, she has studied various systems of yoga including Sivananda, Ashtanga, and now, Anusara. She is a dedicated student of local Certified Anusara teacher Lila Pierce Brown and continues enhancing her studies with Certified Anusara teachers Patience Armstrong, Sommer Parris-Sobin, and Paul Sobin. Every day, Aiya finds yoga to be a healing and transformational path. She strives to bring her students a space to explore strength, balance, peace, and joy through both the physical yoga asanas and the perspectives a yoga practice can bring to one's life.About Sona
Sona is a fiery and passionate dancer, Nia™ instructor and yoga teacher - and a lifelong student and devotee of all three. She began dancing and playing music at the age of two and has been dancing through life ever since. For the last five years, Sona was a member of NASHA and Infin8, two NYC-based fusion dance companies. Searching for a way to heal and share the gifts of movement with others, Sona found herself in a Nia class in 2008. After two classes, she knew she was ready to go deeper. During that time, Sona also completed a yoga teacher training from her mentor, Certified Anusara Yoga Teacher Patience Armstrong. Sona is excited to continue her path to becoming a RYT this October and continues her professional development by attending Anusara workshops, most recently with John Friend in April 2009. To her Nia classes, Sona brings care and attentiveness, humor, exploration, joy and an abundance of metaphors. She is dedicated to holding a loving space for students that is free of judgment and full of creativity; a place to cultivate the healing magic that happens when the soul is stirred and we dare to move. Sona invites you to trust your inner guide, let go of the rest, and find the freedom to dance your heart out!About Anisha
Anisha Desai is a passionate and inspiring Acupuncturist and Yoga teacher with a rich and varied background. She is known for her soulful and creative classes, which allow her students to nurture themselves while going deeper within. She has been a yoga practitioner since 2003, and since then was drawn to the strength and beauty of many different traditions. A heart centered teacher, Anisha integrates her knowledge of Anusara and Kripalu Yoga, Chinese Medicine, Qi Gong and Sufism, elegantly weaving the rich philosophies into her classes. Her inclusive presence fills the room with warmth and light.Anisha received her 200 hour yoga teacher certification from the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. She received her Masters in Acupuncture and Medical Qi Gong certification from the Academy for Five Element Acupuncture in Gainesville, Florida, in 2006. Anisha is thrilled to offer yoga and qi gong workshops nationwide. She lovingly guides people towards a renewed quality of life through education and empowerment, and invites each student to connect more deeply with his or her inherent radiance….and experience a true taste of Ananda. For more information please visit her website at: www.anishadesai.com.
Sharing an enthusiasm for street performing and a desire for play and physical activity, Katie and Kaci are better known as Acronentertainment—a performance duo with roots in partner yoga, gymnastics, and circus fundamentals. The two explore oppositional forces in balance and expressive body position while maintaining a lively, creative and entertaining atmosphere. In addition to teaching acro-yoga fundamentals, Kaci is an elementary art instructor in Raleigh and sells made to order, paper maché piñatas. Katie is the after-school director at Follow the Child Montessori, has studied at a Montreal circus school and is currently training in aerial silks. Both enjoy juggling, slacklining, cats and vegetarian cuisine. For more information please visit their website www.acroentertainment.com.
