Marly began yoga in 2001 when she was looking for relief from low back pain. Like many, she was drawn to yoga for the health benefits, and stayed because yoga is so much more than that! She has a background as a student of Iyengar and Anusara styles of yoga, with a recent interest in therapeutic yoga. Marly received her Body Balance Yoga 200 hour RYT in 2014. What is so exciting about yoga is we can all do it at our own level and for the rest of our lives! Her goal is for students to feel better when they leave class than when they came in. And that her students will use some of the easy techniques taught in class in their home practice to live a life they love.
Kathy started her yoga practice in 2005 out of curiosity, expecting to discover just another form of exercise, but quickly noticed the difference. She learned that yoga offers not only physical benefits – strength, balance and flexibility — but also influences life in a holistic way by sharpening awareness and bringing peace into challenges of everyday busy life. Kathy decided that her own transformation would have the best impact if shared with others, and became a certified yoga teacher. She received her RYT200 credentials from The Yoga Center in Columbia in 2008, her RYT500 credentials from Body Balance Yoga in Annapolis in 2013 and completed further yoga training in 2014. She also completed an 800-hour yoga therapy program with Jenny Otto at Body Balance Yoga in 2015. She continues to study weekly with Jenny Otto to expand and refine her knowledge in bodywork. As a certified Body Balance Yoga teacher, she has been teaching yoga classes and private lessons since 2008. Kathy is dedicated to her students' individual needs by incorporating functional yoga as well as chair yoga in her teaching.
ELLICOTT CITY, MARYLAND
Email: ksfleischmann@gmail.com
A professional yoga instructor for over 20 years, Linda is the founder and owner of Easing Into Yoga™ and has been teaching yoga full-time since her certification in 1993. Well versed in therapeutics and communicating alignment, Linda is practiced in the method of Shri B.K.S. Iyengar and brings her students a blend of styles from her studies with many of today's yoga masters. Linda is well loved for her practical, upbeat, and engaging teaching style, which blends humor and a lighthearted attitude with attentive interest in each student, detailed, individualized instruction, and hands-on assistance, to provide a carefully tailored approach for every member of the class. Linda offers public and private classes, teacher trainings, yoga parties, yoga instruction in corporate, educational and retreat settings and assists people who are starting up yoga classes, as well as helping anyone who is looking for yoga instruction.
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
Easing Into Yoga™
Website: EasingIntoYoga.com
Email: linda@easingintoyoga.com
Janelle was first introduced to yoga in 1997, and has been teaching yoga since 2005. She has completed two separate 200-hour teacher trainings and a 500-hour teacher training and continues her studies with Jenny Otto. Before becoming a yoga teacher, Janelle spent 5 years as an Open Water SCUBA Instructor. Through this experience she gained insight into the various learning styles and abilities of each individual. In her yoga classes she honors this individuality in each of her students, and through her love of teaching creates a space where students feel empowered to safely explore the gifts their yoga practice can offer, both on and off the mat. Janelle is a full-time Respiratory Therapist. She enjoys experiencing how respiratory therapy and yoga enhance one another, as well as her joy of teaching and helping others.
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND
Email: janellej21@mac.com
Tricia is a graduate of Willow Street and Body Balance Yoga teacher training programs (RYT 500), and is a certified Yogahour teacher and certified Body Balance Yoga Therapist. Her classes focus on dissolving tension in the body, creating optimal alignment, and connecting with the breath. She clearly articulates alignment instructions based on her knowledge of anatomy and exploration in her own practice. Tricia is so grateful to share the healing power of yoga with her students so they feel more balanced and vibrant in their bodies, minds, and hearts.
SUMMERFIELD, NORTH CAROLINA
Email: cnandres@familyyoga.org
Sandy began studying yoga in 2004 in an effort to find healing for physical ailments and bring peace to her busy life. A former health and physical education teacher, she now directs a radiography program in Baltimore. Her background and education enable her to bring a strong knowledge of anatomy and human movement to her teaching, where she believes the practice of yoga contributes to the wellness of body and mind. This therapeutic focus brings a new dimension of caring and healing into her teaching and allows her to individualize the practice of yoga for students of all ability levels.
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND
Email: rsmoore75@gmail.com
"Do what you love and love what you do!" Amy has been teaching group exercise and personal training for the past 20 years. She feels incredibly luckly to have a job she loves. She like to consider herself a fitness motivator on and off the mat. Amy gets up every morning knowing that she will motivate and inspire people to change and create a life they love in a healthy fit mind and body. Having practiced yoga on a regular basis since 2009, the practice has deeply impacted her life for the better. Amy completed her 200-hour yoga training with Kim at Charm City Yoga. She completed her Yoga For Golfers certification in 2011 to learn how to focus and improve the mind-body aspect of golf. She also completed an 800-hour yoga therapy program with Jenny Otto at Body Balance Yoga. "I love teaching hot vinyasa yoga. I believe that challenge and change equals growth. I continue to love learning new ways to keep fit and healthy in mind and body."
OWINGS MILLS, MARYLAND
Fit4you, Fit-4-You
Website: afit4you.com
Email: afit4you@verizon.net
In 1999, Sandi began studying Anusara yoga in response to devastating effects from an undiagnosed medical condition. After experiencing the healing power of yoga, she retired in 2004 from a career as an epidemiologist to study the teaching of yoga. Having spent most of her adult life working in health-related fields, she decided to move from work designed to improve general public health to work that provides personal help and healing to small groups and individuals. She completed her 200-hour training in 2005, her 500-hour training in 2009 at Golden Heart Yoga and her 800-hour yoga therapy training in 2015 with Jenny Otto at Body Balance Yoga. Her goal has always been to teach gently, but effectively, to the elderly and to persons with special conditions or chronic disabilities. The study and practice of Body Balance Yoga® is providing her the necessary underpinning for this work. She teaches in senior centers and to individuals with disabilities and has assists her teacher, Jenny Otto, in a Special Conditions yoga class.
BETHESDA, MARYLAND
Email: crothwell001@comcast.net
Email: lifelongyoga@comcast.net
A retired board-certified general surgeon, named one of Baltimore’s Top Docs in October 2000, Gina permanently left the practice of traditional Western medicine in 2002 to explore her long-time interest in holistic healing. She has studied and practiced Buddhism in the Tibetan tradition, studied the ancient wisdom traditions including Traditional Chinese wisdom and Five Element Theory at Tai Sophia Institute (now Maryland University of Integrative Health). Gina completed her 200-hour teacher training in Integrative Yoga Therapy at Yama Studio in Baltimore in 2005. She has also completed several professional training courses with Jon Kabat-Zinn and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society and has used the wisdom of Ayurveda for personal healing since 2000. She has completed the first of her professional Ayurvedic Nutrition training courses with internationally-known teacher and author, Amadea Morningstar. Gina has taught mindfulness classes, yoga and yoga nidra in Baltimore and Harford Counties since 2004, and teaches weekly at HopeWell Cancer Support in Brooklandville, MD. She teaches yoga nidra and mindfulness meditation to teachers in training at Tranquil Space in Washington DC and Golden Heart Yoga and also leads bi-monthly silent retreats in Baltimore.
BALTIMORE & HARFORD COUNTIES, MARYLAND
Website: GinaSager.com
Email: gina@ginasager.com
Melinda passed from this life on July 4, 2017. She was a wonderful person and an amazing teacher with a kind, generous soul. She was truly an inspiration to all who knew her. She is greatly missed by her Body Balance Yoga Therapy family.
Melinda brought a rich background in gentle and therapeutic yoga to her students. An educator for 35+ years, including teaching at Loyola University Maryland for 11 years, Melinda began her own yoga practice in 2004 in a therapeutic class when seeking help for a debilitating disease. She went on to study with Jenny Otto to earn both her RYT 200 and RYT 500, as well as her Body Balance Yoga Therapy Teacher Certification. Then after earning two Master of Science degrees in 2014 and 2016, one in Nutrition and Integrative Health, and the other in Yoga Therapy (both from Maryland University of Integrative Health), she continued to study weekly with Jenny Otto, as well as attend her yearly series of Body Balance Yoga Therapy teacher trainings. Melinda taught how to incorporate yoga into everyday life and wanted her students to know that anyone can do yoga and benefit from the never-ending possibilities that it offers.