teachers

Elizabeth Rossa is the founder/director of SHRIYOGA, which was voted “Best Next Generation of Yoga” by New York Magazine in 2005, and since, featured in various publications including Gotham, Time Out and Real Simple. Originally certified to teach hatha yoga over 10 years ago by notable master teachers, Erich Schiffman and Max Strom,  Elizabeth is as committed to teaching as she is to her on-going studentship.  Her primary influence since 2005 has been the teachings and guidance of her mentor, the incomparable meditation and tantric philosophy master, Sally Kempton.

Now, Elizabeth is integrating new knowledge gleaned from the mastery of Richard Freeman, after completing his and Mary Taylor’s much celebrated 200 hour month-long Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga teacher intensive at their Yoga Workshop in 2011. And, this year of 2012, Elizabeth aspires to “walk the talk” by continuing her education with Sally, Richard and Mary,  three of the most genuine teachers of the modern spiritual world.

Elizabeth’s credentials also include certification in Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan, Professional Level Reiki 3 through Wendy Miner of Memorial Sloane-Kettering’s Integrative Medicine Center, and extensive experience in silent retreat and Self-inquiry with Adyashanti.

As a teacher of yoga, meditation and Self-inquiry practices, Elizabeth holds space for clarity and freedom. She offers a fresh perspective which allows the ancient and esoteric to become modern and real.  Students are encouraged to cultivate curiosity as they pause and breathe, deeply listening to what life is offering right here, right now. Primarily committed to Shriyoga’s NYC grassroots community classes, Elizabeth also teaches retreats worldwide and is a guest presenter at Kripalu.

Philanthropically, she helped to spearhead a successful Give Your Yoga benefit for Women For Women International at Urban Zen in 2010, with plans underway for another in 2012. Personally inspired by WFW founder, Zainab Salbi’s mission, Elizabeth has also sponsored two “sisters” in Rwanda, and hopes to bring more awareness to this powerful organization which recognizes an inherent unity amongst us all.

Please see the KARMA YOGA page of this website for further information on the inspired 2010 benefit co-taught with Elena Brower at Urban Zen.
Emma-Kate Croghan is an Anusara inspired teacher who grew up in Australia. She is a writer and film director. She became a dedicated Yogi when Yoga become a life-line in the transition to motherhood and America. Her teaching is motivated by her desire to share the life-enhancing gift that yoga has been to her. Her classes are fun and life affirming. Her teaching is inspired by her mentor Shriyoga director Elizabeth Rossa. Her Passion for yoga is reenergized daily by the great New York yoga community. With particular thanks going to her teachers Ross Rayburn, Zhenja La Rosa and John Friend. Emma-Kate spent the last year sailing the world with her family and has recently returned to NYC after many adventures at sea. Read more about her year at sea at: www.sailingondine.com
Through her teaching, Cari Friedman O’Connor inspires students to embrace their authentic self using the Universal Principles of Alignment – a system that empowers one to stabilize and reclaim their freedom through Hatha Yoga.  Drawing on life experiences, she makes classes fun and challenging, yet soft in the way she brings students to experience the good in all things and cultivate awareness during life’s most radical unveilings.  Cari’s primary motivation lies in supporting others to welcome their nature & bring clarity into their hearts.  Cari is an Anusara Inspired teacher of more than 9 years.  She is inspired by and grateful to John Friend, Desiree Rumghbaugh, and Rajanaka Scholar Douglas Brooks, who has influenced and shaped her perspective and participation in the world.   She has been teaching classes, retreats and workshops for nearly 10 years, and was certified under Max Strom in 2001.  She is mother to Monet her shining light and married to Todd who has uncovered her veil to the essence of partnership.
Betsy Haddad feels blessed to have had many great teachers and considers her practice a weaving of their teachings.  She received her certification in 2005 from the kind and humble yogi Dharma Mittra, with whom she continues to study.  She is guided by the Tantric Meditation teachings of Sally Kempton and her lineage.  Recently she has become influenced by the healing and connected, spiraling movements of Ba Gua and qi gong.  She is continually awed by the intertwined relationship of the physical, emotional, energetic and spiritual.  She is touched again and again, as both a student and a teacher, to see the flowering of yoga – with each individual student as well as the class as a whole.  Betsy has an MSc in Computer Science, and lives with her husband and children, dog and cat in lower Manhattan.
In addition to Sally and Dharma, she would also like to acknowledge other influential teachers in her life: Isam Salah, Elizabeth Rossa, Kevin Courtney, Michael Johnson, Wendy Miner and Loomis Reade.
For Denise Fahmie, the seed of what yoga is was planted back in 2002 during her first Anusara class at Yoga Montclair while in Tadasana. Who knew it was such hard work standing up straight! Denise’s latest trainings have been with Jill Miller, creator of Yoga Tune Up. As a licensed Yoga Tune Up teacher, Denise loves to empower her students with more awareness and the tools to live better in their bodies.  Many classes, workshops, immersions and teacher trainings later, Denise continues to work towards ‘perfect poise’, to evolve as a practitioner and teacher. Denise’s love of yoga has taken her to India with OmFactory, the studio where she finished her 200 hour training. The richness of this experience ignited a stronger spark for more knowledge in yoga philosophy. Denise has been blessed to have 2 week-long opportunities this year to study Rajanika with Prof. Douglas Brooks.
Huck Hirsch is thrilled to be reinstated as a resident in his native New York. Having lived in Los Angeles for 8 years, he transitioned home to trade perfect California weather for transcendent New York energy and get his groove back in this gritty city of endless possibilities.

As a yoga teacher, Huck hopes to inspire his students to access the graceful beauty within us and all around us in myriad urban forms. His style is playful and thoughtful, drawing on insights from his life experiences as a performer, director, choreographer, writer, artist, teacher, student, son, brother, uncle, friend, and yogi since 2002. Before that, Huck thought yoga was Sanskrit for stretching. The only yoga he’d done was rolling on the floor at a juice fast in Massachusetts. His first Anusara class cleared that up, as it reawakened the joyful exploration of embodiment he had cherished for so many years as a chorus boy singing and dancing in musicals and sparked a passionate immersion: classes, trips to study with John Friend and a slew of teacher trainings. Huck soon began teaching, with the sole intention of offering others a way to see their light more clearly, love their nature more dearly, and follow their heart more nearly…day by day, one breath at a time. Huck is also a certified Thai Yoga Massage therapist, offering private sessions to restore ease and freedom to the beleaguered body.