Becky
Becky is a retired physical therapist who began practicing yoga nearly 30 years ago with Josephine. Having recently completed the Soham School 200 hour yoga teacher training, she is ready to share her skills to guide you as you deepen your yoga practice. Her physical therapy background is an asset in understanding the human body and its’ proper alignment and posture. Becky strongly believes in finding the balance of your mind, body, and spirit to maintain optimal health and well being. Her classes will provide gentle physical assists to improve your alignment and deepen your stretch, breathing techniques to calm your mind, and readings to awaken your spirit. Becky’s passions include most any outdoor activity especially skiing, hiking, golfing, and climbing.
Bryan
A dedicated yogi, he has founded multiple schools, studios, and retreat centers, even delivering a TEDx Talk on the practice. His mission is helping others discover their authentic selves and reach their full potential, whether through yoga practice or business mentorship to design their ideal lives.
David
My class will build your confidence; it will start slowly from basic yoga positions, with a focus on breath. The class is accessible to all bodies and all ages. My career as a professional dancer in New York City included multiple tours of Europe. I was deeply involved in the early years of contact improvisation. When I retired from dancing I turned to yoga’s offerings of physical and spiritual centering. David’s classes will start in January.
Genny
After dedicating 17 years to local non-profit fundraising, I felt called to connect more deeply with my spiritual path through yoga and the sacred feminine. As a 200HR Registered Yoga Teacher, Sacred Ceremonies Facilitator, and Certified Aromatherapist, I passionately believe that every body is magical and beautiful, deserving to be honored just as it is. My yoga practice is inclusive, embracing balance, unity, and the inherent wisdom within each of us.
Harriette
We celebrated Harriet’s last class at Aloha November 21, 2024.
Josephine
Josephine had her first yoga class on a slow boat to India back in the ’60s. Since then she has been on the yoga path in one form or another. Back in the ’60s and ’70s, there were not many yoga classes to find. Josephine’s practice came through reading books and whenever she came near a yoga class she was there.
Josephine and her husband, JC, served as volunteers in the Peace Corps in the early-mid ’70s. They served in the South Pacific. From there they moved to the Monadnock region of New Hampshire. Josephine and her husband built their nest on twelve acres of forest land. They build a passive solar home to feel in harmony with nature. Their four children romped the woods in the dramatic four seasons of New England. Today their children all practice or teach yoga.
In the ’80s yoga began to peek its head into the Monadnock region. If the word “yoga” was involved, Josephine was there to soak it in. In the early 90’s Josephine’s teacher, Sarvani, said “It is time for you to teach”. Josephine always felt proud that she became a teacher in the traditional way, which was to practice with a teacher for a long time, and then the teacher launches you off to teach. With that said Josephine did go to teacher training at Kripalu in the Berkshires.
Josephine has become a well-seasoned yoga teacher. She has taught gentle candlelight yoga, moderate yoga, beginner yoga, vigorous yoga, special needs yoga for back care, positive mental health, to build strong bones, and for folks with round bodies. She has taught many workshops such as yoga for stress reduction, yoga for eye care, restorative yoga, yin yoga. They are all in Josephine’s pocket of expertise.
Josephine has been able to take her two passions, yoga, and the outdoors, and combine them. She worked for the AMC for many years guiding “Hiking and Yoga” retreats in the Catskills.
After the turn of the century, Josephine’s children flew from the nest and she had time for volunteering. The arenas that called her were the first breath and the last breath, in other words, that of being a doula and a hospice volunteer.
In the 21st century, Josephine began taking her students on a yoga tour around the world. Yes, another of Josephine’s passions is travel. To combine yoga and travel, she had led tours to Peru, Samoa, China, France, and India. This has been like dreams come true for Josephine.
Josephine’s current project is to create and run a Healing Arts Center in downtown Keene, Aloha! She feels as if it is a gift back to the community which has so generously supported her teachings of yoga for the past 25 years.
Kathi
Kathi has been teaching yoga since 2013. She received her 200 hour certification from Josephine with School Yoga Institute and 300 hour certification with Scott Willis of Hits the Spot Yoga. In recent years she has informally studied mantra chanting as inspired by Gretchen/Raji Carmel of the Yoga Space. Her teaching stems from a desire to share the inner and outer benefits of yoga practice and its ability to ground us in the world. Her class is gently paced, seeks to reach each part of the physical body and is consistent week to week to encourage familiarity with poses.
Linda Grace
Linda Grace is new to the Aloha Keene community. She brings us over 35 years of service in the northwest as a holistic health educator. Her yoga and meditation practice began at college in southern California in the 1980’s. She is trained in Beth Shaw’s YogaFit style and taught yoga for college credit at the University of Idaho as well as local community centers since 2007. She is also certified in PilatesFit, which is a great practice to improve posture and core stability. She loves kundalini yoga for its ability to boost vitality and ground inner awareness. After studying Guru Rattana’s Kundalini program, she continued certificate trainings with Guru Singh in Seattle Level II Vitality & Stress, and 21 Stages of Meditation with Krishna Kaur at a six-day intensive at Malibu Sat Nam Fest. To refine her gong skills, she completed Sotantar Suraj’s year-long Gong Avatar Academy in Newport Beach California. She has been teaching Kundalini at yoga studios and health centers since 2017. She is the author of Empath Wellness Workbooks. Her hobbies of swimming with wild dolphins in open oceans, writing earth wisdom songs, and walking in the woods give a natural foundation for all her work.
Mary
What are you certain about? What would you like to unravel or revisit? Mary Hamilton is a Sadhana Yoga School graduate and excited to work towards continued health and wellness with vigor. Classes are devised to prepare for seasonal changes as well as turnarounds in life.
Meenakshi
Meenakshi Moses has been practicing yoga since 1985, and received teacher’s certification (1988) and advanced teacher’s certification (1990) from the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centers. In addition to Sivananda Yoga, she has also studied Ashtanga, Iyengar, and Shadow and Kundalini Yogas.
Pamela
Pamela Bys RN, L.Ac. is the owner of Five Element Acupuncture and is certified as a Qigong practitioner with 20 years of practical experience across the country. Excited to bring her integrated knowledge and experience to the local area. As an RN for over 30 years, QIgong practitioner and Master Acupuncturist for 20 years specializing in Five Element style she incorporates Buddhism and Taoism studies along with holistic health modalities into her professional practices.
Rennae
After practicing yoga for 5ish years and falling in love with all that it entails I then received my 200 hour certification from Josephine with School Yoga Institute 15 years ago. Since then I’ve dabbled in Katonah yoga, qi-gong, Kundalini, mindfulness, meditation and everything and anything in between in search of and uncovering who I am. Although that is still an ongoing journey it is my intention to bring the best version of myself onto the prayer rug with love. Rennae’s favorite quote: ‘’Your task is not to seek for love but to merely find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.’’-Rumi. Let’s move some energy together and let the barriers fall. 💗
Tracy
Tracy completed her yoga teacher training in 2013 at Karuna Center for Yoga & Healing Arts in North Hampton, MA. Each class is a journey of focused and deliberate motion, where students are actively led through poses and also encouraged to explore moving in ways that feel right to them. Students will build strength, greater motor control, and enhanced mind body connection.
Teachers on leave
John
John started his joy-filled yogic journey 25 years ago in a little room above a dance studio in Keene, NH. He is now a certified 200hr Kripalu Yoga Teacher. Through the Giveback Yoga Foundation, he has completed a 100hr certification in Mindful Yoga Therapy for Veterans. He’s learned how to present yoga in jails with the Prison Yoga Project. He’s taught yoga in homes, open fields, yoga studios, corporate board rooms, and jails. He loves yoga. After all these years it still fills him with joy.
Liz
There was a blizzard the day I walked into my first Bikram class in 2005. Most of Washington DC was frozen shut, but the Capitol Hill studio was burning hot. I almost passed out, but I was hooked. I trained in Iyengar yoga simultaneously and taught beginners at my teacher’s studio in Saint Lucia. In 2019 after completing a “26 + 2” training in San Diego, I happily taught at various studios in the Boston area. Then, the world went online, and I dove into a home practice. Over the years, I’ve trained with Jill HagaStrong and Serene is a set sequence of 26 hatha postures and two breathing exercises designed to work every part of the body, promoting physical strength, flexibility, and balance. Additionally this practice can reduce stress, improve focus ad enhance mindfulness.r, Patricia Walden, David Sharpe and hundreds of studio teachers around the world. Every Body deserves to be challenged and stretched. For me, yoga is about the balance between strength and flexibility through exertion and release by combining traditional Hat ha yoga asanas with breathwork. I look forward to seeing you on the mat soon!
Michelle
Michelle brings to her teaching 26 years of experience of practicing yoga. Her eclectic teaching style blends classical philosophy and creative exploration with a flow of asanas infused with long, deep holds designed to provide students with an opportunity to explore mindful awareness of sensation within. Michelle’s upbeat and jovial nature is supported by her daily rituals of self-care which include mantra meditation, yoga, and aromatherapy. Michelle is also Reiki II certified and a holistic esthetician. She enjoys helping people with their wellness and beauty needs. All services she provides are deeply nourishing and restorative. Michelle is a Kripalu certified yoga teacher since 2003 and has also received 3 yoga teacher certifications from The School Yoga Institute. In her classes, you will explore mindful awareness of sensation while strengthening your muscles, improve your flexibility while surrendering into the posture, and experience a state of being leaving you feeling refreshed and renewed. Michelle’s passion for yoga has been driven in part by her love of creative movement and dance as well as influences from the teaching’s of Snatam Kaur, Julie Lusk, Gabby Bernstein, Sean Corne, Raji- Gretchen Carmel, Namadeva- Thomas Ashley Farrand, Yoganad Micheal Carroll, Sharon Gannon, and Jennifer Reis and Stephen Cope.