Catherine Garvey
Catherine has been practicing yoga for 14 years. She was certified in the Kripalu yoga tradition in August of 2001 and has been teaching yoga for 9 years in the San Francisco Bay area and Manhattan. She has studied many different styles of yoga including Kripalu, Sivananda, Jivamukti, Dharma Mittra, and Ashtanga.

Teaching yoga is one of Catherine's passions in life. During her yoga classes, she inspires her students to reach their edge in their practice while encouraging them to honor their body's wisdom. Her classes are designed so that students will gain strength and flexibility in the body, release physical tension, clear the mind, and feel an overall sense of peace and wholeness.

She began as a dancer, dancing professionally for 5 years, and then realized that she wanted to somehow help others... so she became a personal trainer. During the past 8 years Jo has been doing her own inner spiritual work of self discovery, and in the last 2 years working with a teacher, Edward Rice, doing multi-dimensional healing. Gradually, through her own desire to find tools to take her to deeper levels, she found yoga. Already having the deep connection with her body, she fell in love with yoga immediately. Jo studied with Yolanda Bain for her teacher training and has taken several teacher training workshops with Rod Stryker (Pure Yoga).

To Jo, yoga is like a direct reflection of Spirit and the Divine. The poses are like a dance, and they truly show us the grace and sensitivity of who we really are.

The most important thing Jo wants to bring across to students of her yoga classes is self acceptance and love, to truly embrace and enjoy the journey of yoga and life, and to allow them to take a step back from the busy distracting world in order to see with clarity and focus, as well as to find direction in life from the heart and soul.

Kate Lumsden
Kate sees teaching as her dharma, fulfilling her destined life path, and lets her devoted love of yoga shine through in each of her classes. Introduced to yoga in 1999, Kate's background in the Astanga Vinyasa style, along with the treatment of her scoliosis curve, have enriched her teachings with love of the meditative flow of breath and movement, while finding solace in proper alignment. Drawing from her own experience, Kate encourages her students to develop inner awareness through exercising attentive presence and abhyasa, a committed application of oneself to the practice in and out of the asana. Kate feels blessed to be guided by many gifted teachers along her path including Colleen Taylor, Yolanda Bain, Judith Lasater, and Catherine Shaddix.

Kari Marble
Kari Marble is a mother of two and a certified yoga teacher, massage therapist, infant massage instructor and birth educator with a passionate and extensive specialization in the childbearing year and healthy family living. Her classes are highly regarded for their revitalizing and centering practice, educational content, and warm, nurturing community. Kari's vision through yoga is to support women in their physical, emotional and spiritual journey into motherhood. To support this vision, she weaves into classes the opportunity to share openly, to discuss aspects of birth preparation and parenting, to practice techniques for deep breathing and relaxation, and to meditate, deepening inner awareness, connection to baby, trust in the body, and appreciation of the sacred. Kari designs prenatal classes to increase comfort and fluidity in the rapidly changing pregnant body, enabling women to feel a greater sense of strength, vitality, grace, calm, confidence, and playfulness. Postnatal classes include songs and poses with baby along with a focus on yoga poses to help moms feel restored, energized, strong, open and ready for the joys and challenges each day brings. Kari also teaches workshops for expectant couples in yoga and massage for labor and in Calm Birth childbirth meditation. Her classes and workshops are featured in Babies by the Bay, 2nd Edition (Council Oak Books 2005).

Sasha Papovich
Sasha Papovich has been studying yoga in earnest since 1997, and teaching since 2001. She weaves together various strands of the yogic path, offering an integrated practice for the body, heart and mind. Her teaching is continually fueled by her in-depth studies in yoga, meditation, transpersonal and somatic psychologies, Eastern spiritual practices and philosophy, as well as her deep faith in the human potential for embodied awakening.

She has been immersed in the study of Insight Yoga (Yin Yoga, Yang Yoga, Meditation, and Psycho-Spiritual Practice) with Sarah Powers for the last four years, and now assists Sarah in workshops and trainings. Her teaching is also deeply influenced by her practice of vipassana meditation, and by the psycho-spiritual work of John and Jennifer Welwood, whose work brilliantly integrates western style psychological inquiry within the framework of spiritual practice.

Sasha recently began her graduate studies in Transpersonal Psychology at JFK University. She teaches classes in the San Francisco area, as well as regular workshops and retreats in Los Angeles.

Charu Rachlis
Charu Rachlis' formal yoga studies began in 1992 upon her arrival to the United States from Brazil. Her primary studies have been with Thomas Fortel. She enjoys the alignment principles of Iyengar and the flow of breath and movement offered in Astanga, and her teaching is influenced by both methodologies. Charu has a Masters Degree in psychology and is a practitioner of Buddhist meditation. She feels that the combination of teaching and practicing yoga is the perfect path leading to the integration of her interests in helping herself and others experience their inherent potentiality.

She began teaching in 1996, and her teaching style is infused with the co-arising spaciousness and intensity of her Buddhist training. She has practiced with many of the great Dzogchen masters of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, beginning with Trulshik Rinpoche in 1991, and currently with the Venerable Tsoknyi Rinpoche, as well as H.H. the Dalai Lama. She has also trained extensively in the Zen tradition, living for two years at the Mt. Baldy Zen Center, a traditional Rinzai Zen training monastery, with Joshu Sasaki Roshi.

Vanessa Tate
Vanessa creatively guides students through the practice of yoga encouraging playfulness and balance between taking risks and recognizing one's present limitations. By bringing humor, humility and conscious awareness to the mat, students are supported in being more accepting of themselves. A yoga practitioner since 1995, Vanessa knows that with commitment to regular practice, the breath deepens, physical postures unfold, and a deeper connection is formed with the soul. Working toward completion of a Masters degree in Somatic Psychology, she enjoys sharing her knowledge of the psyche/body connection. She has a background in diverse yoga disciplines, though is mainly influenced by Ashtanga. She has completed various teacher trainings and workshops including studies with Pattabhi Jois, David Swenson, Bhavani Maki, Rolf Naujokat and the Greenpath Yoga Teacher Training.

Brick Thornton
Brick Thornton began his spiritual path in 1994 by spending over a year at a Tibetan Buddhist healing center. In the years that followed, he studied yoga and internal martial arts, culminating with a 4-month trip to India that led to a 4-year journey. In India, he immersed himself in traditional forms of yoga and meditation with an emphasis on viniyoga, studying at the source at Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram under Desikachar. Brick's classes are a unique approach to vinyasa yoga - the breath feeds directly into fluid, aligned movements that foster core strength and suppleness, weaving together a playful sequence that focuses the mind and enlivens the spirit.

Mirabai Warkulwiz
Mirabai Warkulwiz planted her yoga and meditation roots in San Francisco at the Sivananda Center in 1998. Amazed at her healing of a back injury and many other positive life changes, she became yoga certified at the Integral Yoga Institute, and at the Greenpath Ashtanga. In July 2008, she completed another Teacher Training program in asana and pranayama through the Integral Yoga Institute in Virginia. With over 600 hours of yoga training, she has a passion for sharing these ancient yoga practices with her students. Mirabai’s classes offer a spiritually uplifting and holistic experience. Her classes include centering excercises, asanas (postures), pranayama (breath work), yoga nidra (deep relaxation), meditation, and Kirtan (Sanskrit chanting.) She invites all of her yoga students to transcend physical, emotional, and mental blocks to experience more spaciousness, comfort, happiness, clarity, and inner peace. Mirabai is attuned to Reiki Level 1, studies Aryuveda, is a dancer, and enjoys being in communion with nature. She is thrilled to come on board as a Mindful Body teacher!

Mirabai is also a Kirtan musician leading Kirtan gatherings at the Mindful Body and around the Bay, and enjoys implementing chanting, sound, and music in class.