YOGA Instructors~
All of our instructors are passionate about yoga. They bring a joy of the practice with them to each class and knowledge to keep each student safe as they help you build a new practice or evolve your regular practice.
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Are you a certified yoga teacher passionate about yoga? Do you have a service, healthy workshop or other specialty you would like to share with our community and in our space? Email Jodi Ryba, Owner, at jodi@islandwaveyoga.com with details!
Jodi Ryba, IWY Owner & RYT 200
Amanda Masterpaul, RYT 200 ~ Amanda received her 200RYT certification from Yoga in Common, in Myrtle Beach, SC. She is a proud mother of a lovely (full of light) son, black lab and is supported by a “jack of all trades” husband. She states, “I found yoga first as a physical discipline, like many of us do. After some time, I started to embrace that what was really changing in me was my mind and heart. My home in yoga resides in finding the union of mind, body and soul. Yoga has offered me the opportunity to grow with myself, my family, and our community. I’m a peace-loving momma with a fantastically supportive husband and through all that yoga has become the glue that binds together my life on and off the mat. In my classes, I want to offer a safe space for you to explore, embrace and enjoy your SELF, inside and out. One Love!”
Lauren Davis, E-RYT 500 ~ Lauren started practicing yoga in 1989 and teaching in 1994. She was the co-founder of a yoga studio in northern California for 10 years. Her background is Iyengar yoga, but she teaches many different styles and fuses them together to create a wonderful variety of classes. Lauren teaches challenging classes but understands the individual needs of people’s specific issues and has many alternatives, so you can trust that she will create a safe space.
Yoga has a huge palette of practices to choose from so in my classes I love to create a well-rounded practice that will incorporate everything. I love the use of props, not to get in your way but to enhance your practice. With my strong Iyengar background we will work on alignment so your poses flow with the natural lines of the body, and we will work on the breath, to help you understand how to relax and ground, and we will laugh a mighty because sometimes life is just too serious. Sometimes I use Vinyasa and music, and other times it may be a silent practice. Trust that I will create a space that you can feel safe and I will honor wherever you are with your practice to help you work toward what you want to achieve. Lauren is a Yoga Alliance certified E-RYT 500. Lauren maintains her own webpage, too, check it out www.laurendavislive.com.
Sharon Stollenmaier, RYT 200 ~ Sharon received her 200RYT Certification from Yoga in Common, Myrtle Beach SC. She teaches Vinyasa, Power and Soft Flow, as well as Childrens Yoga. She is also a mother of six and knows all about creating family fun. Sharon has a degree in Elementary Education and is a certified youth fitness trainer. She is inspired by the practice of yoga and incorporates it into all her teachings and daily life.
In Sharon’s childrens classes, time is spent learning sun salutations and other poses with animal noises added for some fun and memory enhancement. Exercise activities performed to music are included to help the child use different muscles and to provide endurance training. The Yoga card deck is a favorite game with the young yogis ~ each person chooses a card and shows everyone how to do that pose. There may even be a story about a Wide Mouth Frog or the kids may get rolled up in a mat like a burrito. At the end of class everyone gets to relax and unwind for just a few minutes on their mat before blasting off into the rest of their day. The idea of this class is to make yoga, fitness, and healthy living a fun idea for kids of all ages.
Ashley Artese, RYT 200
Chrissie Kiellor, RYT 200 ~ My journey to the mat began not too long ago. My first yoga class was a challenge. I was sore the next day and very discouraged with my experience. Here I am, 5 years later, teaching yoga and loving every minute of it. I am a Certified athletic trainer working for The Georgetown Hospital System at a local high school in Pawleys Island. I work with student athletes and their injuries. I wanted my students to incorporate yoga in their warm ups to reduce the number of strains they incur and it’s working!
Yoga means to yoke or to join, uniting things together. For me, it’s uniting the physical body with the mental distractions, incorporating breath work and thoughts into a positive outflow of energy. I teach a wide variety of classes because my training is in ashtanga, vinyasa and iyengar. I tend to get “proppy” with my classes because being uncomfortable is not my style of yoga. I think alignment is more important than over reaching and I stress that in class. I really enjoy the philosophy of yoga and will throw in some Sutra work or talk about the Yamas and Niyamas – there is so much more to yoga than inhale, reach, exhale, fold. You will leave my classes refreshed and alive!
I wear a bracelet that you might hear clinking when we practice. It’s stamped with two phrases. The first is “Life is a Journey, not a destination” and the second is “the world is at my fingertips.” These two quotes help me bring everything back to perspective. Where you are is right where you need to be.
Lynn Coggeshall, RYT 200 ~ Growing and strengthening spiritually and physically were my goals when I made the commitment to embark on the Yoga Teacher Training in the spring of 2011. Having practiced asana since 2005, I was ready for more of what yoga offers. What was accomplished through the 200-hour training was infinitely more than I had ever anticipated. I ventured on a journey that brought not only greater strength and spirituality, but also insight and joy. An important aspect of yoga is that the practice is meant to cultivate the heart as well as the body. As BKS Iyengar writes, “…a virtuous asana is done from the heart and not from the head. Then you are not just doing it, but you are in it.” Each day brings more growth and more joy as I find myself “in” yoga. It is exciting to share this practice and process with others as we all grow together in our community of love.
Angelique Grant, RYT ~ I practice yoga because it changed my life. I teach because I want to share with others the love that yoga awoke inside me. Yoga found me over ten years ago. I completed Ashtanga (Vinyasa Flow) teacher training in 2004 at Gaea Yoga Center in Charleston, SC. Since then I’ve been blessed to practice and study with incredible teachers like Erich Schiffmann, Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, Saul David Rea, Shiva Rea and many others whose names may not be recognizable, but whose effects on my life and practice are unending. My most influential teachers taught me that the greatest teacher is within. In order to hear, though, we must learn to be still and listen.
According to Patanjali, the author of the Yoga Sutras, there are Eight Limbs of Yoga. Asana (physical postures) is only one limb. I commited to a yogic lifestyle because the Eight Limbs made sense to me. I have to recommit to my path daily. Remembering ahimsa, to not harm others in thought, word or deed is a choice we make hundreds of times a day. The same goes for satya, or truthfulness. Abe Lincoln’s declaration resonates well with me, “When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad.” Practicing yoga feels good.
In my classes you can expect to be challenged and nurtured, to sweat and to take rest, to hear a mix of music from Jack Johnson to Krishna Das to an occasional Justin Timberlake to Bach. I aim only to facilitate your growth. I teach from my heart because that’s where yoga resides.
Peace, love, and headstands– Angel Grant
