Yoga Teacher Training

Susie’s interest in movement began with dance. In 1999 when a knee injury halted her training she turned to a movement practice that was rumoured to support her body. In fact it provided a lot more than physical support. The transition from mild interest to a fully fledged yoga practitioner occurred over a few years and by 2007 she had made the decision to begin her studies in obtaining a yoga teacher certification. The Elbowroom seemed like an obvious choice when choosing a school with an excellent reputation for it’s high standards in training and from there she continued her studies in Hatha Yoga at Yoga Vidya Gurukul in Nasik India. Since that initial step into teacher training Susie has qualified as a Pilates and Barre teacher through the Stott method in Complete Body Movement with Dani Gonzalez Ares and Joseph McCarthy, and once again returned to The Elbowroom to study with Susan Church to obtain the 500hr Advanced Yoga Teacher Training qualification. Her classes are all about the breath and she fully believes that the breath is the key to connecting to the wholeness of who you truly are and letting go of what might be holding you back. Her style of practice has been deeply influenced by her background in dance which lends itself to the smooth choreography of her classes and having attended an eclectic array of workshops with internationally acclaimed instructors her practice is diverse and rich in dynamic flow. Alignment and balanced energy are consistent points of focus in all of her classes to inspire strength, agility, adaptability and flexibility in the body and the mind.

Tanja Thomas, originally from Germany, has been sharing yoga and wellbeing practices with children of all ages and abilities, teens, and families nationally and internationally in communities, preschools, primary & secondary schools, kids camps, libraries, at festivals, in studios and in independent classes.

A yoga alliance qualified yoga instructor specialising in children’s & family yoga as well as therapeutic yoga for children with additional needs, Tanja has trained in Integral Sound Healing, Three in One Concepts – Kinesiology as well as Reiki, Sound Massage and Sound Yoga.

Tanja has a special interest in mindfulness & meditation practices of the Zen Buddhism Plumvillage Tradition and integrates this into her yoga practice.

When her daughter was born in 2005 with Congenital Heart Disease, Holistic Practices & Yoga became integral to both herself and her daughter as a way of life. Since this year with her new baby daughter born in January she has shifted her practices to be online, focusing more on offering one to one sessions which integrate sound, yoga and mindfulness practices for emotional, mental and physical wellbeing.

What she would love most is to pass on these wellbeing tools to children, parents and familes, to help to integrate and enjoy them as part of their daily lives to feel good in body, mind and soul.

Eimear’s first introduction to Yoga was at the age of 8, having maintained her practice throughout her teenage years she completed her 200hr Yoga Teacher Training in 2012. She furthered her studies by completing a Yin Yoga Teacher Training Level 1 and 2 with Josh Summers and a Chakra Mantra Vinyasa Flow Teacher Training with Shiva Rea in LA in 2014. She completed her Advanced Yoga Teacher Training at The elbowroom as well as other embodied anatomy courses. Eimear has recently completed her Masters in Dance at the University of Limerick. She has had the opportunity to study with Yoga and Somatic Practitioners such as Donna Farhi, BJ Galvan, David Swenson and Liz Koch to name but a few.

As a trained primary school teacher and part-time lecturer, Eimear is passionate about teaching and sharing the benefits physically, emotionally and psychologically that Yoga has to offer. Eimear believes that connecting body and mind is at the heart of a yoga practice, practicing in this way the opportunities for insight and self-reflection are endless providing fuel for a lifelong yoga practice that is adaptable and practical. She believes Yoga should be a creative and fun process. Whether teaching Yin or Vinyasa Flow Eimear is a conscientious teacher who aims to empower students to deepen their practice each time they arrive on their mat.

Sophia is an experienced yoga and meditation teacher. Having practiced meditation since the late 1990s and yoga since the mid 2000s, she qualified as a yoga teacher in 2010 and has been teaching since.

The yoga styles she teaches include Hatha, Mindful Movement and Meditation, and Restorative yoga. Her teaching style places great emphasis on integrating mindfulness and self-compassion within the practice. Cultivating presence, awareness and kindness are paramount in both her practice and teaching. Over the years she has developed great deal of experience teaching restorative and mindful movement and meditation, bringing these practices to hundreds of students in an easy and direct way.

She has completed many meditation and yoga retreats in Ireland and abroad, and has attended trainings and intensives with Donna Farhi, Michael Stone, Bo Forbes, James Higgins and Josh Summers.

Sophia is also a yoga teacher trainer and co-leads the 200hour Foundation Yoga Teacher Training in the Elbowroom. She also teaches the Restorative Yoga module in the Elbowroom Advance Yoga Teacher Training.

She holds a PhD in Sociology and her research is an investigation of the experience of yoga in Ireland from a sociological and cultural perspective.

Melissa has been teaching women yoga for over 15 years and is a Mother to 3 children.  Having started yoga in her 20’s in San Francisco, Melissa’s yoga journey has been fairly colourful. She is a fully trained Bikram, Hatha, Yin, Pre & Postnatal Yoga teacher, Kids yoga teacher, Pilates teacher, Infant Massage Instructor and Cuidiu breastfeeding counsellor.
Melissa is very passionate about birth which led her to start facilitating birth preparation classes, complete a doula and postnatal doula training and a Well Woman/Womb Yoga training with the well-known women’s health advocate, Uma Dinsmore-Tuli.

Melissa’s passion for women’s health is obvious regardless of what style of yoga she is teaching due to her nurturing approach and being able to respond to the needs of women’s health issues.  Whether in or out of the yoga room and knowing well how challenging life can be, Melissa loves to empower and support women from all walks of life.

Melissa has been teaching yoga since 2002, having started practicing in her 20’s in San Francisco. Her yoga journey started out as a Bikram Yoga Teacher and she is now a fully trained Hatha, Yin, Pre&Postnatal, Pilates, Kids Yoga teacher, is a 500hr qualified yoga teacher and is currently taking a second 300hr training with world-renowned Amy Ippoliti.

Melissa has always loved working with children, now has 3 children herself and after the birth of her 2nd child, she went on to become a qualified Kids Yoga Teacher in 2010 and then took another training in early 2014 before taking over the Kids Yoga Teacher Training at The elbowroom. Her experience from teaching through training brings us the highest of standards of quality teaching which is always confirmed by every trainee that trains with us. Melissa has been teaching on various trainings since 2007 and is passionate about empowering anyone that wants to embark on a new adventure of teaching kids whether they have teaching experience or not. This course is for absolutely anyone that loves yoga and wants to teach its benefits to children. Lots of fun guaranteed too!

Melissa’s knowledge, experience, gifted way of training and dedication to maintaining the excellent standard of manuals given means everyone will be ready to teach from the moment they finish this course.

Marianne teaches at Seven Winds Yoga and Jyotish, which she founded in 2000, www.sevenwindsyoga.com She leads retreats and workshops, both abroad and in Ireland. She has taught philosophy for various teacher-training courses. A spiritual counsellor and Vedic astrologer, she assists clients in understanding the unique karmic forces active in their lives and channelling that power to realise their highest potential.

Yoga Alliance registered at E-RYT 500, she trained for many years in the Ashtanga, Iyengar and Sivananda traditions. Her own practice and teaching have evolved with these influences into a practice she calls Shakti Rasa, a fluid approach adapted to the individual that incorporates breath, visualisation and moving meditation into powerful asana work. This year, she began training with the last disciple of Krishnamacharya, Srivatsa Ramaswami. She has studied in India with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, V. Venkatesh, Vinay Kumar, Yogi Manmoyanand and BNS Iyengar, and returns often to India to revitalise her yoga practice, which she maintains daily.

Marianne’s interest in Eastern philosophy began nearly 50 years ago in San Francisco, where she was born. In 1968, she began meditating with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. She studied Eastern philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. Initially, yoga was for her entirely a spiritual practice. Though with a strong background in dance, she soon discovered the power of asana practice.

In the UK, she became immersed in Buddhism through Dharmavidya (a.k.a. David Brazier) of the Amida Order, where she did many retreats, trained in Buddhist psychotherapy, and qualified with an Advanced Certificate in Buddhist Psychology. With eminent yoga scholar, Georg Feuerstein, she completed over 1000 hours of certified course work in yoga philosophy and history. She also studied Shamanic practices for many years with the Sacred Trust in the UK. A spiritual counselling practice developed out of these modalities. Seeking clarity both for herself and her clients, she discovered Jyotish and its power to illuminate the deeper cosmic patterns at work in our lives. At the NW Institute of Vedic Sciences, she studied under the mentorship of eminent Vedic astrologer, Dennis Flaherty, qualifying with the Council of Vedic Astrology in the USA. She has a BA and MA in English Literature from the University of California, and has taught at both secondary and third levels. Her novel was published in 2008.

In 2003, Marianne met her guru, Ramesh S. Balsekar, who accepted her as his disciple in 2005. Until his mahasamadhi in 2009, she travelled regularly to Bombay to the satsangs he gave from his flat. His teaching of Advaita Vedanta, so profound and at the same time so simple, transformed her. It informs her teaching, her practice and her personal life. A lifetime of seeking found its resolution at the feet of Ramesh, and to him she is eternally grateful.

An international yoga and meditation teacher, and health and wellness expert, Bev is regarded as a teacher’s teacher, blending her extensive knowledge of functional anatomy and physiology into the beautiful practice of yoga and movement therapy. She has shared her knowledge and expertise with hundreds of budding yogis and movement practitioners who have both trained and practiced under her guidance.

She is the founder of Postural Reset and Activated Yoga, two programmes that fuse conscious breathwork and natural alignment through muscle activations and yoga asana. She is the lead teacher on the 250 hour Yoga Teacher Training courses, teaching functional anatomy and physiology, pranayama and meditation in addition to teaching Neuroconnective Yoga and movement on the 300 hour YTT courses. Bev is passionate about helping people to overcome their injuries and restrictions so that yoga is accessible, functional and enjoyable for any one at any age or ability.

She has been teaching for over 25 years, she trained as a Nurse, developed stress management courses for Cheshire County Council in the UK before opening a boutique yoga and food studio in Amsterdam.

Since relocating to Ireland in 2012 she has dedicated her time to yoga, and building a busy injury and rehab clinic in Stoneybatter where she offers Neuromuscular Therapy and Muscle Activation to the walking wounded of Ireland.

Mary has been passionate about music and movement her whole life. Her yoga journey began in 2010 initially been drawn to yoga by the sense of escape and very quickly grew to love the mind, body, spirit connection.
She began her teaching career in Miami in 2012 before moving to Dublin, teaching restorative yoga  Bikram yoga, children’s and additional needs yoga and Vinyasa flow.  She has enjoyed watching students of all ages light up from the practice of yoga ever since. She enjoys travelling and teaching yoga and sharing her love it.

Her mission as a yoga teacher is to help others see that Mindfulness can be achieved through a variety of approaches such as yoga, music, meditation and healthy living and being present in everything you do. While not flowing on her mat, Mary teaches music, plays violin in an orchestra, snowboards in winter and lies forever under the sun during the summer.

Karolina Krzemianowska is a professional yoga teacher with a passion for inspiring and encouraging people everywhere to cultivate healthy habits, manage stress, find inner peace, and embrace mindfulness through yoga. She is trained in hatha and Vinyasa yoga, prenatal yoga and Yoga Nidra. As the founder of Inner Light Yoga and with over 10 years of teaching experience, Karolina loves to share her enthusiasm for wellness and her burning desire to build a thriving, wholesome community of likeminded people.

Through Inner Light Yoga, Karolina has published over 150 free yoga classes on Youtube, where she helps people find yoga practices no matter their body type, fitness level, mobility and personality.

She is also a graphic designer,  web developer and marketing consultant. Her aim is to offer business training to yoga teachers that will enable them to accelerate their professional development and grow their business within the wellness industry. 

Melissa has been teaching women yoga for over 15 years and is a Mother to 3 children.  Having started yoga in her 20’s in San Francisco, Melissa’s yoga journey has been fairly colourful. She is a fully trained Bikram, Hatha, Yin, Pre & Postnatal Yoga teacher, Kids yoga teacher, Pilates teacher, is a 500hr qualified yoga teacher, recognized trainer and senior teacher with Yoga Alliance UK Professionals, is currently taking a second 300hr training with world-renowned Amy Ippoliti, is an Infant Massage Instructor and Cuidiu breastfeeding counsellor.
Melissa is very passionate about birth which led her to start facilitating birth preparation classes, complete a doula and postnatal doula training and a Well Woman/Womb Yoga training with the well-known women’s health advocate, Uma Dinsmore-Tuli.
Melissa’s passion for women’s health is obvious regardless of what style of yoga she is teaching due to her nurturing approach and being able to respond to the needs of women’s health issues. This has also led Melissa to training in yoga to support the pelvic floor and traveling to America for pelvic floor educational workshops.
Whether in or out of the yoga room and knowing well how challenging life can be, Melissa loves to empower and support women from all walks of life.  This 300 hr module is an empowering experience for anyone interested in the female anatomy,  that wants to discover more about how they can enhance vitality in their own body and their students as well as educate themselves in the different stages of womanhood.  Expect to move, create and laugh.

Melissa has been teaching women yoga since 2020 and is a Mother to 3 children. Having started yoga in her 20’s in San Francisco, Melissa’s yoga journey has been fairly colourful. She is a fully trained Bikram, Hatha, 500hr yoga, Yin, Pre & Postnatal Yoga teacher, Kids yoga teacher, Pilates teacher. On her quest to continuously support women and her passion to educate women and their partners on the benefits of preparing for birth, Melissa has become a qualified Hypnobirthing Instructor, a Fertility Yoga Teacher with Sue Dumais, a Yoga to Support The Pelvic Floor teacher with Leslie Howard, a Well Woman/Womb Yoga teacher with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, a qualified Infant Massage Instructor with the International Association of Infant Massage (IAIM), a Cuidiú Breastfeeding Counsellor, has taken part in a number of DONA Birth and Postnatal Doula Training courses, one of which was with the world famous birth advocate Michele Odent as well as running her own birth preparation workshops.

Melissa’s passion for women’s health is obvious regardless of what style of yoga she is teaching due to her nurturing approach and being able to respond to the needs of women’s health issues. Whether in or out of the yoga room and knowing well how challenging life can be, Melissa loves to empower and support women from all walks of life.

Melissa’s knowledge, experience, gifted way of running and creating this training and dedication to maintaining the excellent standard of manuals given means everyone will be ready to teach from the moment they finish this course.

Melissa has been teaching yoga since 2002, having started practicing in her 20’s in San Francisco. Her yoga journey started out as a Bikram Yoga Teacher and she is now a fully trained Hatha, Yin, Pre&Postnatal, Pilates, Kids Yoga teacher, is a 500hr qualified yoga teacher, is currently taking a second 300hr training with world-renowned Amy Ippoliti, is a certified senior & yoga teacher trainer with Yoga Alliance UK professionals.

Melissa has always loved working with children, now has 3 children herself and after the birth of her 2nd child, she went on to become a qualified Kids Yoga Teacher in 2010 and then took another training in early 2014 before taking over the Kids Yoga Teacher Training at The elbowroom. An experienced teacher and teacher trainer, Melissa brings us the highest of standards of quality teaching which is always confirmed by every trainee that trains with us. Melissa has been teaching on and has created numerous teacher trainings since 2007 and is passionate about empowering anyone that wants to embark on a new adventure of teaching kids whether they have teaching experience or not. This course is for absolutely anyone that loves yoga and wants to teach its benefits to children. Lots of fun guaranteed too!

Melissa’s knowledge, experience, gifted way of training and dedication to maintaining the excellent standard of manuals given means everyone will be ready to teach from the moment they finish this course.

With a personal practice of 20 years and with many years of extensive teaching practice, Susan brings a wealth of knowledge to her students. Susan is the lead instructor at The elbowroom’s foundation Yoga Teacher Training Course. With years of many successful graduates, she is now a key instructor with the 300 Hour Advanced Yoga Training Course.

After a decade of dance training, Susan studied Theatre at Trinity College Dublin in the late 1980’s and dance with the National Theatre Institute in Connecticut U.S.A. It was during this time that she received her first yoga training, along with Laban, Alexander method and many other forms of dance and movement. Although she eventually left the arts, she remained committed to yoga and Pilates.

In 1999 she completed her first yoga teacher training and a year later she qualified as a Pilates Instructor and massage therapist. She has completed teacher training courses and equipment certificates along with hundreds of master classes and workshops in Pilates and Yoga. Some schools attended are YTTC, Bodyfirm, Body Control, Stott, Balanced Body and Powerhouse.

Dani is E-RYT® 500, YACEP® and has been teaching Yoga since 2002 having completed her initial 200hrs with Atmananda studio in New York City. While living in the States she had the fortune to attended workshops with Shiva Rae, Tias Little, David Life and the imitable Aadil Palhhivala. She spent two years prior to her TT practicing and working at Dharma Yoga Center with Dharma Mittra & his wife Eva. This variety in her learning lineages explains Dani’s fluid, varied teaching style.
Dani is a trained Kids Yoga teacher, .B Teenage Mindfulness teacher and Reiki Master since 2001. She set up and managed “The Yoga Stop” in cork in 2008 until moving to Dublin 2010. In 2014 she completed an additional 300hrs advanced training and has since explored workshops with Lisa Peterson, Ciara Cronin, Donna Fahri, & Sri Ramaswami to name a few.
In 2016 she traveled to Mysore to study and learn from Vinod Kumar Rajan, an amazing immersion into life at a beautiful yogic ashram. She has hosted and taught on over 20 Mindfulness, Yoga and Meditation retreats and workshops and has over
3000hrs teaching experience. In 2020 Dani qualified as a Mental Health and Wellbeing Coach from Kingstown college.
Born in Zambia, Dani was educated in Ireland & her first qualification was in International Hotel Management. Dani worked in this high stress environment for 12 years in the UK, Australia, Germany, Africa and New York before embracing Yoga,
Meditation Mindfulness and Reiki. She is a happy wife and proud mother to 2 teenage boys and a wonderful dog called Tembo.
Dani believes breath/Prana is the foundation of our practice and our life. When we bring our breath into balance, we expand the possibilities of being what and who we really are; fully alive, filled with potential, hope and joy.

BA (Mod) Genetics, Lic Ac, Dip
Chinese Herbal Medicine, RYT

Orla is a Yoga teacher, acupuncturist and a Chinese medical herbalist. She began her personal yoga journey over 20 years ago and began teaching in 2010. When she began to practise under the guidance of Marianne Jacuzzi, Orla’s journey dove into yoga philosophy and the deeper dimensions of the yoga practice. She teaches yoga and practises Chinese medicine in My Yoga Body in Dun Laoghaire, and teaches the Yoga Philosophy module of The elbowroom 200-hour Yin Yang Yoga Teacher Training.

Paula has been practising yoga since the mid-nineties and teaching full-time for over 18 years.  She is a registered Senior Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance UK and has studied various yoga and meditation styles including Hatha, restorative, prenatal, yoga therapy, anti-gravity yoga and mindfulness.  She completed functional anatomy training with Susi Hately in London in 2010 and continues to update this regularly.

Paula has been involved in yoga training for over 15 years and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to her teaching.  She writes: ‘Training to be a yoga teacher will transform and enrich your life. It is a journey of self-discovery, at times intense but always rewarding.  I am grateful to be part of this and share my love of yoga and meditation with students.’

‘Yoga is practical.  We learn most when we engage with the material so my training sessions are lively, creative, interactive and fun! In asana practice, expect attention to detail, mindful movement and deep release.’

Paula meditates regularly and also teaches meditation at the Dublin Sri Chinmoy Centre.  In 2013 Paula opened Om Yoga, a boutique studio in Dublin 7.

Yaeli is an orthopaedic physical therapist, a yoga and dance teacher She’s also currently a student at the Irish College of Osteopathic Medicine Cork. Her love for body sciences really kicked off during her first degree, BSc Biomedical Science, NUIG, 2010. The learning was rich and rewarding, only the stressful and static lifestyle of an academic was physically crippling! After her degree, the only thing for it was to spend less time at a desk and more on a yoga mat, exploring manual therapies as medicine for physical pains.

This exploration brought her to study Thai yoga massage with renowned international teachers across India, Asia and Greece. In Melbourne, 2012-2014, Yaeli qualified and worked as a senior allied health therapist in a busy city clinic, practicing remedial massage, dry needling, and pregnancy massage.

It was during this time she encountered contact improvisation dance which, to date has been one of the most enjoyable and informing practices of body movement she has ever met. In 2013 she completed her 200hr Yoga Teacher Training. As a dance teacher, she takes an intuitive approach to explore the body’s most efficient, soft and powerful ways of moving in space, alone or with a partner. As a yoga teacher, she honours the fact that anybody can do yoga, but nobody is designed to do yoga like any other body.

Coming back to Ireland in 2015, Yaeli set up her own business Manual Movement Medicine, in Dublin and has been endeavouring to make the world a more embodied place through her practices of physical therapy, massage workshops, yoga and dance.

Jen brings 12 years of invaluable experience in the realm of mental health. For over 5 years, she has dedicated herself full-time to teaching, specializing in yin yoga. Recognizing the urgent need for safe trauma work in today’s world, she passionately advocates the transformative potential of yin yoga on mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Jen’s mission over the last 5 years has been to spread awareness about the profound impact of yin yoga on holistic health.