Teachers
We are so happy to have a fantastic team of teachers at Groove Yoga. It is their energy, enthusiasm and dedication to their students that help form the core of our Groove Yoga community. Below you can read teacher biographies and find links to their webpages.
Kevin Collins
Kevin Collins has been teaching powerful, creative vinyasa classes throughout the Bay Area since 1999. He emphasizes exploration and fun in the practice of yoga, while training your muscles to work together and your mind to remain focused and centered. He has had the good fortune to work with dozens of fantastic teachers over many years, but draws his primary influences from Bryan Kest, Baron Baptiste and the Anusara lineage. His classes are physically demanding, but carefully structured to allow people of any age, injury status or fitness level to challenge themselves in a safe and supportive environment. Please visit www.manydoors.com for more information about Kevin’s style of yoga, his workshops and retreats.
Jenn Collins
Jenn began practicing Bikram yoga in Florida in 2000 as a way to build flexibility while training for a marathon. She loved the intense workout – the heat, and the physical and mental challenge of the practice. After returning to the Bay Area, she began practicing Vinyasa flow yoga. Through her practice she began to recognize that yoga offers so much more than just a workout. She began to notice dramatic shifts in her perspective on life – recognizing that instead of struggling and striving for perfection, she could relax into what was here and now and find joy and love in each moment.
Jenn is a Yoga Alliance certified 200-hour Registered Yoga Teacher. She has studied with Seane Corn, Janet Stone, Bryan Kest, and Rusty
Wells. Jenn’s classes are a sweet balance of a vigorous flow culminating in a compassionate, inwardly-focused floor sequence. Students are encouraged to challenge and nurture themselves with awareness. Jenn is passionate about helping her students recognize that yoga is not just a workout, but a spiritual practice intended to shift your life both on and off the mat. Students will leave class sweaty, rejuvenated and with an open heart.
Reba Gray
Reba studied with Baron Baptiste and earned her Yoga Alliance certification and Associate Baptiste Power Yoga instructor status in 2009. She draws on her training in anatomy and principles of alignment, giving her students the tools to challenge themselves safely in the pose. Through breath and through supported guidance, the student practicing with Reba can access their inner strength. Her belief in the positive transformation yoga can influence in the body, mind, and spirit continuously inspires her practice and her teaching. Visit her website at: www.rebagray.com.
Gretchen Mehlhoff
Gretchen practices and teaches an open approach to sequencing which retains the essential, classical elements of the ashtanga vinyasa asanas while allowing the freedom and flexibility- thanks to Larry Schultz at It’s Yoga- to incorporate asanas from different series levels. Her practice integrates the traditions of Patanjali’s 8 limbed path, Krishnamacharya, Pattabhi Jois and B.K.S. Iyengar, with the understanding that “It’s your practice”. So breathe and move freely. Develop your unique expression of an age-old system.
Gretchen’s classes provide a safe and nurturing environment filled with plenty of space for growth, experimentation, discovery, play.
Judy Rukat
Jud
y Rukat has been a yoga teacher and personal trainer for ten years. Judy embodies yoga as a lifestyle and engages in a vigorous and disciplined daily practice. Judy’s style of teaching embraces humor and playfulness and an unending curiousity which allows her students to show up to their practice in an authentic way. Judy has a BA in Movement & Exercise Science and an MA in Psychological Studies. She has studied with numerous teachers in multiple traditions and has earned teaching certifications in Ashtanga and The Rocket where she studied with the late Larry Schultz. Her class is a challenging and eclectic flow that changes daily.
Andrea Manitsas
Andrea is known for a bhakti-filled class with a whole lotta soul and a fierce flow. She warmly invites students on a sacred journey through her unique expression of the Vinyasa flow that is dreamy and dancey while also being smart and intentional. Recognized as a Lululemon ambassador in Berkeley, her classes have become synonymous with her love of chanting and her want for connectedness.
Andrea has been learning from the best for over a decade. From the sweet song she learned while chanting with Jai Uttal to the cosmic dance of her Laughing Lotus teacher Jasmine Tarkeshi, from the sumptuous flow she fell for with Janet Stone to the intelligent alignment of Jason Crandell, Andrea connects an ever-growing well of experience with impressive music and book libraries to inspire bodies to move and minds to still.
As an avid reader and professional writer/editor, Andrea works to balance the head and the heart in her classes, and in her life. Her recent adventure through India has inspired her love of ritual and the sacredness in each moment. Especially when we come together on our mats.
Regina Hughes
Regina taught her first yoga “class” in the sixth grade and has been hooked ever since. As a child growing up in Richmond, Virginia, she would practice with her mother (also a yoga instructor) in the family living room. She completed her 200-hour teaching training in 2009. Yoga has allowed her to cultivate gratitude for the present moment and courage to pursue dreams which a gift she hopes to share with her students. Regina relocated to the East Bay in October 2009 and looks forward to offering students the opportunity to challenge themselves in a compassionate and creative environment while flowing to a backdrop of indie rock and the occasional pop-tune to help focus and invigorate their practice.
Jen Burk Reynolds
Jen was first drawn to yoga as a child and has been formally practicing since 1994. Over the years, she has practiced with many wonderful teachers but has been perhaps most deeply influenced by her studies with Jack Kornfield and other dharma teachers at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Jen cherishes the silence and stillness she has found at Spirit Rock and completed their first Mindfulness Yoga teacher training in 2008.
Jen has been teaching since 2004 and recently completed her 500 hour teacher training through Yoga Works. She wholeheartedly believes in the power of yoga and lovingly encourages her students to find grace and ease at their edge and to meet whatever arises in the moment with kindness. When not practicing or teaching yoga, you’ll find Jen humbly and sometimes joyfully traversing the paths of motherhood and midlife. Visit her website at www.twowingsyoga.com
Meisha Bosma
Meisha Bosma, a long-time contemporary dancer and choreographer, came to yoga ten years ago to expand and deepen her belief in the body as a vessel of healing, expression and personal growth. Her classes are a combination of physical asana, chanting, intention and meditation, with the goal of calling upon the unconscious and making it conscious. She will encourage you to explore the feelings that arise during your practice as a journey to knowing and loving your most intimate self. She has found that when we call upon our hearts to guide the body through a full bodied experience, we hold the ability to break down the walls of resistance, fear, and doubt within ourselves. Meisha’s classes will inspire you to love deeply, and move your body and mind with a surprising sense of freedom and discovery.
Asherah (Jessica) Abelson
Yoga found Asherah (Jessica) again and again: by 2000, she was hooked, and by 2001, she was teaching full time. Since then she has been blessed to study both Ashtanga and Forrest in great depth, completing several years of study with Nancy Gilgoff and the Forrest Foundation and Advanced teacher trainings.
Asherah’s teaching is grounded in yoga as a tool for healing, personal inquiry, skillful challenge, and play.
Asherah holds an MA in Somatic Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and is extensively trained in Craniosacral, Polarity, and Reiki. She offers private craniosacral and somatic therapy sessions, group speaking, and guided artwork.
Please feel free to visit her online at www.asherah-healing.com
Poh Teng
Poh Teng teaches vigorous vinyasa yoga that focuses on movement with awareness, breath, healthy alignment and safe, creative sequencing. She blends yogic tradition, intention-setting, current findings in biology and yoga therapy. Because yoga is not one-size-fits-all, Poh also offers private yoga sessions for your specific wellness needs. She is especially interested, trained and experienced in offering yoga therapy for back pain and cancer.
For more info, please visit PohmYoga.com
Sparkle Thornton
Sparkle believes that yoga as a therapuetic art form, science, and philosophy can powerfully impact lives. Sparkle draws from studies in Anusara, Vinyasa, and many other styles of hatha yoga and meditation to create a compassionate and uplifting blend of vinyasa flow with pranayama and yogic philosophy; Each class is different, experiential, and inspired. Sparkle is also a licensed massage therapist and cites bodywork as a major influence on her teaching style. Sparkle hopes to present yoga exactly as she has experienced it: as a wellspring of creation, vitality, and hope.
Sparkle became a devoted yogi in 2001 and has completed the following training hours:
-230 hour Flow Yoga teachers training at Asheville Yoga Center 2007 Stephanie Keach and Shala Worlsey
-108 hour Anusara Immersion in Asheville NC in 2009 with Joe Taft and Deirdre Smith-Gilmer
-675 Massage School curriculum (Swedish, Deep Tissue, Shiatsu, Thai Massage, Trigger Point, Cranio-Sacral) in 2010 at the Asheville School of Massage and Yoga
-Parts 1 & 2 of the Anusara Teachers Training program at Yoga Tree SF with Sianna Sherman in 2012
-As well as countless workshops with teachers such as Sarah Powers, Shiva Rea, Aundrey Lappa, & John Friend.
Sparkle has taught in yoga studios, community colleges, universities and festivals since 2008, and since 2010 has taught in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sparkle owns her own Biodiesel & sesame oil-fueled massage therapy business: www.sparkleyogamassage.com
Elissa Buchman
After injuring her foot and ankle while running, Elissa decided to get her exercise fix through yoga while she recovered from her injury. She soon realized that she was recovering just as much from perfectionism as she was from her injury, and yoga soon became an essential and integral part of every aspect of her life. Elissa teaches a dynamic and playful vinyasa class where students are encouraged to challenge, love, and laugh at themselves in a safe and nurturing environment. She empowers her students to cultivate and engage their own inner teacher through a practice that emphasizes the importance of utilizing the body and the breath as a guide.
Jill White
Originally starting out as a biology teacher, she shifted her presence from the high school classroom to the yoga studio. Although she’d been practicing for almost 10 years, after a bout with cancer, Jill was impacted by what yoga can do for pain management, mood regulation, and overall strength and well being. Yoga became an anchor in her life, and her passion for yoga blossomed as her drive to teach persisted. Jill got her training from the White Lotus Foundation in Santa Barbara, studying under Ganga White and Tracey Rich.
With her emphasis in Vinyasa Flow, Jill’s focus in her classes is to connect movement with the breath, create healing energy, and be mindful of students’ strengths and limitations from a compassionate and supportive perspective. She views the art of yoga as an efficient skill set of tools that can help the body, not as specific goals that must be attained that can compromise the body and potentially injure.
To learn more about Jill, please visit www.jillwhiteyoga.com
Brittany Benedetto
Brittany considers herself a teacher at heart. After 9 years of coaching gymnastics to young and competitive athletes, and 8 years of teaching in the elementary school classroom, she transitioned into her life’s true teaching passion- yoga. A combination of experiences within the world of fitness led her to this calling, and she found yoga when she needed it most. People often ask her how she found yoga. She tells them, “I didn’t find yoga… It found me.” For that, she admits that she is and will be forever grateful to the practice. Brittany teaches yoga in order to deliver the practice and its benefits to those who walk in through the doors of her classes. She offers gratefulness and gratitude to God for the road on which he’s placed her. She doesn’t want to take one second of this blessing called life for granted.
Matti Collins
Indumathi (“Matti”) was born in Santa Rosa, California. She comes from a large family, with four brothers and four sisters. Matti has been hanging out in yoga studios since she was eight weeks old. She particularly likes the section of the studio where the shoes are stored. When she learned that 2240 Oxford Street was a “no dogs allowed” building, she insisted on a specific exemption into the lease contract to allow her to come and hang out with you all. Matti’s official position will be “greeter”, but she’ll play a number of mood enhancing roles around the studio.