Email us! Check us out on Yelp! Check out our Blog! Follow us on Twitter! Connect with us on Facebook!

Yoga @ Noon


This class is taught by:

Sandi Mende

Sandi's passion for yoga developed at Downtown Yoga. The warm supportive environment and physical benefits achieved while practicing fed her desire to learn more. She completed the 200 hour Advanced Studies Program in June of 2012 and is a registered yoga instructor through Yoga Alliance. She enjoys sharing her knowledge of Iyengar yoga and the benefits that come with having a daily yoga practice

She enjoys living in Livermore with her husband and two sons (which are currently away in college). She also enjoys running and hiking, followed by a great yoga session!

Judy Brennan

Judy Brennan is a Health and Wellness Educator. She completed her 500 hour advanced yoga studies with Kate & Jim Coughlin. She has studied with Dr.Deepak Chopra and his staff of physicians and educators completing Chopra Center for Well Being certifications in Primordial Sound Meditation and the Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga. Judy's passion for teaching yoga started with children and teens. She is a Certified YogaKids International Teacher receiving her children and teens training with YogaKids founder Marsha Wenig. She served on the YogaKids Advisory Board and was a Mentor and Teacher Trainer for the YogaKids certification process for 6 years. Judy loves the depth of learning that comes with yoga and is constantly renewing her practice with the many influential yoga and spiritual teachers throughout the country. Her love for yoga has taken her as far as Haiti to train adults to bring yoga into the schools. She feels fortunate to have found her passion and turned it into her life’s work.
Judy is certified to teach mindfulness, meditation, and yoga to children, teens, adults, those with special needs, seniors, and at risk youth.
RYT500, E-RYT200, CYKT, RCYT, MBA
www.YogaforLife.guru

Elisa Mott

Elisa discovered her passion for teaching and pedagogy as a dance minor at Appalachian State University in North Carolina. While integrating various styles of yoga into her practice, she stays true to her original training roots and fully embodies the Kripalu motto of “meditation in motion” in each of her classes. Elisa is an E-RYT 500 and most recently completed her 300 Hour training at Downtown Yoga with Kate Coughlin. She is a Master Reiki healer and has Masters and Specialist degrees in Mental Health Counseling, a certificate in Spirituality and Health and Arts in Medicine and is a published author and national speaker on yoga, body image and eating disorders. Her educational background, compassion and belief in the transformative power of yoga allow her to lead a healing yet challenging class for all levels. In her class, you will be inspired to slow down, deepen, breathe and truly be present.

Mary Monahan

Mary wants to share the healing, transformative power of yoga with others. She was introduced to yoga when her physician recommended it as a way to help recover from cancer. Long since cancer free, she continued to deepen her yoga practice through movement and breath, graduating from the 200-hour Advanced Studies program with Kate and Jim Coughlin in June 2011. Mary is passionate about Iyengar-inspired yoga because its emphasis on good form and alignment is essential to avoiding injury and increasing strength. She strives to create an open, positive space where students are free to explore the mind, body and spirit, in the most compassionate way possible.

Shawna Scizak

Early in life Shawna began exploring the benefits of exercise, particularly those associated with improved emotional and mental wellbeing. She worked in the fitness industry for seven years, taught exercise classes, and was certified by several nationally recognized exercise organizations. Although acquainted with the basics of yoga, it wasn’t until 2008 that she discovered a teacher who inspired her into a deeper appreciation of the practice and revealed that what she had always sought at the gym was actually waiting for her in the yoga studio. Yoga has turned out to be the mind, body, spirit connection that she’d been seeking and so, in 2010, she graduated from Brentwood Yoga Center's Advanced Yoga Studies Program and became certified with the Yoga Alliance. She also took her pursuit of yoga half way around the world when she accompanied Jim, Kate, and her teacher Sandy on their spectacular retreat to India. As a student first and a teacher second, she hopes to use her knowledge and enthusiasm to bring the life changing benefits of yoga to others. She currently lives in Discovery Bay with her husband, Mike, and two dogs, Jazmine and Bodhi.

Dagmar Landel

As a practicing psychologist in Vienna, Austria, Dagmar Emperger-Landel found a deep interest in the body-mind balance. Moving to Encinitas, California in 1998, Dagmar practiced both yoga and seated mediation, and studied in the Viniyoga tradition which emphasizes watching the mind and opening the heart during practice for a full experience of awareness and stillness. Dagmar received her Advanced Studies Program Certificate from Downtown Yoga in Pleasanton with an Iyengar-oriented approach that focuses on correct body alignment, using props like blocks and straps to allow all practitioners access to the benefits of the postures regardless of physical condition, age, or experience. Dagmar encourages her students to explore awareness, being present and connected with their bodies to balance life and relieve stress. When not engaging in yoga and meditation, Dagmar enjoys outdoors activities including hiking and surfing, working with her hands creating beautiful things, and traveling with her two teenage daughters, husband and spirited dog Kai.
Come in for a great "lunchtime" yoga practice. The practice will run 1 hour and 15 minutes, from noon to 1:15 p.m. Just enough time to get your mind and body "reset" for the rest of the day!