Tamara Davidson

 

Yoga Dance 

 

We will end our teacher training course in celebration! As part of the festivities, Tamara will offer fun somatic movement through yoga dance — an African celebration dance she choreographed for this very celebration.

 

Informed by her dance background, Tamara’s style of yoga is expressed by clean lines, rhythm, balance and playfulness. With over 20 years of yoga experience, Tamara teaches a dynamic method of yoga, focusing on correct alignment and the extension of the energy lines that compose a posture and channel energy through the body. Her yoga training includes Jaya Yoga, I AM Yoga Therapy™, I AM Yoga Nidra™, Restorative Yoga, I AM Yoga Meditation in Motion® and Yin Yoga.

 

Dancing is in Tamara's blood. By combining her love for yoga and dance, she inspires us to find freedom in our own bodies, releasing inhibitions and limitations as we extend our light out into the world.

 

Starting lessons at age 3, Tamara has mastered different styles from tap, ballet and jazz to ballroom dancing.​​ She believes we're all born with grace and that yoga and dancing help us connect to what we truly are.

 

To help celebrate the graduation of this course, she is honored to teach us the African celebration dance.

 

Personal note: Tamara is one of my deepest soul sisters. We have been friends for almost a decade. We took I AM Yoga Therapy and Yoga Nidra together, hosted a friend’s weekend retreat and have shared numerous deep connecting experiences. But it was when I first saw her dance that my heart broke open and tears rolled down my cheeks — that's when I truly saw her soul!  Tamara is dance and it's such a privilege for her to share her soul with our group.

Elizabeth Henrichsen

 

Ayurveda 

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Elizabeth, our third guest teacher, will lead our course in Ayurveda, an ancient Indian holistic science that takes a natural approach to all aspects of health and well-being.

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An experienced yoga instructor, yoga educator, yoga therapist and Ayurvedic consultant, Elizabeth places an emphasis on diet, daily routine and a range of yogic practices.

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She unites the ancient wisdom of yoga and Ayurveda to create and maintain balance in everyone she works with. Because Ayurveda teaches that each person has distinct life forces, it offers us a deeper understanding of how we show up in the world.

 

Elizabeth is certified as a Professional Yoga Wellness Instructor, Level 2, by the Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India. She also studied at Kerala Ayurveda Academy in India and is a certified Yoga and Ayurveda Wellness Consultant from American Institute of Vedic Studies.

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​She conducts Yoga Teacher Training and Yoga Therapy Courses in association with Yoga Vidya Gurukul, and also facilitates yoga retreats in the USA and India.

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Practicing yoga for over twenty years, her study, practice, life experience and yoga masters have guided her to share yoga and Ayurveda with others. She honors her teachers and appreciates the teacher in every student.

 

Personal note: We lovingly refer to Elizabeth as one of the gurus because her knowledge is so vast and profound. I co-led my first workshop with her, was a student in her 200-hour yoga training program and have shared many educational experiences with her. Elizabeth is the epitome of humility and grace. 

Liam Gillen

 

​Yoga Nidra

 

Our next guest teacher will be sharing the ancient practice of Yoga Nidra, also known as NSDR (non-sleep deep rest). This practice guides you to a state of conscious deep sleep bringing profound healing, relaxation and balance. 

 

Liam has dedicated the last 17 years as a practitioner and educator of Yoga, Yoga Nidra and as a Yoga Therapist. 

 

Prior to that, Liam, who holds an MBA, had an accomplished career as a senior-level executive, consultant, and entrepreneur, with extensive experience in the real estate, education and hospitality industries. He has successfully launched several businesses and lived and worked in many countries around the world.

 

While CEO of the Amrit Yoga Institute in Salt Springs, Fl, Liam brought his business expertise to the ashram, with a vision to share the deep teachings of Yogic philosophy to a broader audience.

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He has an E-RYT500/YACEP and is a certified instructor in Yoga, Yoga Nidra and Yoga Therapy. 

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He now leads his own high-intensity workshops and retreats around the country,  focusing on wellness and life balance while also working with individual clients.

 

Liam adheres to a philosophy based on integrity and respect for the dignity of every individual. He remains passionate about mindful approach to living and bridging the worlds of work and business, with a harmonious personal and inner life. 

 

Personal note: Liam was a senior teacher during my Yoga Nidra training. His powerful grounding and still presence immediately made an impact on me. You can't help but be in a state of calmness in his presence. Working with Liam privately helped me build the steadiness I needed to finally leave my unhealthy marriage, walk away from our family home and completely transform my life. He is yoga nidra walking. It's an honor to have him.

Victoria Faulkner

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Anatomy and Movement

 

Our second guest teacher will cover anatomy and movement and how our muscles and joints work in synch to produce movement and mobility. She will lead students through specific practices to help them gain a direct experience of the topic.

 

 She has taught yoga for more than 18 years. She got her 200-hour teacher certification with Two Suns Rising, then deepened her knowledge by completing a 300-hour teacher certification at Bliss Yoga. In addition to her yoga training, she earned a Doctor of Physical Therapy Degree several years ago and completed   one-year Women’s Health Residency specializing in Pelvic Physical Therapy.

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Victoria offers a therapeutic perspective on traditional hatha yoga postures to help make future classes accessible to everyBODY. She enjoys bringing her physical therapy knowledge to her yoga students and yoga teachings to her physical therapy patients.

 

 When Victoria isn't teaching, she enjoys spending time with her family, friends, pets, and plants. She loves to bike and kayak, and spend time in nature, at the beach, the springs and in the mountains. 

 

Personal note: Victoria was my first yoga teacher over 13 years ago. Practicing with her a few times a week in her "gentle" yoga class helped me lose 70 lbs, transformed my body, mind and spirit and helped me cultivate powerful body awareness before I even knew what body awareness was. I learned more from her classes than in any of my training courses. She's a masterful teacher and it's truly an honor to share her expertise with this training program.

Stuart Sovatsky

 

Bhakti Yoga 

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We will open this training program with the loving devotional teachings of Bhakti Yoga. Join us as we make lifelong intimate connections through tantric relational connection practices and kirtans devotional chanting, led by Stuart Sovatsky, PHD. 

 

Stuart is a 1971 Club Scholar graduate in Religion and Ethics from Princeton University and was first choice to codirect the Ram Dass Prison Ashram, received the first-ever federal grant in 1977 to bring meditation and yoga into schools & police departments and psychiatric-geriatric facilities and directs since 1984 the first "Spiritual Emergence" service in the world, the Kundalini Clinic that helped modify the Psychiatric DSM-IV to include Spiritual Issues. His Admiration Therapy is certified by the Russian Government. He received awards for thwarting three homicidal- and numerous suicidal- situations using sustained admiration. He was founding-consultant for the $34M award-winning Greencitylofts. He was secretly flown to post-Bosnian War Slovenia to chant over the dying Chair of Unaligned Nations of the World & to S Africa to chant with Sangoma shamans. He convened a 40-country World Family Conference in India cosponsored by The Dalai Lama. Stuart is the author of Advanced Spiritual Intimacy, Words From The Soul [on the M.I.T. list], The History of Yoga in America [Columbia University contract] & over 40 articles & chapters on Kundalini, Tantra, Gender, Suicidality and Therapies of the Love Ethic. He is President Emeritus of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, Advisor for the Johns-Hopkins University Psilocybin Study; Teacher of Teachers for Helen Palmer’s Enneagram Institute; Chantmaster for the SF Band, Axis Mundi, an Acharya of Pasupata Tantra Kundalini Yoga and researcher of Eros Liberation 2.0, that radically alters reproductive policy concerns via the 5000 year-old path to the lifelong "pariyanga-grihastha fertility awe" of Conscious Conception and bulletproof marriages. His published research on the Bliss Gender of Tantric Ardhanari offers a complete maturation path beyond transgender surgeries and identities. His 50-year-tested Soteriological Therapy renders most Traumatology methods obsolete. He has led retreats and kirtans throughout the US, Europe, Russia and India. 

 

Personal note: Stuart's teachings have helped me transform my family relationships and dynamics, most importantly with my two beautiful children, and develop a powerfully loving and devoted relationship with my partner based on mutual reverence and appreciation. And it has allowed me to connect and hold space with my private clients in a style that is unique, original and authentic.

Sonya Hanlin

 

Founder and Lead Instructor

 

Having experienced a great personal and spiritual transformation with yoga, Sonya is eager to share her message of hope with others. She has more than 14 years experience, and over 800 hours of yoga training in several yoga styles and lineages, with multiple teachers, including the world-renowned Kamini Desai of the Amrit Yoga Institute.  

Sonya has been a yoga educator for the past several years, sharing a variety of workshops and teaching multiples styles of yoga on a weekly basis, while also seeing private clients in a therapeutic yoga therapy setting.

Along with being a trauma-informed, certified yoga instructor, Sonya is a facilitator of Yoga Therapy and Yoga Nidra, and she's a Level II Reikii practitioner and a certified life coach.

Outside of yoga, she is the owner and operator of Be Well Greens, a microgereens farm in Jacksonville. 

In 2023, Sonya was voted Best Yoga Instructor in Jacksonville by Folio Weekly and in 2024 she was initiated into the Lineage of Light by Shri Yogi Amrit Desai of the Amrit Yoga Institute and humbly received the spiritual name, Upasana.

Sonya  is grateful to share all she's learned from her teachers, gurus and direct experiences of the transformational teachings of yoga.