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Grace has flowed into Simple Abundance Yoga through amazingly gifted teachers.
Nothing in life is by coincidence.
Each of these incredible teachers carry with them their own life experiences
and unique insight to share with you. Our teachers do not simply instruct in
yoga, nor do they live their lives for yoga -- they each have integrated yoga
into a balanced approach to life and living.
We are only at peace with ourselves and the world around us when we achieve a
balance between mind, body, and spirit. Yoga is about helping each of us find
this balance -- our own unique balance.
The true teacher remains a student throughout their lives. A student is
constantly learning... a teacher has the gift of sharing what they have
learned. We are delighted to have this studio to share these teachers with you.
~Lamont & Wendy
- Wendy Gilliland,
RYT ...co-founder of Simple Abundance Yoga, Tri-Cities, TN.
- Amanda Brickey,
LMT ...teaching prenatal yoga at Simple Abundance Yoga
- Kim Bushore-Maki
...teaching Sunday Salutations Yoga at Simple Abundance Yoga
- Ryan Fair ...now
teaching Qigong at Simple Abundance Yoga, Johnson City, TN.
- Carol Ann Mitchell,
RYT ...teaching Iynegar style yoga at Simple Abundance Yoga
- Thresia Newbury,
RYT ...teaching yoga at Simple Abundance Yoga
- Casey Sagers ...certified
in Vinyasa Flow Yoga -- Simple Abundance Yoga
- Lamont Gilliland,
RYT ...co-founder of Simple Abundance Yoga, Johnson City, TN.
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If one advances confidently in the direction of one's dreams, and endeavors to
live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected
in common hours.
~ Henry David Thoreau
Wendy Gilliland, RYT
If someone had told me 20 years ago that I would be happily married, with 2
beautiful daughters, a certified Yoga instructor, opening our own Yoga studio
in Johnson City, I would have fallen to the floor in convulsions of laughter.
Life has a way of surprising us, though, and here I am, never happier, never
healthier – living out a dream that I didn’t even know I had until it started
manifesting itself.
“Bio” is such a huge word isn’t it? The instructors here at Simple Abundance
have led the most amazing, challenging, wonderful lives. How could you possibly
put all of that down in a simple paragraph or two? Can’t be done. So, each of
them has chosen to share what they feel is appropriate, based on this being a
Yoga studio website.
To be brief, my journey into Yoga came after the recommendation of my doctor as
a way to help with my symptoms of multiple sclerosis. At first, Lamont and I
tried a few Yoga videos, and I bought a couple of books at Sam’s – you know,
the basic Yoga for Idiot’s kind of thing. We enjoyed attempting these together
at home, but had no clue what alignment was and found it really challenging to
simultaneously watch this perfectly proportioned contortionist on the TV while
trying to recreate that pose on our living room floor. More laughter than
Ujjayi breathing was taking place here!
Then, in late July 2004, I walked into a Yoga studio for the first time. I felt
a connection with my body that had been missing and knew that Yoga would be a
part of my life forever. I totally immersed myself into Yoga, taking as many
classes as I could and beginning a dedicated home practice. I began reading
Moving into Stillness by Erich Schiffmann and The Tree of Yoga by B.K.S.
Iyengar and every Yoga magazine I could get my hands on.
The reconnection of mind, body, and spirit began relatively early, and I found
that my symptoms, although not completely gone, were so much more manageable.
When I was practicing asanas (the physical poses of Yoga) and pranayama
(focused breathing), my body was no longer in pain or having numbness,
tingling, or other uncomfortable sensations. My energy level went up and my
posture began to improve. My family began commenting that I was looking
“younger”. Activities that I had enjoyed but limited or gave up because of my
symptoms, like hiking and gardening, were now a part of my life again. It was a
tremendous blessing to find Yoga.
In order to explore Yoga more fully, I began Stephanie Keach’s Yoga Teacher
Training in Asheville, NC in November of 2005. This was a defining moment in my
life. Through this program, I found that I grew spiritually and emotionally in
ways I never dreamed before. The instructors were gifted and incredibly
knowledgeable, and the other students in the program were so inspiring.
As part of our training, we are required to teach classes in our communities.
Although it was never my intention to become a Yoga teacher, I found at my very
first class, that this was truly my path in life. It is so fulfilling to feel
that you are helping people reconnect with their bodies and begin healing. It
is truly a blessing for me to have this opportunity.
Now I am teaching classes every day and enjoying the process of sharing Yoga
with others. Our students inspire me in more ways than I can count, and I feel
blessed beyond words to have this opportunity to practice with them.
When asked to describe my “style” of teaching, I would have to say that it is
from the heart. Truly before each and every class, I prayerfully ask for
guidance and direction and the class flows from there. My intention is always
to provide what I feel each student needs from a practice, while also relying
on them to listen intently to their own bodies for guidance along the way. My
classes range from Therapeutic Yoga for those with special physical challenges
to Beginner and Foundations classes, to a Level II Core class that will make
you sweat!
Wendy Gilliland has been certified through the nine-month
230-Hour Teacher Training Program at the Asheville Yoga Center (AYC). Wendy is a Registered Yoga
Teacher (RYT) through the Yoga Alliance and a member of the International
Association of Yoga Therapists.
In the summer of 2007, Wendy began the AYC 500-Hour Yoga Alliance Advanced
Studies Teacher Training and Certification Program and in August of 2007 was
certified to teach Restorative Yoga. In September of 2007, Wendy completed a
3-day program with
Paul Grilley in the Anatomy of Yin Yoga.
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Amanda Brickey, East Tennessee native, embodies grace and elegance on the yoga
mat, dance floor, and in balancing her richly diverse interests.
Amanda became interested in Yoga in high-school and is excited to share her
practice with others, especially teens and mothers-to-be. She professes that
yoga has dramatically improved her life--- allowing her to see more clearly
into herself, discovering peace, balance, quiet, and strength. Amanda deepened
her knowledge and practice of Yoga by attending Stephanie Keach's yoga teacher
training in Asheville, N.C..
Amanda's love of movement began 8 years ago as a ballroom dancer. For the past
3 years, she has enjoyed teaching dance at her own studio in Johnson City.
Amanda is also a licensed massage therapist and currently practices at
Reflections of Health School of Massage.
Some of Amanda's other passions include health, nature, and the healing arts.
She is also pursuing other modalities in which she can support women during the
birthing process.
Amanda Brickey has been certified through the nine-month
230-Hour Teacher Training Program at the Asheville Yoga Center (AYC). The AYC Teacher Training
program is certified through the
Yoga Alliance.
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Because yoga has been a source of joy and peace in my life, I decided to pursue
a yoga teacher training program in the hopes of encouraging others to
experience similar yoga benefits while deepening my own practice.
The more I practice yoga, the more I see the connection among the mind, body
and soul. This burgeoning awareness has led me to find ways to combine my love
of yoga with my vocation as a counselor, and consequently, I am pursuing a
certification in Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy.
Kim completed a 200-hour certification teacher training program
with Traci Carroll of Kudzu Yoga. Kim has also completed the 32-hour program
for Level I of the Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy (PRYT) series in 2007. She
will be attending Level II training this November and is scheduled to complete
Level III in mid-2008.
Kim Bushore-Maki coordinates outreach for the ETSU (East Tennessee State University) Counseling Center with
emphasis on women's empowerment programming and substance abuse prevention. She
also inspires and encourages women in a private counseling practice called
'Shakti Power.'
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Ryan Fair, Qigong, Simple Abundance Yoga
My experience with yoga began over ten years ago with the discovery of some
priceless books on meditation, pranayama and hatha yoga. With just a small
taste I began a vigilant pursuit of study into the Eastern practices of
enlightenment and health. I began practicing a wide range of new and exciting
things I never dreamed were out there or more aptly put "in there" ...As a solo
practitioner I found my self on many silent retreats camping in the woods doing
yoga and meditating and healing. And it is through that healing that the wonder
and awe began to unfold. It became apparent after several years of intense
practice that I fully recognized the need for a real teacher.
I began my search....meantime I delved deeply into various forms of healing
arts and Asian bodywork including reiki, fasting and nutrition/herb therapies,
sound healing, massage therapy and QiGong . I decided to dedicate my life to
healing and spirituality.
In 1997 I began studding ancient systems of meditation taught by yoga masters
of India. After completing a year of purification I requested initiation into a
lineage of yoga masters who taught by word of mouth for centuries and
centuries. In 1999 I received initiation by my beloved Sat Guru Baba Ji, the
spiritual master of a remote colony in Northern India where I lodged for a
month receiving the teachings in satsangs with Baba Ji twice a day. Along with
long hours of meditation and the loving guidance of my teacher I saw into the
way of yoga with new eyes and heard the wisdom of the sages with new ears.
These teachings are at the very core of my practices with the main and guiding
principle being Love and compassion for all beings.
Through my meditation practice I began to truly value and appreciate the deep
healing of hatha yoga, qigong, and pure foods and its significant effects on
mind, body and meditation. Constantly in awe of the divine wonder of the human
body I looked for ways to connect the dots in a way to bring a more infused
understanding of the human body and its perceived views from different
traditions of healing arts.
In the past several years I have had the privilege of studying under Dr. Yuen,
88 generation lineage QiGong Master and Doctor of Classical Taoist Chinese
Medicine, bringing the deep roots of the Tao to the realm of healing. From this
lineage I learned five element sound healing QiGong, to bring harmony and
vitality to the five energy systems.
Recently, I have expanded my qigong practice to include several styles and
teachings including the system taught by Grand Master Fu and the Supreme
Science qigong system of healing. I find Qigong to be truly enjoyable and fun
as well as profoundly physically and energetically healing. I find each system
of practices as having precious jewels of wisdom that are uniquely important
and in need of sharing in these wonder-filled and amazing times we live and
hopefully thrive in.
Living in nature in Unicoi, TN with my beautiful wife and 3 children I find
yoga as an essential way of being, in order to find the flow and balance of
life’s simple abundances.
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Carol Ann Mitchell, Yoga, Simple Abundance Yoga
....I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
~ Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
My journey has been rich--it’s been adventures, challenges, risks, high ups and
deep downs, unexpected turns, switchbacks and surprises, shaping, making me
even more passionate about life, people and cultures, reinforced by travel
through many countries including Saudi Arabia, Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands
and Taiwan. Through it all, hiking, yoga, and meditation have been important to
me. Being a third culture person, i.e. born in one place, Virginia, raised in
another country, Germany, for eight years and returned to another “country”,
New York, where I completed my schooling, I always found it difficult to answer
the question, “Where is home?” I would ask, “When, what year?” Now, older and a
bit wiser, home is where I am.
I loved learning, and I wanted to be and do so many things. So, after two
masters and doctoral degree from Columbia University, I was selected for a
Robert Wood Johnson postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Rochester.
Then I decided to pursue the one dream that did not change—become a nurse
practitioner (NP), which necessitated a third master’s degree from State
University of New York—Stonybrook (1991 And, that is how I found my
passion—using my expertise as a nurse practitioner in rehabilitation to develop
healing yoga for people who otherwise would never do yoga and experience
increased strength, flexibility and balance, decreased pain, and to feel
physically, spiritually and emotionally the healing benefits of yoga.
Carol Ann Mitchell, RYT
Yoga, pranayama, and meditation helped to keep me focused all those years. It
was a fateful day when at 34 I attended a yoga class in my town (1976). I went,
and have practiced various forms of yoga ever since—about 30 years-- practicing
intensive Ashtanga yoga for eight years, then Vinyasa flow yoga in which I
eventually became certified. But, in the past two years, I returned to my home
base, Iyengar yoga. It happened rather serendipitously—I was wandering around
Asheville, taking classes at various studios and then chanced upon a flyer
announcing an in-depth 4 day Iyengar workshop with Sharon Conroy in FL near my
vacation condo. I decided to travel there to attend. After the first day,
Sharon invited me to take part in her subsequent teacher training program with
five other students. It was a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual
transformation for me. She personified the integration of yoga philosophy with
not only asana but life. I was so impressed and learned so much I decided to
pursue study with her on a long-term basis. I have always taught, whether
academic subjects, yoga or tai chi, intuitively. From Sharon, I have learned to
refine my teaching and now know clearly what my style is—I teach from the body,
the wisdom of the mind and the compassion of the heart.
Carol Ann Mitchell is a Certified Yoga Instructor and Board
Certified Nurse Practitioner. She attends a minimum of 6-7 workshops a year for
her own continuing growth.
Carol Ann was accepted and is completing the first of the three years required
for the LUP 500-Hour Yoga Alliance Advanced Studies Teacher Training and
Certification Program.
She is also studying concurrently with her teacher and mentor, Sharon Conroy,
Iyengar Intermediate Junior Level 3, in a monthly weekend teacher training
program in Grayton, Florida.
For those interested, Carol Ann teaches classes in Newland, NC, on Monday
5:30-7pm (Iyengar Level 1-2) and Thursday 9-10:30am (Iyengar Basics for
beginners and advanced students who want to focus in poses in depth).
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Thresia Newbury is a graduate of the Asheville Yoga Center's 230 hour Teacher
Certification program. Her gentle spirit and caring nature are reflected in her
style of teaching. She prefers to keep her class size small in order to give
more one on one attention to her students.
Thresia is registered with the Yoga Alliance.
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Casey Sagers is one our newest teachers at SAY. Casey has been certified to
teach Vinyasa Flow Yoga through Stephanie Keach's program at the Asheville Yoga
Center in April of 2007. Casey has a contagious enthusiasm for yoga and is
eager to share this enthusiasm with others.
Casey was brought to yoga through a curiosity to better understand the benefits
of yoga and has been studying and practicing for three years. She is eager to
learn more aspects of yoga and to share what she learns with others. Casey
comments, "We live in the world -- but should not be of the world. Yoga is like
a garden. It is a place to retreat from the world. It is a place where you can
find rejuvination, and where you can blossom and grow." Casey hopes to
help others find and retreat to their garden.
By day, Casey is a veterinary technician. She has been doing this for ten years
and says that she enjoys helping to enrich the relationship between people and
their pets. Casey has a passion for nature and comments that co-workers kid
that she is a “tree hugger”. However, Casey comments that she does not take an
extreme activist approach – but rather one of conscientious awareness of how we
positively or negatively impact our environment.
Casey enjoys gardening with her husband -- they both enjoy gourmet cooking with
vegetables and herbs that they have grown in their garden. Casey and her
husband also enjoy traveling together. While traveling, Casey looks for
opportunities to visit other yoga studios and teaching styles.
Casey, her husband, and two cats share a home that they have been building
together in beautiful Unicoi County. We are delighted to have Casey as a
teacher at SAY and are excited to watch her grow as a teacher.
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Look within one's self,
to find the wonder in all things and
the connection to the source of all things.
Within this amazing group of outstanding teachers listed above are backgrounds
as teachers, scientists, nurse practitioners, dancers, massage therapists – to
name a few – with all of these seeming to be a natural fit to teaching yoga. So
my background as an engineer and composer makes me a bit of a mutt in the
group. However, maybe being a mutt isn’t all bad.
The perspective I wish to share is one more of a student – teacher to be. To me
yoga didn’t come to me as a sudden revelation – but more as an evolution.
Although I enjoyed the benefits of yoga immediately – it didn’t complete click
for me until months into my practice. And that is what yoga should be for each
of us… just what it is… at each person’s pace and in its own time. If yoga
should become a revelation… that’s great. If it takes a year or two for it to
click… then maybe when it clicks it will be a deep and rich connection for you.
I have been in a technical profession for over 20 years. I am an electrical
engineer by degree and have been in the software industry all this time. I have
been the Chief Technology Officer of an Internet technology company, the
co-founder a systems integration company, and am currently the Senior Vice
President of a media/communications company. Over the years I have suffered
from headaches and backaches. This is probably not untypical for many of you
reading this.
Lamont Gilliland, RYT
So where does yoga fit into this picture? Yoga has provided me the grounding
and the place of calm that seemed so illusive in my profession. I have never
slept better, had fewer headaches, or have been as pain free in my lower back.
Yoga has allowed me to reconnect with myself and to heal from within.
The world is full of hurt and pain. To be able to help someone else find
healing in their life is something I wish to share with as many people as
possible.
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my music on amazon...
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Lamont Gilliland has been certified through the nine-month
230-Hour Teacher Training Program at Asheville Yoga Center (AYC) and is a Registered
Yoga Reacher (RYT) through the Yoga Alliance.
In the summer of 2007, Lamont began the AYC 500-Hour Yoga Alliance Advanced
Studies Teacher Training and Certification Program and in August of 2007 was
certified to teach Restorative Yoga. In September of 2007, Lamont completed a
3-day program with
Paul Grilley in the Anatomy of Yin Yoga.
Lamont released a music CD in 2003 titled "ONE". Sharing this
music with others has been part of his life's path. His music has gained a
modest following within the healing arts community.
www.meadowsuite.com
As avalailable on Amazon
Support Independent Artists on
CDbaby
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