Mo Bankey
Mo Bankey, Reiki Master and Yoga Instructor, started meditating as a teenager while living in Japan, then added yoga to her meditation practice in 2002. In 2008, Mo completed her 200 hr Anusara Teacher Training with senior Anusara Instructors Sue Elkind and Naime Jezzeny in New Hope, PA. Mo also completed an additional Anusara Pre-Natal yoga training with Sue Elkind. Deeply believing in the link between body and mind, emotions and health, she is in the middle of completing her Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy Practitioner certification. Mo continues to study Buddhist meditation in the lineage of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Mo teaches uplifting classes that focus on awareness, alignment, and intrinsic goodness.
Barbara Capasso
Barbara is a Certified Yoga Instructor, registered with the National Yoga Alliance. She began the practice of yoga over 15 years ago; in 2006 completed a month long 200 hour intensive yoga teacher training program at Kripalu. Her training at Kripalu left her inspired and allowed her to rediscover herself and the passion she has for health and well being as something to share with others. Naturally drawn to Anusara Yoga, a system of hatha yoga, that integrates precise biomechanical principles of alignment, inner body awareness and a celebration of the heart. She continued her studies with Anusara certified teachers Todd Norian and Anne Greene, completing an additional 200 hour Anusara teacher training in 2009. With immense gratitude to all her teachers she continues the study of hatha yoga and Tantric philosophy with John Friend, Douglas Brooks, Mitchel Bleier, Sienna Sherman, Pandit Rajamini Tisunait as well as the practice of Kundalini yoga with Adrienne Wolf in Dallas TX and Transcendental Meditation in Portland ME. Barbara strives to offer classes that are safe and fun allowing space for each student to find their unique connection (union) to the physical body with mind and spirit.
Traca Gress Marshall
Traca is a Kripalu certified yoga teacher who has been practicing for the past 18 years. She has a deep love and respect for the transformative power of yoga and draws from many different styles and traditions. When not teaching, she is also a certified Journey Dance instructor and a Reiki practitioner, as well as a student of Peruvian shamanism and Ayurvedic healing. Traca recently returned from a six-month trip around the world with her family where she was honored to share her love of yoga with orphans in India, rural school children in Thailand and curious monkeys in Costa Rica.
Jess McKneally
Jess has been studying and practicing yoga since 2002. She began teaching in 2006 after receiving her RYT 200 from Seven Centers School of Yoga. Since then, Jess has studied with Rama Jyoti Vernon, Hansa Knox, Ruth Hartung, Joseph and Lillian LePage, Maria Kali Ma and Judith Hanson Lasater. Currently she is working towards completing a 1000 hour internship in integrative yoga therapy. Jess is committed to helping people create happier, healthier, more sustainable lives.
Colleen Myers
Colleen is a certified Kripalu Yoga instructor with ten years teaching experience. Her joy is to introduce people to yoga who feel that they are too old, too stiff, too large, too poor or too shy to practice yoga. She has been practicing yoga for more than half her life, and finds great peace, joy, humor and humility in continuing to practice in her 60s. Local teachers who inspire Colleen include Arline Saturdayborn, Julie Gray, Prana Regina Barrett and her colleagues at Sadhana and the Greater Portland YMCA.
Patricia Neja
Patricia Neja, RYT (200 hours) & CYT (500 hours) has been practicing yoga since 1994. She teaches classical yoga focusing on contemplative holding of poses and slow flow vinyasa, breathing techniques, deep relaxation and meditation, incorporating practices from various styles of yoga. As well as offering classes at Sadhana and other locations in the Portland area, Patricia offers private group classes and individual sessions.
Katy Park
Katy is a certified yoga teacher with Phoenix Rising Yoga and is interested in cultivating and nurturing a welcoming and supportive context that allows practitioners an opportunity to explore more deeply their own inner knowing. She is a licensed social worker and is currently supporting adults with developmental disabilities in reaching their life goals and is also welcoming new lives into the world as a certified doula with DONA international. Katy is also passionate about the yoga of parenting and enjoys offering children’s yoga classes accompanied by one of her own children. All of these endeavors are framed in her desire to support others in discovering their boundless potential, transformative power, beauty, and innate joy.
Phil Payson
Phil credits yoga with saving his life. He no longer is laid up for days and weeks at a time with back problems, and as a cancer survivor, he is now disease free and enjoying the fruits of a regular practice. Phil has completed the Baptiste Level One teacher training and the Assistants Training Program. Phil is also trained in Integrated Breathwork and Therapeutic Breathwork, and includes vision fasts, time in nature, regular meditation, and silent meditation retreats in his spiritual practices. Phil’s teaching focuses on one’s own direct felt experience, noting that radical acceptance of what is true in this moment leads to limitless gratitude.
Colin Reid
Colin discovered yoga ten years ago, and has practiced in various modern Hatha Yoga traditions including Iyengar and Jivamukti. In 2006 he began studying with the Agama Yoga school while in India. Colin is a longstanding practitioner of Vipassana meditation, and has studied and practiced in Advaita, Tibetan Bo-po, Zen and Native American ceremonial traditions. Most recently he served as head instructor at Agama Yoga Mexico in Oaxaca. Colin brings to his classes at Sadhana an enthusiastic love of the yoga tradition and desire to explore with students a depth less commonly taught in the West. Colin lives on the East End and works as a Life Coach.
Arline Saturdayborn
Arline is a certified Kripalu Yoga teacher, Kripalu Holistic Lifestyle teacher, Certified Laughter Yoga Leader, and trained in Feldenkrais Awareness through Movement. She has completed professional and teacher training with Jon Kabat-Zinn in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Arline has studied and continues to study Bikram, Iyengar, Anusara, Chakra, and other approaches to yoga, including trainings with Swami Satchitananda, Patricia Walden, Annie Hoffman, Judith Lasater, Todd Norian and Richard Miller. ‘I have been teaching yoga for 19 years and am particularly interested in how any body can do yoga in ways that work for each individual as they are now. Our bodies are works of art wanting to be loved and lived in with JOY. Breath, and attentive movement can do wonders to reduce stress and greatly enrich our lives. I am interested in offering a class for people who think they cannot do yoga and will discover how good they can feel in their bodies right now. I like to offer ways we can incorporate yoga into ordinary daily activities to relieve stress, manage energy and enrich our lives.’
Jeanette Schmid
Jeanette Schmid has been teaching over 20 years, she began her Yoga education in Daramsala, India in 1986 and continued at the Yoga Center in Portland, Maine and with nationally recognized Iyengar Yoga teachers Patricia Walden, Gabriel Halpern, Arthur Kilmury, Judith Lasater, Shiva Rea and others. Since 1988 she has been studying and practicing Kundalini Maha Yoga and assisting advanced teachers Shri Anandi Ma and Dileepji. In 1989, Jeanette launched her teaching career in southern Maine and in 1997 founded the “Studio for Transformation”. Now she is teaching in various locations.
Leigh Tillman
Leigh has been studying different contemplative practices for a decade now. In 2007 she partook in the Agama Yoga Teacher Training in Thailand where she furthered her relationship with yogic philosophy, Ayurvedic perspectives on health, Hatha Yoga Asana Practice, and what she's found to be the extraordinary world of teaching yoga. Since, she has taught and co-taught in-depth courses in Maine, India, and Mexico that provide students with a foundation in what yoga can offer. She has also studied and taught within the realm of specifically female yoga practice-exploring the uniqueness of being born into a woman's body. Her style incorporates the grace of Vinyasa, the meditative quality of Hatha, the precision of Iyengar, and the possibility that all yoga offers: to inquire inwardly and know the seat of ourselves from which to gift our uniqueness to the world.
Diane Warming
Diane Warming, M. A. (Kartar Kaur), has been a certified teacher of Kundalini Yoga, as taught by Yogi Bhajan, for 17 years. She is also a Speech/Language Pathologist. She is a firm believer in the body's wisdom and applies the technology of Kundalini Yoga to tap into that wisdom for total wellness of mind and body. She is also a certified practitioner of Sat Nam Rasayan, a transcendental healing technique. Her uplifting classes include laughter, challenges, and deep, deep relaxation.