After developing her personal practice for eight years, Jessica received her 200 hour and 500 hour Yoga Certifications through Moksha Yoga Center in 2011 and 2012. She has studied with over 30 renowed master teachers and blends their teachings into an electic yet unifed style. As a medical student and neuroscientist, Jessica also draws on her extensive training in anatomoy, physiology, kinesology, and psychology to take students deeper into their bodies and the subtle relams of their minds.
Julie grew up in Moline, Illinois, and found dancing and creative writing to be her passion at a young age. After discovering a love and flair for teaching high energy dance and fitness classes, she graduated from Illinois State with a major in Exercise Science. Upon graduating and moving to Chicago, Julie has worked as a personal trainer and group fitness instructor, feeling blessed to inspire people to be healthy and happy. She once assisted a client in losing 40 pounds in 12 weeks, positively changing the woman’s life forever.
After popping into Moksha for a change of scenery and taking her first yoga class with Amber Cook, Julie knew she wanted to explore the world of yoga.
She enrolled in the Moksha teacher training program to build upon her fitness resume, not knowing it would transform her life and career intentions. She has now traded her pompoms for sun salutations and was blessed to travel to India for a month with a couple beloved friends from her teacher training group. Julie is loving teaching yoga, leading challenging physical classes but also has found a love in connecting with students. She has found a special home as the resident yoga instructor at Arts of Life, where she teaches yoga to adults with disabilities. The light and love that radiates from these dear yogis has been a powerful influence in Julie’s yoga path.
Come to Julie’s vinyasa class prepared to sweat and smile as you mindfully move with grace and power. Expect interesting flows blended with intense restorative stretches that will leave your body feeling fulfilled and open.
Kathie has been studying and practicing yoga since 1997 and has completed teacher training. She completed teacher training courses with Moksha Yoga Center, Ana Forrest and Tim Miller and has also studied with a variety of master yoga teachers.
Kathie is drawn to yoga because it purifies and integrates body, mind, and spirit. In her classes, she draws on her studies with master teachers, emphasizing a flowing series of strengthening poses and breathing to open the mind and body. Kathie also studies Thai Yoga Therapy and is a health care attorney by profession.
Once upon a time, an 8-year-old named Katie Thomas walked into her family’s living room only to find her father, post-jog, doing some weird looking stretchy things. Perplexed, she asked him what the heck he was doing, to which he replied, “Yoga.” Katie thought to herself, “My dad is weird.”
Since then, Katie has changed her yogic tune. She took her first class in 2004, and has been hooked ever since.
Through warmth, humor, and a strong commitment to remaining down-to-earth and accessible, Katie creates a space where students can work toward finding their true selves. In her classes, you can expect to be led through asana, pranayama, and meditation, with a focus on finding the beautiful balance between strength and lightness, between stability and motion, between alignment and freedom. Katie has a background in improvisational theatre so her teaching style is infused with a sense of play and whimsy. She believes that setting sankalpas (intentions), then consistently nurturing them on and off the mat brings concrete, undeniable changes to our lives.
To this day, Katie loves her dad and all his weirdness. She hopes to continue to live happily ever after.
“When firmly established in integrity, all riches present themselves freely.”
Yogasutra 11.37
Kristin began doing yoga while living and working in southern Spain. She was helping to start a company and was very stressed. A friend of hers recommended a yoga class to her saying, “if you do yoga consistently and over time, it will change your life.” As her practice grew she began to feel and see the affects in her daily life and in her relationships, and began to feel the transformation of yoga. She says, “In yoga, we connect to our inner light, essence, or soul, and learn that the answers to our questions cannot be found outside of ourselves. We turn inside to find that we hold the answers inside of us.”
Kristin is a certified yoga teacher and completed her teacher training program through Moksha Yoga. She teaches vinyasa, a type of yoga which synchronizes breath to movement resulting in a dynamic and flowing class.
In class, Kristin aspires to help her students in discovering and living the consistent transformation that is yoga. Her classes are vinyasa-inspired with a focus on pranayama. As a teacher she is inspired by Iyengar principals of alignment, the physical challenges of Astanga, and the balancing principals and breath techniques of Tantra. Expect to move through a challenging class, and leave feeling balanced and refreshed.
Lance Hoagland has been a teacher of yoga for over 10 years, studying yoga with a variety of teachers and styles. Lance has completed his 200hr Teacher Training Certification with Moksha Yoga Center in Chicago, IL. Having spent 2 months practicing Astanga Yoga in India last year, he has been influenced by the teachings of Ansuara and Power/Vinyasa Flow Yoga. Lance has taught in Salt Lake City, Seattle, New York and Costa Rica. Lance is a certified AFAA personal training instructor and was the lead yoga instructor at the acclaimed Canyon Ranch SpaClub in Las Vegas before moving to Chicago.
Laura has been practicing yoga steadily since 1996, originally as a means to ’escape’ the chaos and flux of her personal life. Over the years, her yoga saw a transformation from the idea of ’checking out’ of daily life to one of ’checking in’ to one’s capacity for self-knowledge and centering.
The base of her yoga experience lies in the Iyengar method, which establishes a keen awareness of proper alignment and posture in asana. However, her discovery of the art of yoga would begin when she stumbled upon Astanga, Vinyasa, and Universal Yoga - each of which emphasizes a progressive flow/sequence of asana to open to deeper possibilities. Through realization of the physical benefits of yoga, Laura eventually became intrigued with the science of yoga and started exploring the sacred texts, which provided a refreshing outlook on life and the interconnectedness of all beings. Those aspects are incorporated into her eclectic Vinyasa teaching style, which Laura describes as creative, compassionate, challenging, and inquisitive. “I like to lead a class with a balance of the physical and psychological, the spiritual and the perceptually real. My main focus as an instructor is to engage the mind in the moment, and encourage students to individualize the teachings, to remove any obstacles that keep them from feeling or enjoying their practice. It’s also not uncommon to develop a healthy sweat during a vigorous class!"
Certified and formally trained through Moksha Yoga Center’s teacher training program, Laura has been instructing since 2001. Designing a lifestyle that nurtures expression, growth and creative endeavors has been crucial to her as a working artist and graduate of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Laura was a founding member of TENbyTEN magazine, a Chicago-based arts and culture magazine that is independently published and the dwellingseries, which strives to provide alternative viewing experiences in unique settings for artists. She is also a vegan who manages a Whole Foods Market store, a job with the pace, stress, and responsibility that she claims provides ample opportunity to exercise the principals of yoga in a public forum. “I feel fortunate to be in a position to affect so many people (corporately and in the community) with my positivity, shoppers and employees alike, and I’ve learned a lot about human nature working in a grocery store for 10 years.”
Laura’s favorite things Pose: Ekapada Rajakapotasana ~ King Pigeon Mudra - Sanmuki ~ Closing off the Senses Yoga Soundtrack ~ tablas or downtempo Influential Artists ~ Robert Rauschenberg and Antoni Tapies Treat ~ dark chocolate
Let your Inner Light radiate upon others so that you may see your beauty reflected in the world.