Teachers
Fernanda Lila Trecenti (Lila) was first introduced to yoga in 1996 while still living in Brazil. Working as a lawyer at that time, yoga brought balance to her stressful lifestyle. In the years since, the practice of yoga gradually became her guiding light, essential to staying strong and present.
Moving to Australia was the catalyst for a career shift towards the path of yoga. Lila completed her Advanced Diploma of Yoga Teaching with the Australian Yoga Academy, guided by Dominique Santana Salerno. Furthermore, she has been blessed with the opportunity to study with many advanced international teachers: Nicky Knoff, Noah Mazé, Tara Judelle, Simon Borg-Olivier, Sharon Gannon, David Life, Yogeswari, Mark Withwell and John Friend.
Lila’s teaching style is a mixture of the many paths of Hatha Yoga she has studied. Her classes are dynamic, strong and heart-infused, inviting students to find stillness and surrender, strength and stability on and off the mat. She has also trained in yoga therapeutics with John Friend, founder of Anusara Yoga. Through the therapeutic focus, yoga postures are used to realign the body towards its optimal blueprint, improving energy flow and allowing healing to take place.
Lila is a member of Yoga Australia (formerly the Yoga Teachers Association of Australia - YTAA).
Anahata Giri's love of yoga and meditation has spanned 23 years and she has been teaching for 7 years. In her first yoga class at nineteen, she knew she had found ‘home’. Anahata explores a wide range of yoga practices to not only bring life to the body, heart and mind but to bring us home to our innate wholeness. Her approach to asana and flowing movement is both dynamic and mindful and explores embodiment, the breath and deep alignment principles. Her classes also explore meditation as the essence of yoga and as a way to fully embrace life itself. When we bring our awareness to the full presence of each moment, then a deep ease and inspiration naturally arises. Anahata is a member and a Victorian Representative of The Yoga Teachers Association of Australia (YTAA).
See also www.yoga-with-anahata.com.au
Patrick Glennan has been practicing yoga for over ten years and teaching for four. He completed teacher training in 2004 and continues to study and pursue a diverse range of practices, including Tai chi and meditation. In dealing with his own condition of scoliosis, Patrick has explored ways of doing asana that respond to individual difference. As part of this process he has found the principles of the Vijnana style of yoga particularly useful, principles that encourage individuals to find the form and intensity of posture appropriate to their own condition.
Katie de Araujo's love of yoga began in 1996 at her first yoga class. The experience of asana - effort becoming infused with stillness and alignment bringing a deep centring - became a touchstone for everyday living. She practiced Iyengar and Sakshin Gatashtha yoga then graduated from the Advanced Diploma of Yoga teaching in 2007 and the Graduate Certificate in Yoga Therapy in 2009. She has been teaching full time since 2007. "My comittment is to yoga in every day, in the minutia of life. Yoga is there in sitting, breathing, talking, thinking. It is always available, always ready to fill me up, lift my spirits and open my heart. I want to share this possibility with my students and the people I know."
Katie also specializes in prenatal yoga. Her prenatal classes are a time for women to be with their bodies, their babies and their thoughts about pregnancy and their new life ahead. Breath practices are used to calm and centre, sound vibrations allow an opening of awareness to the inner spaces of the body and to self expression, flowing movements focus on preparation for birth. Katie educates on pelvic floor, optimal foetal position, and daily posture.
Jess Neave first discovered healing power of yoga & meditation when she broke both of her arms as a teenager. Resolving to quieten the frustrated mind and use energy work to aid rapid repair she entered a life long love and understanding of the subtler layers of human existence. Having spent her whole life competing in extreme sports and intensive acrobatic training - turning her discipline to studying Hatha Yoga seemed the next logical step. From the age of 17 to 25 Jess studied under many teachers in many styles, including Iyengar and Ashtanga before traveling to India to become a Teacher in the Sivananda Tradition, studying under the guidance of the highly revered Swami Suddhananda. Since then, she has revisited the Suddhananda Ashram to assist in the Teacher Training programs held there annually. Jess has also done intensive training with Austrian Pranayama specialist Venu Gopala Mueck and Prenatal Yoga teacher training with internationally respected Janice Clarfield. Jess views yoga as a constantly moving ever evolving practise that empowers us to live more consciously. Her classes encourage discovering the stillness within as she guides students through an eclectic, joyful and physically dynamic vinyasa style.
Isabelle Skaburskis, originally from Canada, comes to Gertrude Street Yoga from Cambodia where she established Krama Yoga, Cambodia’s first yoga studio and a yoga therapy organization for young people who struggle with the symptoms of trauma and generational poverty. www.yogacambodia.com
Isabelle balances technique and fluidity of movement in her classes, drawing from two distinct traditions of yoga. From Hart Lazer, www.hartlazer.com student of Ramanand Patel, Isabelle brings a strong technical focus that teaches students how to approach and understand the vocabulary of their own bodies; from Diane Long and Paddy McGrath, Isabelle brings the practice into the spine, seeking freedom of movement and creativity that emanates from the center outward. Yoga is an art form: as artists, first we must become familiar with our medium, and then can we can use it to reveal the truth of who we are.
Margaux Lovett is an inspired Yoga practitioner, Yoga teacher/lecturer and Occupational Therapist and has worked in the health industry for more than 7 years. She is a professional member of both the Yoga Teachers Association and the Occupational Therapy Association.
Margaux’s Hatha Yoga journey started in London where she made the decision to give yoga a go to balance out the fast paced city life and stressful job. Initially she noted the positive physical transformations to chronic ailments she had lived with for many years due to stress and poor posture. Starting with a traditional Sivananda teaching she completed courses in asana, meditation and yogic psychology, once she returned to Australia after a detour to India to immerse herself in traditional yogic teachings.
Margaux teaches a balanced class of flowing vinyasa from traditional Ashtanga asana sequences as well as pranayama, meditation and savasana. Due to Margaux’s experience working in occupational health, Margaux teaches from a western anatomical and physiological perspective with a weave of eastern esoteric philosophy.
Ingide Jolley discovered yoga at the age of seventeen and quickly found it to be an essential part of her life, assisting her to process significant life events, addressing health issues and managing self care working in the Social Work profession.
Over the past eleven years Ingrid has been committed to practicing yoga from a range of teachers and yoga styles including: Hatha, Anusara, Iyengar and Ashtanga.
Ingrid has completed an Advanced Diploma in Yoga Teacher Training at the Australian Yoga Academy guided by Dominique Santana Salerno and is currently undertaking a Graduate Certificate in Yoga Therapy.
Ingrid has a dynamic approach to teaching yoga, drawing from different styles which stem from the Hatha tradition. The practice of Asana, Pranayama and Meditation are taught to assist with building strength, flexibility, grounding and relief from physical and mental tension. Through connecting the breath with movement Ingrid encourages a mindful practice and endeavours to teach yoga as a life practice that can be applied to every day living.
Sam Burke was originally introduced to yoga through the Iyengar method and currently practises in the Ashtanga style. She is also drawn to the spiritual dimension that inevitably manifests through one’s immersion in the beauty of the ‘now’, present in all lived experience.
She comes to Gertrude Street with a strong background in dance, music and the visual arts and coins yoga as the aligning component for all of her creative practices. Sam looks for the playful artistic expression within the yoga practice, which she describes as ‘the most beautiful art form of all’.
Jodie Murray was first introduced to Yoga in 1997 and has explored many styles from Sakshin Ghatastha, Ashtanga & Somachi with her primary training in Vinyasa flow.
For as long as she can recall she has had equal passion for health/wellness and the Arts.
Outside of Yoga she gets sense of aliveness, self expression and freedom through playing her guitar and regular 5Rhthyms classes which both lend themselves to compliment her yoga practice, adding flavor to her teaching style.
Jodie aims that students find their own freedom and flow through the class, to become energized by their breath and inspired by the music. She is passionate about sharing her knowledge and love for yoga with mindfulness, recognizing each student as an individual.
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