Our Teachers
Teachers at The Yoga Room have a wealth of experience and diversity. We are all lovers, practitioners and certified teachers of yoga!
Elissa
Teaching has always been in Elissa’s heart. She was a school teacher by profession for nine years and completed her first yoga teacher training in 2006. With a sense of adventure, she seized the opportunity to connect her love of travel and culture and taught in schools in England, The Middle East, and most recently China. In addition to classroom teaching, she also brought yoga to her students and the communities in which she lived. Self practice and self study are an integral part of her life. Currently, Elissa is continuing her yogic studies with Sarah Powers at the Insight Yoga Institute in San Francisco. Insight Yoga weaves the ancient healing traditions of Yoga, Buddhism, and Spiritual Psychology. Elissa is an intuitive, challenging, and fun loving teacher who makes yogic practices relevant to her students. She aspires to teach her students to live a more meaningful and easeful life.
Darlene
Darlene has been practicing and studying yoga for over 11 years, and honours the practice as the passion of her life. Darlene is a truly gifted and compassionate teacher who aspires to help her students to find their own personal path through their yoga practice. She teaches acceptance of the present through a balance of understanding and humour, all the while facilitating and encourging her students to embrace the growth and change that come from steady practice.
Darlene has studied and practiced with Elissa Ballard, Michelle Sabo, J-P Tamblyn, and has studied and explored Ashtanga yoga with David Robson and David Swenson. She has pursued teacher training in children’s yoga with Shakta Kaur Khalsa, and received training in prenatal yoga with Janice Clarfield.
Kim
Kim has been interested in yoga and Eastern philosophies since her youth. She became interested in Kundalini yoga because of its positive effects on the subtle energy and anatomy of the body. She practices and teaches yoga because of her first-hand experience of its positive benefits and having seen the effects of those benefits on others. The Yoga Room provides a warm, intimate setting for practicing yoga. The class size provides more interaction between student and teacher. The students at the Yoga Room contribute to a welcoming community of others who share the interest in yoga.
Lorie
Lorie is an accomplished singer and high school music teacher who has dabbled in yoga and dance throughout her life. In 2006, she began practicing at the Yoga Room with Suzanne Steel. Suzanne’s expertise and compassionate teaching style inspired Lorie to pursue teacher training at Balanced Life Yoga in Uxbridge. Over the years, she has expanded her studies to pursue her interest in the effects of yoga on health and the nervous system. She has travelled to Kripalu in Massachusetts to study yoga and meditation with Sarah and Ty Powers, founders of the Insight Yoga Institute. This past summer Lorie spent a week in Montreal studying Iyengar and Ashtanga yoga with Hart Lazer and Ramanand Patel. Lorie has two daughters, Kathryn who teaches yoga in Kingston and Lindsay who practices Bikram yoga in Vancouver. Her husband, Brian, has studied meditation with Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg and Mark Coleman.
Andrea
Andrea became a Certified Yoga Teacher in 2006, and has been practicing yoga for over 10 years. Andrea’s teaching style reflects her belief that there is a yoga practice for every body, and that everyone can ‘do’ yoga. Andrea blends her 15+ years of experience working in corporate environments with her passion for practicing and teaching yoga to bring this ancient philosophy and its principles to modern-day students in a language that they can easily understand.
Andrea has continued to deepen her knowledge and understanding of yoga and its teachings by attending classes, workshops, and teacher trainings on a regular basis. Special emphasis has been given to studying and applying the teachings of functional anatomy and movement as developed by Susi Hately Aldous, Canada’s leading expert in yoga therapy.
Jody
Jody joins The Yoga Room community having been involved in competitive sport from a very early age. She has competed internationally for Canada in trampoline and has had the privilege of being 3 time national synchro trampoline champion. These intense athletic experiences taught Jody the importance of focus and visualization, but she recognized that she was looking for more. 8 years ago Jody attended her first yoga class at the local gym and was hooked. The transition to Yoga came naturally to Jody, building on the strength and flexibility already so inherent in her body. But it wasn’t until she found The Yoga Room that she really ‘got’ yoga. Through her classes and teacher Jody’s practice developed, deepened, and became regular. Wanting to pursue a deeper connection with the practice, Jody took the plunge in 2008 and began a 200-hour teacher training certification. Having completed her training, Jody is thrilled to have the opportunity to share her knowledge and her passion for yoga with the students of The Yoga Room.
“Through teaching I hope to give students a well rounded practice and a sense of peace and contentment when they leave.”
Marisa
Marisa is extremely passionate about helping others to attain a better quality of life. After many years of suffering with anxiety and a stiff and sore body, she attended a yoga class and knew instantly she had opened up a door to a powerful and effective world, where healing oneself naturally was possible. After completing her certification in the 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training at Balanced Life Yoga School Marisa felt there was still more to learn and has since acquired her Reiki Master certification and taken workshops in Yoga Therapy. Recently she completed a specific Yoga Therapy module on Spine injury, as well as using yoga to release mental and physical injury and suffering. Marisa believes wholeheartedly that her true dharma ( divine mission) in life is to “Spread the love” and help people realize their full potential.
