OUR YOGA INSTRUCTORS

Specializing in Yoga for Scoliosis

Monique began her yoga journey while pregnant with her first child ten years ago. Yoga is now an inseparable part of Monique’s life, and she thrives on sharing her knowledge with students of all ages. 

Inspired by how yoga movement can change people’s health and overall life, Monique earned certification and began work as a Les Mills BodyBalance instructor. While teaching this fitness regime, which combines Yoga, Pilates, and Tai Chi, she strived for a deeper understanding of the benefits that yoga in particular can bring to the body. 

Today, Monique tailors her attention to detail and precise method of teaching structural alignment to each of her specialized small-group and private classes.

Monique is an Iyengar influenced Certified Instructor. She completed the 200-hour Advanced Studies/Teacher Training Program in February 2017 at the Iyengar yoga studio, The Yoga & Movement Center in Walnut Creek, CA. In 2018, Monique furthered her studies with Elise Browning Miller and is now a Yoga for Scoliosis certified Teacher Trainer. Monique extends her studies in the Iyengar discipline via frequent workshops with Yoga Alliance continuing education providers.

Specializing in Hatha/Iyengar Yoga inversions

Dorinda’s teaching style helps students focus on intention and anatomical alignment through compassionate and clear instruction, skillful sequencing, and perceptive hands-on adjustments.  Her purpose is to help students experience this ancient practice in a way that reveals its wisdom, and ease.  Dorinda’s love of yoga comes through in her devotion to the intention of her teachers.  Her reverence for yoga’s complex lineage is balanced with humor so that students leave class feeling refreshed with clear minds and energized bodies.

Dorinda has been studying Iyengar yoga since 1995 and began teaching in 2010.  She is a long-time student of Donald Moyer, Mary Lou Weprin and Debbie Gilman, a graduate of The Yoga Room’s Advanced Studies Program and a Relax and Renew Trainer.  She is certified at the Experienced 500 hour level (ERYT500) and a Continuing Education Provider (YACEP) with the Yoga Alliance.  For seven years Dorinda coordinated and served as a member of the core faculty for the Advanced Studies Program at The Yoga Room in Berkeley.  

dorindayoga.com

510.502.0001

dorinda.nyberg@me.com

Specializing in Prenatal Yoga + Postnatal Yoga

Sandi is a Licensed Midwife and prenatal educator who began her work with mamas-to-be at the same time she began practicing yoga, in 1992. She combines two of her passions, yoga and serving expectant and new mamas into her Prenatal and Postpartum Yoga classes. She believes that the female body is strong and powerful, yet benefits from nurturing and compassion, especially during the season of gestation and change. Helping women connect with their bodies and their growing babies, focusing on the breath and finding balance, discovering the strength within, while learning to let go are interwoven into her classes.

Sandi first began studying with Diane Valentine as part of a healing regime after back surgery, and completed her 200 hour certification at the Yoga & Movement Center. She has received teaching certifications in Prenatal Yoga, Yoga for Healthy Aging, and completed the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction program for Health Care Providers. She integrates yoga and mindfulness principles into her childbirth education classes. 

When she is not working or practicing, you can find her in the garden, on the trail, in one of her women’s groups, at the movies or reading a good book. She is married and has 2 adult children.

sandi.yoga

www.sandisyoga.com

sandismithgrove.yoga@gmail.com

Specializing in gentle and accessible yoga, meditation and Ayurveda

Monica is a retired engineer bringing you a well-rounded perspective to mind, body and spirit with a blend of certifications in yoga, meditation and ayurveda. Her journey began when her father taught her to meditate and self-heal when she was just eight years old. As an adult, she looked for ways to balance out the stresses of an engineering career and learned more about meditation, discovered coaching and yoga and learned different healing modalities. She is a Chopra Certified Coach and Instructor and a RYT500 focusing on creating a safe space for healing.

https://monica.yoga/

omthentic.you@comcast.net

Workshops - Guest Teacher

Dennis Eagan is a registered ERYT500 yoga teacher based in Coloma California. He has been studying yoga for twenty-four years and the natural world his entire life. As founder and director of Wild Yoga, Dennis brings more than three decades of experience as a wilderness guide and outdoor educator to his teaching. He graduated from Rodney Yee’s Advanced Studies Program at the Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland, California in 1998 and has been teaching yoga ever since. Dennis' classes are infused with an eclectic mix of sound bio-mechanical principles, breath awareness, earth dynamics, and yoga philosophy. He offers workshops, trainings and wilderness yoga retreats throughout the west from Baja to Alaska.

Workshops - Guest Teacher

Diane Valentine - is the former Director of The Yoga & Movement Center in downtown Walnut Creek named Diablo magazine's Best Yoga Teacher 2010. She is a passionate yoga teacher, yoga teacher trainer, Feldenkrais® practitioner and author. Diane has developed a deep understanding of the body, mind, and emotional connections through her work as a yoga teacher, and Feldenkrais practitioner. Today, her methods are aimed at teaching students to listen to their bodies through the fluid movements of yoga and Feldenkrais, as well as learning to practice “living in the present moment” by becoming aware of and acting on the wholeness of their mind-body-spirit connection.

Diane believes in providing a highly individual approach to her students both in classes and in private sessions. Her classes are grounded in the traditions of B.K.S. Iyengar Diane has trained and assisted Senior Iyengar teacher Judith Hanson Lasater, PhD. and she has received many certifications in the therapeutic and restorative aspects of yoga. Diane has also assisted and traveled with Judith for 10 years learning the finer points of working individually with students. Diane has been a teacher for over 30 years. She is a highly experienced RYT500 teacher, certified with The Yoga Alliance and the International Yoga therapist Association, as well as a certified Relax & Renew Trainer® in Restorative Yoga and a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner®.

Workshops - Guest Teacher

Leslie Howard is an Oakland-based yoga teacher, specializing in all things pelvic. She leads workshops and trainings nationally and has written a book about caring for the female pelvis, Pelvic Liberation. She is a regular presenter for the Yoga Journal conferences and a regular contributor to Yoga Journal magazine. Her own struggles with healing her hips and pelvis led her to intense study of the anatomy, physiology, cultural messaging, history and energetics of this rich place. Her teaching is informed by over 3500 hours of yoga study with senior Iyengar yoga teachers. She considers Ramanand Patel her most important influence and mentor. She has designed two very successful studies for UCSF on how to use yoga to alleviate incontinence and pelvic pain. To learn more about Leslie or for some online education opportunities visit: www.lesliehowardyoga.com