Canadian Yogi Authors

Mahan Khalsa CYA-E-RYT500

I’m Mahan. I’m a down to earth, reach for the skies wildly spirited woman. I spent over a decade of my life travelling the world. The winds of change and the impulses of my heart were my guide. It’s amazing how expansive we feel in those exhilarating moments of our life. I was blessed to explore a myriad of cultures, traditions, healing modalities and really learn over time, the value of slowing down, tuning in and prioritizing myself and my deeper callings. 

For almost 2 decades, I’ve turned my life into art, work, play & exploration. From creating whole food snacks and an organic restaurant, to facilitating over 3,000 yoga classes, workshops and retreats, I’ve personally and professionally evolved over time to offer my gifts to the world in a way that feels meaningful and authentic. Currently, I run a thriving holistic coaching business online and in Vancouver, BC where I live with my daughter close to the beach.
 

http://myinnergyyoga.com/?name=MahanKhalsa

Brett Wade PhD, CYA-RYT200

Brett is a physiotherapist, author, public speaker, yoga teacher, yoga studio owner, and college professor. He has practiced meditation for 25 years, and has researched mindfulness and mediation for 10 years. Brett practiced physiotherapy around North America and now practices part-time in Kelowna. Brett owns The Ekahi Center for Yoga and Mindfulness where he teaches meditation and hatha classes. Brett, and his wife Siri, also own the North American School of Yoga Science and offer 200 and 300 hour yoga teacher training. Dr. Wade is the author of Ekahi Method: Master the Waves of Life and is nearing completion of his second book on spirituality. 

www.ekahimethod.com www.ekahicenter.com

778-214-1272; 250-763-7603

https://twitter.com/drbrettwade

Liliane Najm, CYA-RYT300, Reiki Master

I graduated as a certified teacher of Hatha Yoga with the School of Hatha and Raja Yoga Studies in Toronto in 2002. I completed a Meditation Teacher training with the OM-Line Yoga and Ayurveda; Yoga for Seniors with Breathe Yoga Studio; and a Core Confidence Specialist with Bellies Inc.  
While holding a full-time administration job, I am completing the wonderful Yoga Wellness Educator online training with YogaU Online. 

I like helping others to achieve wellness and well-being through the sciences of yoga practice, mindful movement, breathing techniques, and meditation.
 

You may reach me at liliane_najm@yahoo.ca or @LilianeNajm. https://lilianenajm.wordpress.com/about/

  Gopala Amir Yaffa CYA-E-RYTGOLD, CYA-RYSGOLD

Gopala has been connecting people through yoga for over 22 years now. His unique style of interactive social yoga has won the hearts of thousands of people all around the world.

Gopala have trained over 12,000 yoga teachers through his Rainbow Kids Yoga, Rainbow Partner & Community Yoga and 200/300 hour Yoga Specialty Teacher Trainings.

Gopala is passionate about creating beautiful shapes while doing group yoga together in a circle, and is always endeavoring to create new ways to bring people closer together in body, mind and spirit through yoga.

www.rainbowyogatraining.com

Info@rainbowyogatraining.com

Natalie Forrest PhD, CYA-RYT-E-Gold

Natalie couldn’t have chosen a better last name for herself. It perfectly expresses the importance of nature in her yogic practice (and her life)!

She began learning yoga in the late 90s. She was searching for stability and a deeper understanding of herself, and she found both in yoga. Natalie loved the physical aspects of it, but what really spoke to her was the insight it offered, the contemplation, the techniques to focus her mind and be more present, and the ability to access breath when she needed to. In short, she loved the entirety of yoga. Most importantly, the practice gave her a language for something that she was already feeling. Natalie didn’t fit herself into yoga, she was already a fit.

At about the same time, she began her foray into Applied Eco-Psychology and, after a decade of study, in 2016 Natalie earned her Ph.D in Applied Eco- Psychology from Akamai University. She has written a text and guide-book called Yoga With Nature that she is self-publishing this year in conjunction with an e-course “Conversations With Nature”.

www.movingwell.ca

www.conversationswithnature.com

Terrilee Bulger, CYA-RYT 200

Terrilee has studied under Jody Manley, Manju Jois, Greg Tebbs and other notable teachers in the Ashtanga Lineage. She has a wealth of knowledge, tempered with compassion, derived from her own years of practice as a student of the Ashtanga Yoga Vinyasa system.

Over the years, Terrilee has attended Manju Jois’s Ashtanga Therapy teacher training workshops, which have enhanced her knowledge with the use of yoga and pranayama as healing modalities.

Terrilee's Website: http://www.ashtangapracticespace.com

  Krysta Close CYA-RYT 200

In 2007, Krysta limped away from a Division 1 volleyball scholarship with a bum knee and the knowledge that workouts only “counted” if they left her in need of an ice bath and a tens unit. It took years of yoga for her to release this toxic ideology. She returned home to Florida to complete her B.A. in English Literature at USF. The campus has a beautiful gym and she spent every lunch break there learning yoga from her own body. Soon she was teaching a vigorous Vinyasa every day and loving it. 

Her senior year, Krysta lost her favorite literature professor to complications of heart failure. She was suddenly struck with the realization that despite yoga’s powerful illness preventative qualities, sometimes more is needed. She graduated and spent the next 5 academic years completing her Bachelor of Health Sciences and Masters of Oriental Medicine at EWCNM. After graduating with honors, she was overcome with the desire to go to China to see what an integration of Eastern and Western medicine could look like. Krysta planned a ten-month trip, beginning at the hospital in Huang Zhou that her mentor had run for years. It was incredible and she ended up living and studying in China for almost 5 years, returning to the West with a new language and a new family.

They moved to BC in October of 2018 and have finally found their forever home in the Okanagan Valley. Krysta teaches blended modalities courses in Sunderland and Penticton that combine Traditional Chinese Medicine, many branches of yoga, Reiki, Qi Gong and Tai Qi. She is working through the re-licensing process to practice acupuncture in BC so that they can open their own clinic.  

Continuing Education has long become a habit of hers and her next steps are to complete the Reiki Master course as well as complete her prenatal yoga teacher training.

Maya Machawe CYA-RYTGOLD

Maya has been practicing yoga for over 30 years. As an Indian yogini, she was born to a yoga teaching tradition.  After graduating from university, she married an Iranian psychologist/yogi and immigrated to Iran in 1984. Maya started her first yoga classes in Tehran one year later.

She and her husband developed the Cyclic Yoga style of teaching in1986. Cyclic Yoga is an art of sequencing yoga asana, pranayama, mudra, bandha and kriya techniques to maximize the health benefits and to energize body and mind. Maya leads yoga therapy classes incorporating techniques of Cyclic Yoga as part of a complementary therapy plan in physical healing and mental health. In 1997, she also founded, in Tehran, Payam Mehr international yoga center where she teaches the 8 limbs of Asthanga Yoga in Farsi and English. 

www.cyclic-yoga.com info@cyclicyoga.ca

  Lisa Sullivan CYA-RYT 200

Lisa has lived most of her life in Calgary but had the opportunity to spend most weekends in the freedom of the nearby Rocky Mountains where she found a passion for adventure and play. Always surrounding herself in nature, she has worked as an arborist since 2008. Having taken up the practice of yoga in 2010, Lisa did her Yoga Teacher Training in 2012 as an exercise in self-care and personal growth, teaching casually after having her daughter Pepper in 2013. 

In order to treat back pain that persisted through and after childbirth, Lisa took up aerial yoga but ended up loving it for the sense of play and freedom, much like that of spending time in nature. She has since felt compelled to make time to share her passion for adventure, yoga, and play and started her company TerraSoul in 2017 as an avenue to do this. Through TerraSoul, Lisa teaches Vinyasa Yoga, Aerial Yoga, Kids Yoga and guides Yoga hikes. Lisa feels that yoga, adventure, and play create space in the mind and body that can be harnessed as a catalyst to a feeling of oneness and a realization of purpose. It is her aim is to create and hold space for others where they can benefit from these practices. 

B.Sc. Earth Science

Registered Consulting Arborist (ASCA)

Certified Hiking Field Leader (OCC)

Yves  Panneton is a CYA-RYT Gold member of the Canadian Yoga Alliance. He was  introduced to yoga at the age of 5 years when his parents went on a  yoga vacation camp in Val Morin, Quebec. Yves has over 30 years of  experience in the practice of yoga. Over the years, he completed his  Teacher Training Course, Advance Teacher Training Course and an Sadhana  Intensive Course during which he practiced for two weeks under the  guidance of a guru. 

Juliana Lavell  CYA-E-RYT500

Juliana is a soul searching, mantra singing artist, yogini and mother bear to her daughter, Jada. She travels the world sharing her love for yoga, aerial yoga and plant medicine through retreats and teacher trainings. 

www.julianalavell.com

Instagram: @yogini_unicorn777

Email: Intothemysticyoga11@gmail.com 

Lisa Vohsemer CYA-RYT 200

Lisa has been practicing yoga for over 15 years and is a CYA-E-RYT200 registered yoga teacher in Cambridge, Ontario. Yoga has been a significant part of her life, one that has provided both balance and support throughout the many challenges.

She is married with two children and has a lovely dog who gets her outside into nature every day. She believes that yoga is truly the path to youthful living.

Gayatri Pathak

CYA-RYT 200 | Reiki Master

Gayatri is a certified yoga instructor and a Reiki Master. She was certified in early 2018 (CYA-RYT 200). Her intention is to teach traditional and modern yoga to the community and guide people on their individual spiritual journeys. She opened a home studio, Yoga4U – The Yoga and Reiki Centre, in April 2018. Her studio helps people who constantly feel overwhelmed and as if something positive is missing from their lives. It is a haven where people go to transform their lives with yoga, pranayama, meditation and Reiki. She also teaches yoga in corporate offices.

www.Yoga4U.blog

gpathak13@gmail.com

647-628-8241

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/yoga4ublog/

Face Book : https://www.facebook.com/Yoga4ublog

Darlene is a teacher of energetic healing practices and yoga. She owns and operates Sancti Wellness Studio in Peachland, BC. She has helped develop legislation for species at risk, wildlife, forests and the environment. She is currently on the Mayor’s task force on Climate Change and Healthy Water Sheds. She also volunteers with the Peachland Wellness Center where she co-facilitates an “Energy for Wellness” program and is the facilitator of the Community Gardens.

In 2017, she won Peachland’s first Green Citizen Award for her design and build of a healthy, energy efficient home and for her work with numerous organizations to promote sustainable gardening in the Okanagan. 

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Helen Maupin CYA-E-RYT500

Helen is passionate about transforming fear into love — from her, for her, for all. She expresses her commitment to transformation through writing poetry, self-awareness and yoga books, co-designing organizations into adaptive enterprises and deepening her daily meditation and yoga practices.

Helen maintains her yoga practice and Yoga Actions Teacher Training programs deeply enrich her transformational journey and provide a much-loved spiritual community. For a listing of her weekly "Right to Joy" blogs, Free Press yoga articles, awareness and writing programs or other books, visit www.righttojoy.com.

Claire Gordon, CYA-RYT 500

Claire is a Canadian born writer, artist and student of yoga. Her love for travel took her to India, where she completed her 500hr Yoga Teacher Training. Claire’s inquisitive nature guides her, and drives her desire to continuously expand her knowledge. She is trained in mindfulness meditation and enjoys a daily practice of stillness. When she’s not on her mat, Claire can be found with her nose in a book or exploring the mountain ranges of her own backyard.  

  Karin Moir, CYA-RYT 200 

Karin lives in beautiful Bright's Grove, Ontario. She started her yoga journey when she was a teenager. She always saw life differently than most and always lived her life fully and completely, being present. Now in her 50s, she feels better than ever and it is yoga, personal development and personal care that has led her this far. She decided to get her certification as a yoga teacher through DevaTree, a Canadian Yoga Alliance school in London, Ontario in June 2018 and is looking forward to where this journey will take her.

Heather Cairns-Hodgson, CYA-RYT 200 

Heather is the Yoga Booty, Smoothie Drinking, Self Love-Up Guru — A certified Yoga Health Coach, Registered Yoga Teacher, Author & Wellness Professional with over 25 years experience in the wellness Industry. She teaches online & in-person programs, classes & workshops from her studio in mid-northern Ontario. You can connect with Heather through her website at www.selfloveupguru.com and become your own self love-up guru!

Ashley Bergeron CYA-RYT200

Ashley is a yoga student and teacher. She has been practicing yoga for eight years and has been teaching for two years. She has completed a 200-hour Hatha program and Yin Yoga training. She has also obtained two Chair Yoga certificates. She believes yoga is not just a physical practice but also a state of mind. Yoga has become a huge part of her life and has helped her grow in every way. She has decided to commit her life to sharing the knowledge she has learned from yoga to help benefit her students, physically, mentally and spiritually. 

Marian McNair CYA-RYT 200, MATC, MFA 

Marian has worked with sound and vibrational healing for over 20 years and has produced four CDs which compliment her teaching. Marian has also taught and studied many forms of yoga for over 30 years. Her wellness presentations combine her extensive yoga background with the fundamentals of the ancient healing art of crystal bowl vibrational sound therapy. Marian leads group and private yoga and sound healing classes as well as presenting workshops on the science of vibrational sound healing. Marian presents these events to women’s groups, and at ceremonies and celebrations.

www.cellularharmonies.com