Matt (No photo)

 

 

 

Michelle (No photo)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yael (No photo)

 

 

Esther (No photo)

 

 

 

1300 Ninth Street NW, Washington DC 20001 (202) 745-1881

Meet the Instructors

Daniel E. Hickman, RYT

Daniel is a nationally certified yoga instructor/educator at the 500-hour level with the Yoga Alliance. He is on faculty at the Nosara Yoga Institute in Costa Rica where he co-teaches the Advanced Interdisciplinary Yoga and Self-Awakening Yoga Teacher Trainings. He is the author of Yoga Beginnings: Cultivating Awareness, a DVD made for every body and mind.

In his past life, Daniel performed for several years as an artist-educator in the theaters of the Barns of Wolf Trap in Vienna, VA, BAPA’s Imagination Stage in Bethesda, MD, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and The Smithsonian Institution’s Discovery Theater in Washington, DC. He has also danced with Maru Montero’s Mexican Folkloric Company, Tony Powell/Music and Movement and attended clown school in Guanajuato, Mexico with Sigfrido Aguilar at El Estudio Busqueda de Pantomia Teatro.

When he is not facilitating a yogic experience somewhere in the world, Daniel likes to find himself high above the earth uniting with nature while rock climbing. His pastimes include Chinese martial arts, writing and drinking tea.

Denise Elizondo

Denise's interest in yoga began in Chicago over ten years ago.  She maintained a regular practice to balance out the challenges of graduate school and heal a back injury.  Since then she has studied various styles of yoga and decided to pursue certification in Vinyasa.  She enjoys teaching classes that challenge the body in order to clear the mind and bring awareness to the connection between the two.  

When not in the studio, Denise runs Aegis Health Professionals, a practice in clinical psychology at Dupont Circle, where she sees clients for psychotherapy and coaching.  With a specialty in Health Psychology, she focuses on helping people adjust to lifestyle changes, coping with stress, health-related issues, and improving quality of life.  Denise ascribes to the philosophy of Joseph Campbell in that that if you "follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be."  In addition to helping people in her profession, Denise pursues interests in yoga, dance and theater as ways of following her bliss.

Donna Aurich

Donna has been practicing yoga for 15 years and teaching for more than 10. Before moving to Washington DC, she taught at fitness centers in Texas and Tennessee. Donna obtained her Sivananda certification in May 2005 from the Stone Door Yoga Retreat Center in Bersheba Springs, Tennessee. Her classes accommodate any age and all fitness levels with special individual attention given to master the series of Asanas.

Matt Weber

Matt has been practicing vinyasa based yoga for the past 10 years. Based out of DC as a management consultant, he has lived and taught yoga on both coasts of the United States, China, and Israel. For the last three years, Matt has been practicing pilates and has incorporated this training as a core element in his yoga regimen.

Michelle Mae

Michelle Mae has been practicing yoga in the Sivananda, Ashtanga, Iyengar and Vinyasa traditions for 11 years, and teaching for the past 3 years. She also teaches meditation and is a practitioner of several yogic and healing traditions, both eastern and western. Michelle believes that yoga doesn't have to be a path of levels and stages, rather a simple opening to the individual experience as it exists in the present; a discovering of yourself, not only in body, but in mind. She teaches and practices for the now, not for the future. Her classes provide a balance of self-awareness and self-discovery by taking students beyond tier limited perceptions, allowing them to connect more deeply with their own authentic power and energy in order to take yoga off the mat and into their lives.

Shannon Tomac

Shannon discovered yoga her first year in college while trying to satisfy a PE credit, and has incorporated her practice into her lifestyle ever since. Her rural background and boundless creativity lends itself to a gentle, hands-on teaching style appropriate for all levels, where each class develops its own unique dynamic. Formal training includes California-based YogaFit and Sivananda.

Suzanne Fortnum

Classically trained in ballet and dance through childhood and early adolescence, Suzanne is no stranger to the joy that movement brings to the body. From the first moment she stepped onto the mat, she fell in love with the peace and solitude that yoga brought into her life. Unlike dance, yoga is not competition but simply allows one to work with and enjoy the authenticity of being in one’s body. Yoga has helped to balance her busy schedule, heal past emotional wounds, and creatively explore her body, mind and spirit.

In October 2007, Suzanne became a certified 200 hour RYT. She studied with Body, Mind, Life Yoga in Sydney, Australia. Suzanne specializes in Hatha, Vinyasa and Restorative yoga, emphasizing the importance of relaxation, self-love, and caring for the self in daily life. She provides students with a warm, comforting environment and her classes incorporate pranayama, structural alignment and meditation. Originally from Toronto, Canada, Suzanne currently resides in Washington DC where she works as a behavioral therapist with autistic children and is actively pursuing a Masters degree in Art Therapy at George Washington University.

Trisha Nakano

Trisha began practicing yoga on a tatami mat while she was teaching in rural Japan eight years ago. Since her time in the rice fields, she has lived and practiced yoga in LA and has been in DC for the past 5 years. Her yoga practice began to become an integral part of her life during her first years of teaching in a DC Public School where she used yoga first as an escape and then as a method to help children (and herself!) with stress in the classroom. In 2005, Trisha completed her 200 hour teacher training at Nosara Yoga Institute with Don and Amba Stapleton in Costa Rica.

From this solid foundation, she has gone on to study Ashtanga Yoga with David Swenson, Children’s Yoga and Integrated Movement Therapy for children. She recently went back to Nosara to assist at an intensive teacher’s training. Her love of yoga and the mind/ body connection brought her to study nutrition and become a holistic health counselor. Combining her passion of yoga, education, children and nutrition, Trisha is now the Wellness Coordinator at a public charter school in DC where she offers yoga and nutritional classes to students, parents and teachers. Through breath, movement and meditation, she hopes to inspire her students to their own inquiry of yoga and find a deeper connection to themselves.

Yael Flusberg

Yael Flusberg is a yoga teacher, writer, and lover of the cooling winds that Autumn brings. 

Esther Holimon (Christian Meditation)

Esther Holimon is an ordained Minister in the United Methodist Church and a graduate of the Howard University School of Divinity. She has been teaching a Christian adaption of an Eastern form of meditation for over 20 years. Intentional breathing is an essential focus in this practice for centering the depth and quality of the meditation experience. Esther welcomes beginners as well as the seasoned meditator as she provides inspirational conversation and instruction designed to help you focus on your spiritual journey and find inner peace.

Patrick Hamilton (Vipassana Meditation)

Patrick Hamilton, has been a student of Buddhism since 1964, and has studied with Ven. H. Gunaratana since 1970. He currently resides in Mount Vernon Square. Ven. Gunaratana came to Washington to teach meditation at the Washington Buddhist Vihara in 1968, and has been the abbot and senior teacher at Bhavana Forest Monastery and Meditation Center in the Shenandoah Valley since 1983.

Patrick does not refer to himself as a meditation teacher—that title, he says, should be reserved for someone with specific training and instruction in the methods of teaching this simple, yet profound practice. Patrick is a guide and group leader who provides an overview of the technique, sets the pace of the sitting and walking, and assists in personal practice development by guiding interest to deeper sources of knowledge.