Liz Buehler Walker (Co-Owner of Yoga High)
liz@yogahighnyc.com
Liz originally hails from Atlanta, Georgia and completed her Vinyasa Yoga teacher training in 2001 at the legendary East Village Yoga center Bhava Yoga with Peter Rizzo. The passion for Yoga and serving others at Bhava was contagious, and since 2001 Liz has been teaching group and private classes in Brooklyn and Manhattan and loving every minute of it.
In addition to extensive work and study with Peter Rizzo, she has studied with well-known Yoga teachers and many "not so well-known" teachers whom she appreciates and values just as much. She continues to study pranayama and meditation techniques with Alan Finger of the ISHTA lineage.
Liz’s background in modern dance feeds directly into her affinity for Vinyasa Yoga. After completing her dance training at the Ailey School, Liz co-founded Gritty Cherries, Inc, a non-profit dance production company where she continues to serve as Managing Director. Her passion for movement, both energetic and physical, motivates Liz in her teaching. She teaches classes that are deep and dynamic, and she loves the human element that is ever present in teaching and running a Yoga studio. Liz is extremely grateful that she and Mel are able to work in a beautiful space filled with kind people each day. |
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Mel Russo (Co-Owner of Yoga High)
mel@yogahighnyc.com
Originally from NYC, Mel began her love affair with Yoga in 1995 while living in Los Angeles and working as a casting director. She started with a 6 day a week Anusara practice where she first felt the Yoga high that made her so happy. Throughout the years she found more of a connection with the style of Hatha Vinyasa and the teachings of Max Strom.
After moving back to NYC in 2000, she received her certification through the Yoga Alliance in 2004. Mel finds knowledge and inspiration from so many wonderful teachers and continues to study and train under the guidance of Max Strom. It was (and still is) through his ethics, compassion, brilliance and pure goodness that Mel feels she really became the teacher she is now. In 2008 Mel began studying meditation and pranayama with Alan Finger of the ISHTA lineage.
While teaching she loves using music, humor and positive encouragement to help students connect with their intention and feels strongly that being "good at yoga" does not mean being able to do an advanced pose.
Mel dreamed of opening up her own yoga studio for years and feels like the luckiest person in the world to have found Liz to share the dream with and to have found a community of students who make every moment worth it.
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Ani Weinstein
Ani learned her first sun salutations from her mother at age five. Yoga emerged as an integral part of her life twenty years later, and her commitment and joy in practicing and teaching continues to grow. Finding resonance with OM Yoga Center’s Buddhist perspective and flowing, creative practice, she completed the Road to OM teacher training in 2006. Ani is also a dancer and has performed and created work in NYC for the past eight years. She brings her love of movement and ideas into her yoga teaching, searching for creative connections between poses, concepts and people.
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Ari Halbert
My first memories of yoga are from childhood, practicing asana alongside my dad, and watching him sit for long periods every morning to meditate. Although trying to manipulate my body into different shapes amused me, the idea of being able to perceive such intangible things as energy movement or psychic impressions went against the grain of my logic at that time. But the concept was a seed that was planted in me–one that began to bloom over a decade later when I gained an affinity for books on Western Esotericism, and found myself learning yoga postures yet again, but this time under the tutelage of many great LA and New York based yogis.
In my classes I strive to help students explore the inner realms though the forms and expressions of the physical body. I enjoy the intellectual stimulation of exploring the intricacies of precise alignment, and at the same time crave the immense sense of freedom that comes when letting those thoughts go to flow organically from movement to movement. It is my opinion that through the grace of the movements of the physical body, one can imbue the same sense of grace and peace within. As above, so below; as without, so within.
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Christy Briggs
Christy first wandered into yoga class while studying Political Science at Boston College. Having no expectations apart from a search for inner peace, somewhere between the initial deep breaths and the final resting pose, a permanent change took hold. As an athlete, activist, artist and social butterfly, Christy loves the challenge and deep creativity of yoga. By facilitating a kind and non-judgmental atmosphere, Christy helps her students let go, have fun, and find a place where they can surprise themselves. She loves the sound of the breath as it fills the body and the room, simultaneously creating an intensely personal and joyfully shared experience.
Christy graduated from Yoga High’s first ever 200 hour teacher training, and is incredibly proud to continue her training in the 300 hour program under the guidance of Liz, Mel and Patricia who continue to encourage and inspire her to delve deeper.
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Katharine Lentini
Katharine first became interested in yoga in 1998 while taking ballet on the Upper West Side in a space shared with a yoga studio. The enthusiasm of the yogis & yoginis as they crowded into the waiting room fascinated her, and compelled her to investigate what yoga was all about. She hoped it could help heal her chronically achy shoulder and calm her racing mind. She fell in love with the familiar movement, the deep breath, and the intense high and soon found that yoga delivered much more than what she had originally hoped for.
Katharine’s 2009 New Year’s commitment was simply “to do more yoga” and in 2010, she completed Yoga High’s 200-hour Teacher Training under the guidance of Mel & Liz. Katharine is excited to gain more knowledge and insight as she continues to train with Mel, Liz, and Patricia during Yoga High’s 300-hour Teacher Training. She always knew she would become a teacher, and while the classroom looks different from what she had originally imagined, Katharine is grateful for the opportunity to make a contribution to the wonderful students who practice at Yoga High. |
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Kristina Pugh
Kristina, known affectionately at Yoga High as Tina, The Mayor of Clinton Street, or Beanie– took her first yoga class in high school after her cello teacher introduced Alexander Technique to help prevent tendonitis. In 2005 Tina moved to NYC to finish her degree in photography & music. She spent a couple of years looking for a Yoga studio to call home until she found Yoga High. It was one day while working at the cafe below the future site of Yoga High that Liz and Mel walked in and found their future Manager.
Tina graduated from Yoga High’s very first 200-Hour and 300-Hour Teacher Trainings in 2009 and 2010. Her background in music, love of movement, and obsession with metaphors informs each of her classes and hopes to yield to her students, and to herself, a natural intelligence and exploration of one’s own body. She finds the human body completely fascinating and the human experience even more magnetizing and inspiring. Kristina is also working on her M.A. in International Affairs and Media Studies and teaches pre-teens and teens photography as a form of self-empowerment and community development through ICP in the South Bronx. She is forever grateful to Mel and Liz for creating a beautiful and accepting environment and truly loves every minute she spends with the Yoga High community.
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Michael McGinley
When the economic downturn curtailed his 20-year career as a creative in publishing, Michael decided to leave the corporate world for good and pursue a career in Yoga and wellness. In 2009 he earned his 200-Hour teaching certification at Sonic Yoga. Currently he is completing his 300-Hour training at Yoga High.
In addition to yoga, Michael also has a keen interest in nutrition, clean food and healthy living and completed the health coaching program at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. He enjoys teaching an energetic class linking breath with movement to a fun playlist.
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Michel Walkley
Michel moved to New York in 1999 after teaching English in Thailand. She had already done her fair share of Yoga, but it wasn’t until she was offered classes by her job at Cornell Medical Center that she became a regular practitioner. She soon craved the calm that followed each practice. Wanting to dig deeper, Michel took the 200-hour teacher training at Yoga High in 2010. During the training, she found joy in teaching, seeing it as the culmination of her eclectic background. Now enrolled in the 300-hour teacher training, Michel remains fascinated by the mysteries of the body, and brings a certain joie de vivre to every class.
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Patricia Milder
Patricia started practicing yoga to help rehab a couple of major knee injuries in high school and college. Like a lot of people, the practice was purely physical for her at first, but eventually she discovered how much deeper it could be. Her classes are always challenging, but they feel good – the emphasis is on fluid movement, intelligent alignment, stability, and grace. She trained through a year long private mentorship and apprenticeship with Charles and Lisa Matkin in Garrison, New York, and she holds a 500hour certification from Yoga Alliance. She teaches Yoga Philosophy and History in the Matkin Yoga Teacher Training, and lectures on Ayurveda and other topics at the Yoga High 200hour Teacher Training. She is a 500hour teacher training mentor at Yoga High, where she coaches yoga teachers in some of the more subtle elements of teaching meditation and pranayama. Patricia is also an art and performance writer and she holds an MFA in Art Criticism and Writing from the School of Visual Arts. She’s continually inspired by teaching yoga, which she sees as the challenge of translating experience into explanation.
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Sara Hubbs
Sara took her first Vinyasa Yoga class in her native Arizona and immediately knew there was something to it. After years of playing competitive sports (and wear and tear on the body), she was in search of something to unite her desire to move with a sense of camaraderie and community. She not only found what she was looking for, but also soon discovered the range of experience Yoga offered, from the playful to the spiritual. As she gradually made her way out East in pursuit of a career as a visual artist, she dabbled at various studios, until landing at Yoga High, where she was introduced to her practice and her community. Since then Yoga seems to be filling her life, as she finally realized that Yoga isn’t something she has to ‘figure out.’ Sara graduated from Yoga High’s very first 200-hour teacher training with the guidance and inspiration of Mel and Liz, and she is so grateful to them for bringing out her desire to teach.
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Sara Little
Yoga found Sara years ago, while working in Italy: a very enlightened friend introduced her to Warrior II on a Tuscan beach, and that undeniable connection between the physical practice of yoga and learning to live peacefully with yourself became apparent. She returned to the U.S. to finish her degrees in Journalism and Italian at Syracuse University (go Orange!), eventually finding herself in a regular yoga practice. She finally settled in the Lower East Side (you might see her walking Bella, a very large German shepherd around the ‘hood) and became certified to teach through YogaWorks under wonderful senior teachers Chrissy Carter and Jodie Rufty. A lifelong athlete, Sara’s teaching style is heavily influenced by the meditative, fluid movements of Ashtanga yoga. Her vision is to make yoga accessible and enjoyable, and is committed to teaching by the words of Judith Lasater: “Practice can be understood as a willingness to return to the reality of this very moment, to observe with dispassion and clarity exactly what is—right now.”
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