Our compassionate yoga teachers and life coaches facilitate programs allowing individuals to naturally come into balance and live their best life. They bring advanced training to assist special populations including those in addiction recovery as well as yoga for children, seniors, and those with special needs.
Amy Brusca
Amy started out teaching kids’ yoga and then moved on to teaching adults as well as therapeutic yoga classes. She has been practicing yoga for 15 years, and teaching all ages and abilities for the past decade. Yoga has had an enormous influence on her life and health, and she feels blessed to be able to share it with others in so many settings.
Ariel Achatz
Ariel has been practicing yoga for over five years. Yoga became a huge part of Ariel's life due to the physical as well as mental benefits. After seeing that yoga could provid great relief from physical and mental ailments that had been plaguing Ariel since childhood, she became very interested in the yogic path. Hoping to bring the same sense of peace to others, Ariel completed yoga teacher training and has since had the opportunity to grow as a teacher and in her personal life, concentrating on stress relief through breathing techniques and meditation. In her spare time, Ariel loves to organic garden, spend time outdoors, read, and play with her cats.
Donna Arsenault, YACEP, ERYT-200
Donna has been practicing all forms of Hatha yoga for five years. After her second year, she was so inspired by the magical movements and energizing breathwork that she enrolled in teacher training. Donna loves teaching relaxation yoga, meditation, gentle yoga, Ashtanga and yoga for infertility. She works as a support coordinator, LBSW, working with developmentally disabled adults. She believes the words "Yoga is an ancient gift, it is an honor and a privilege to teach," best describe her passion for teaching.
Leeba Marchione
Leeba Marchione has joyfully taught thousands of yoga classes for over 15 years. The former proud owner of her own studio, Leeba feels the integration of body and mind through yoga facilitates a connection to ourselves and then unites us to each other. She believes that yoga is more than just an exercise-it helps us to feel whole and healthy.
Lori Cohn, RYT
Lori has practiced yoga for 18 years and has extensive training in Anusara, Ashtanga and prenatal yoga. After yoga, Lori loves cooking and baking. Lori practices yoga with her husband and two children and jogs with her Australian Shepherd dog—quality family time at its best.
Mary Brandon
A successful business owner for more than 25 years, Mary has been named one of LinkedIn's Best Coaches with extensive experience in career/life coaching. She’s a published author on choosing right livelihood and is working on her latest project Making Change, about the conscious exploration to be our authentic self. She has worked with the Department of Veteran Affairs and the State of Michigan Vocational Rehabilitation Programs assisting to enhance employment services. Mary contributed significantly to Changing Woman, Inc., by developing and providing peer life coaching services. Her formal education is in Psychology and Philosophy. She holds numerous coaching-related certifications such as Neuro Linguistic Programming, Mindfulness and Disability Management. Mary is a life-long Michigander and enjoyed raising her son Traverse there. She takes pleasure in agility training for her Shetland Sheepdog Ace and managing her Airbnb.
Patty Cieluch, ERYT
Patty began studying yoga in 2002 as a way to manage her anxiety. She finds humor in the fact that she took a fear of public speaking and turned it into a career teaching yoga. She has experience teaching beginners, classes for better backs, chair yoga, Pranayama (breathing) and restorative yoga. Her professional goal is to make yoga accessible to everyone. She believes all people can benefit from a yoga practice, especially those who have health challenges or perceive themselves as inflexible. Her other interests include biking, hiking and kayaking.
Paul Barr
Paul founded his own yoga and fitness studio, and is especially compassionate and sensitive to the needs of clients with mental illness. In 1998, Paul was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) as well as clinical depression. Regular exercise helped Paul as part of his treatment and he wants to help others discover the natural treatment of exercise in the care and treatment of their illness. Paul also coaches the high school cross country & track programs at Cardinal Mooney HS in Marine City.
Stephanie Ruopp
Steph Ruopp came to yoga in 2002 in an attempt to manage paralyzing clinical depression and anxiety. Soon, she was completely absorbed by the yoga practice and by 2004, was sharing it with others. Steph has a straightforward approach to everything. And that includes her teaching. She’s also a writer, dog-walker, and life coach. While yoga hasn’t “cured” her depression, it’s certainly become a major tool in her tool box to treat it. And she revels in helping others understand how breath and mindfulness can help them too.
Terri Koster
Terri began her yoga practice in 1999, and after a yoga and meditation journey to India in 2000, embraced yoga as an integral part of her life experience. Terri completed Yoga Shala training and began a commitment to share her love of meditation practices and varying yoga styles. In 2005 Terri created a yoga space, Astarte Yoga in Farmington, to allow creative and dedicated teachers to communicate the wisdom and benefits of the empowering, life-enhancing beauty that is yoga.
Tina Kress Green
Tina has practiced yoga and trained as a core fitness instructor for more than 10 years and has committed 20 years of practice to martial arts to become a 3rd degree black belt. Tina has positioned herself as a specialist in senior/limited movement yoga as well as pregnancy and kids’ yoga. Tina enjoys spending her free time with her amazing husband and daughter.
Ulrike McCarty
Ulrike has been a yoga practitioner on and off over her lifetime but found yoga again about 12 years ago. As Ulrike went through some life changes, the yoga practice was something she could always count on and she started noticing and embracing the spiritual side of yoga. Eager to learn more she decided to sign up for teacher training in 2015 with no intention of teaching but to deepen her own knowledge of yoga. It was so transformational that she felt the need to share her knowledge and became a teacher after all. Ulrike has her own studio and loves offering yoga to her small-town community.
Yvonne Clark
A tragedy left Yvonne a widowed mother of a two-year-old. It was then she started practicing yoga. She noticed amazing changes including reduced stress and pain and greater physical strength and flexibility. Yvonne trained to be an instructor to deepen her understanding and received her yoga certification in 2006. She teaches many different classes as well as meditation/mindfulness, breathwork and sound healing. Yvonne says, "I work to not only teach yoga poses, but to create a session which allows the practitioner to tap into their own innate wisdom, strength and inner healing potential. By using breath and movement, we can affect ourselves in positive ways. Every cell in the human body is genetically programmed to be healthy; living that truth is the ultimate goal."
