Advanced Studies/ Yoga Teacher Training Faculty
Following are regular members of Yoga Garden SF’s Advanced Studies/Yoga Teacher Training faculty. Future trainings will have the same or similar quality instructors, with requisite or higher Yoga Alliance credentials. For reasons beyond our control, substitutions may have to be made at any time without notice.
Michelle Myhre (Practice, Techniques, Teaching Methodology)
Michelle Myhre’s yoga classes are challenging, informative, and lighthearted. Each class is a unique journey that unites movement with breath, intention, and rhythm. Classes adapt to the changing needs of the students in order to remain bright, effective and nourishing. Expect Sanskrit invocations, classical alignment, inspiring music, intelligent, spontaneous asana sequencing, with modifications for all levels of student. Michelle has been a dedicated yoga practitioner since 1996 and has taught more than 2000 yoga classes since 2001. She is certified through four separate yoga programs, including Jivamukti Yoga, and continues to work with master teachers. Michelle joyfully brings a great deal of knowledge and depth to her practice and students
yogawithmichelle.blogspot.com
David Nelson (Practice, Techniques, Teaching Methodology)
David began teaching in 1998, after receiving certification from the White Lotus Foundation. He has studied Bikram, Ashtanga, and Iyengar yoga, and has been a student of Dharma Mitra, Edward Clark, and Judith Lasater.
From 2001 to 2006 David studied with Advanced Senior Iyengar Instructor Manouso Manos, and apprenticed weekly with him from 2002 through 2006. He studied with the Iyengars in 2004, 2007 National Conference, and in 2008.
David started his yoga practice to seek relief from chronic back pain, and found that yoga was a powerful and dynamic medium to explore the meaning of life. Though his classes are physically challenging, they are safe and accessible to everyone. From the instruction of a physical practice, David encourages students to develop a higher awareness, or consciousness, about how we live our lives and how to achieve our own potential. More.
Karl Erb (Practice, Philosophy)
With over 23 years experience in yoga, Karl brings to bear a wide range of expertise, training, generosity, and integrity to illuminate each student’s individual experience.
Most deeply influenced by Yogacharya Shri BKS Iyengar’s approach to Hatha and Ashtanga yoga, Karl draws on years with teachers from many systems. His practice and teaching are deeply informed by not only western anatomy and physiology, but by principles of Ayurveda and the nature of Prana, or energy – life’s vitality. Karl encourages deep attentiveness in practice, imbued with a spirit of compassion and adventuresome, playful exploration. More.
Marisa Toriggino (Director, Prenatal Yoga Teacher Training)
Marisa Toriggino, E-RYT & PRYT, has been studying and teaching yoga since 1987. She is a certified and nationally-registered yoga teacher who has taught hundreds of yoga students per year for the past decade. She has studied extensively and has been influenced by her experiences in India, her own spiritual practice and the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda, Yogi Bhajan and Geeta Iyengar. This journey has helped to inform her personal life and yoga practice with Western innovation and Eastern sensibility. More.
Marisa has a B.A. from UC Berkeley, a Certificate from the Rudolf Steiner College in Administration for spiritually based organizations and an active member of the Association of Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health. She is married to David Nelson (together they have co-own YGSF for 12 years) and they enjoy family life with their two young children.
Eric Shaw (Practice, Techniques, Teaching Methodology, History , Philosophy)
Eric Shaw has spent his life teaching and earning degrees and learning more and more about the human body—through athletics, yoga, marital arts, dance, energy work, and anatomy study. He is certified by both Kripalu and Yogaworks teacher training programs.
His first teachers in self-transformation were his parents, Christian ministers who integrated Jungian and Transpersonal psychology into their work. He began daily meditation in 1984 and was introduced to yoga in 1987. His key teachers have been: Paul Grilley, Matt Huish, Natanaga Zhander, Tony Briggs, Arkady Shirin, Sianna Sherman and Karl Erb. Since 2001, he has taught unique vinyasa forms from shadow, ashtanga and other flow yogas. His classes are vigorous but relaxed, serious but fun, meditative but expressive—and informed by years of formal training in alignment and investigations into ancient texts. He has earned Masters degrees in Teaching and Religious Studies and notice for his Ph D work in yoga. His lectures on Yoga Philosophy and History are offered nationwide at conferences, studios and universities. He is writing a History of Modern Yoga for Anusara Press. For more information, visit prasanayoga.com.
Owen Grady (for Yoga Tune Up®)
Owen has been passionate about moving his body through space and time his whole life and began his movement career as a National-level competitive cyclist and Nordic skier. His interest in Yoga began 15 years ago with the study of Iyengar Yoga at Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland and has led him to a full-time career as a Pilates and Yoga instructor in the Bay Area since 2002.
Once he discovered yoga, Owen realized the benefit of balancing his yoga practice with his passion for cycling, nordic skiing and other outdoor pursuits. In 2002, Owen added Pilates to his movement repertoire and has studied and worked closely under the mentorship of Nationally recognized Pilates Master teacher Tom McCook, founder and director of Center of Balance in Mt.View. Owen credits Tom’s mentorship & coaching in his development and success in teaching movement full time. He continues to develop and refine his personal Yoga and Pilates practice to gain optimal integration for himself as well as his students.
Owen’s experience teaching yoga is founded on a combination of his personal practice of Iyengar and Ashtanga yoga and in more recent years influenced by the Core Immersed style of Jill Miller. He feels that Yoga Tune Up is a logical addition to what he can offer his students as a teacher and himself as a life long student and believes that Jill’s expert teaching and bodywork experience perfectly complements the areas he would like to continue to develop as a teacher himself.
In addition, Owen is certified as a Physical Mind Institute Pilates Apparatus, Mat and Standing Pilates instructor. Most recently, Owen completed the Frankin Method Certification in 2005 – 2007 with Eric Franklin, founder of the Franklin Method, combining vivid imagery and experiential anatomy to help people navigate their bodies with greater ease and facility. And, he is also certified by Pino Carbone of Body Code Systems in Bodykey instruction. Body Code system is a patented series of exercises performed on unique equipment, the Bodykey, which enable one to improve their physical condition by strengthening and stretching in a three dimensional spherical way.
