All of our teachers are hand-picked by Kim Matsko to ensure that our students have the best instruction, guidance and hands-on help for their practice.
We take our teaching very seriously and each teacher is "always a student," continually learning new skills to provide the very best instruction for our students. Our "hands-on" style of teaching is not meant to "correct" but to help the students launch forward in their practice. Plus it feels great!
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Kim Matsko, RYT 500 - Kim started practicing yoga in 1998 at the Jivamukti Yoga School in NYC. After four years of dedicated study there, she decided to travel and study with many other teachers including the late Sri. K Pattabhi Jois. She has been teaching for the past 8 years and is honored to share the practice of yoga with everyone who comes through the doors of Yoga Bliss.
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Alison McGehee - Alison is a certified yoga instructor and will finish her RYT-200 this fall. She is certified to teach pre-natal yoga and also enjoys teaching children's yoga. The first time she did yoga, she was completely hooked. The more she studied yoga, the more she knew she wanted to share what she was learning with others. She likes to teach a Hatha blend class that offers asana and pranayama, with a little yogic philosophy as well.
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Amanda Gonzalez - B.A., NSCA-CPT, Certified Jivamukti Yoga Teacher. Amanda teaches yoga as a spiritual practice. In her own experience, eating a compassionate diet in combination with a disciplined yoga practice has been the most powerful combination for the development of a sound body and mind. In her yoga class, she incorporates yoga philosophy, chanting, music, meditation, and a devotional spirit. She is grateful for her teachers Sharon Gannon, David Life, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and the Art of Living Foundation.
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Ann Saxon, RYT 200- Wife, mother, plastic surgeon, yoga student, and now yoga teacher. All of these roles compliment one another. As a plastic surgeon Ann helps patients change their external appearance. When done for the right reasons plastic surgery can have a profound effect on one's well being and quality of life. As a yoga student she experiences a relief from the mental chatter, an awakened spirituality, and feelings of wellness and vibrancy in the physical body. Ann brings to her teaching a surgeon's knowledge of anatomy and physiology, a sense of awe and reference for the human body, and a strong desire to promote health and healing.
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John Eeds, RYT 200- John started teaching yoga after retiring from a career as a mechanical engineer. He is a certified yoga teacher and has studied primarily in vinyasa and Ashtanga yoga styles. “I enjoy teaching a challenging class and helping others to become aware of the inner strength and transforming power that a regular yoga practice develops and nurtures. Finding one’s focus and awareness on the yoga mat helps us to recognize what is important in life and enables us to live fuller, richer lives.”
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Mary Normann, RYT 200- New Orleans native and LSU Graduate, Mary worked in Pharmacuetical Sales for 15 years. She began teaching yoga in 2002 and enjoys teaching vinyasa and both making it available to students challenging for the more advanced student at the same time. Overall she enjoys the rewards of working with people to improve their overall physical and emotional well-being, although she does so from a more holistic approach than from a pharmaceutical one.
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Andrew Linton - Practicing since 2008, Andrew believes in and adheres to the Ashtanga Vinyasa system as a way of exploring and understanding yoga as a whole. Having developed a strong daily Ashtanga practice, he testifies to the system’s ability to remedy and focus the mind, as well as creating a strong and healthy body. During class, he encourages a physical and spiritual refuge for each of his students on the mat along with expanding the mind and body to be open to all possibilities. Currently, he is deepening his own practice with work on the second series of Ashtanga. |
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Hannah Lane Romero - Hannah is a Yoga Alliance Certified Hatha Flow instructor through the Shambhava School of Yoga in Hawaii. She is also a local artist and painter (www.hannahlane.com) who started a yoga practice in 2002 as a way to cultivate mindfulness and creativity. The richness of her experience on the mat as well as her teachers who "lived" their yoga inspired Hannah to give back. She has been teaching yoga in Baton Rouge since 2007 and loves the balance it provides for her painting career. Hannah has studied with Michelle Baker in Costa Rica and continues to be as much a student as she is a teacher. |
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Kristin DeMarco has been teaching pilates, weight training and yoga for about 5 years at various gyms and studios around the triangle and is certified for group fitness instruction, personal training and pilates mat (all levels) and pilates equipment. Kristin was introduced to pilates and yoga after an injury. While running on the Blue Ridge Parkway in 2002 she fell and badly sprained her ankle, making it impossible to do her typical fitness regimen. Through this injury she learned about herself and started practicing and then teaching shortly thereafter. |
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Tammie Dufrene recently completed her RYT training. She comes from an Iyengar background with over 150 hours of study under Senior level world reknown Iyengar instructors. She has recently been accepted into the Iyengar Institute Teacher In Training Program. Currently Tammie studies and practices Ashtanga at Yoga Bliss. |
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Jennifer Richard was raised in Louisiana,where she began practicing yoga five years ago. It was during her two years in Israel that she began to experience yoga in a new and completely fulfilling way. She cultivated a close relationship with her yoga teacher, Aviva Grace, and her practice deepened to a spiritual level. She began teaching small groups with Aviva and continued teaching friends and family upon her return to the States. A philosophy student at heart, she works to integrate yoga philosophy into the asana practice to bring an awareness to the wholeness of the yogic lifestyle. She will complete her 200-hour teaching certification this year. |
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Sarah Ward Sullivan has been practicing yoga since 2000 and teaching since 2004. She has studied in the Vinyasa and Anusara yoga traditions and enjoys teaching a class that mixes elements of both. As a runner, Sarah was initially intrigued by the similar mind-body-breath connection that both running and yoga cultivate, while also fascinated by the additional spiritual awareness that a regular yoga practice fostered. She consistently strives to take lessons from her yoga practice into the great practice of life and encourages her students to do the same. She is currently practicing for life´s most exciting challenge—the birth of her first child in August. |
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