Swan River Yoga – Michele Baker

“A Jivamukti Yoga class with Michele is physically and spiritually uplifting; she teaches yoga as a means to enlightenment, and awakens your remembrance of what is eternally beautiful and absolutely peaceful.” – Sharon Gannon: Co-founder and Guru of Jivamukti Yoga

Contact Michele: Michele@swanriveryoga.com

About Keith Porteous, R.Y.T, Co-Owner of Swan River Yoga.:

Born in New Orleans, Alexandra Keith Porteous (who has always been called Keith) attended Trinity School,just down the street from Swan River Yoga Shala. Trinity’sexcellent music program helped fuel her fascination with music, largelyinspired by her immensely talented Grandmother, “BigKeith”. She left New Orleans for boarding school followedby college at Princeton University, where she was a history major (with a focus in Medieval Studies). She moved to New York City afte rcollege in the hopes of pursuing a singing career (once again,encouraged by Big Keith, who attended her first New York performance ina bar on Bleecker Street). Working during the day and auditioningor performing at night, stress began to take its toll. Afterbeing introduced to the daily yoga classes at the Jivamukti Center onLafayette Street, she knew she had found the one thing that could keepher glued together. Beginning with her first class in 1999(Kristina Pao Cheng brought her to a class instructed by Kelly Morris)she became a constant student. She attended NYU for graduate school, earning a masters from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in Interactive Telecommunications.

After the events of both September 11^th and Hurricane Katrina, it became apparent to her that she wanted to do something to help those affected by these traumas, but she felt ill-equipped to do so. After her father’s death from cancer in 2006, she realized that what she could do was share what had been most helpful to her, yoga, with others. She attended the Jivamukti Teacher Training in 2007 under the mentorship of her teacher and dear friend Kristina Pao Cheng.

She is deeply thankful to Michele Baker, to Sharon Gannon and David Life, the founders of Jivamukti Yoga,to all her family, with reverence for her recently departed father andgrandmother, and to Kristina Cheng, without whom none of this everwould have happened.

Keith is also a new proud mother to Arthur James Meade, often call "Hanuman" by his beloved Yogi Aunts and Uncles.

In 2009 Keith completed the Advanced Swan River Yoga Teacher Traning Program, qualifying her as a mentor. She has studied the Anusara method extensively, completing Immersions 1, 2 and 3. She has also attended a Tibetan Heart Yoga retreat with Geshe Michael Roach and Lama Christie McNally, and delights in the prospect of more Tibetan yoga studies with them and their students.

About Kim Martin: Co-Owner of Swan River Yoga Mid-City...coming Spring 2010 and co-Director of

Kim Martin began her practice of yoga in 2004 and considers herself extraordinarily lucky to have begun that sacred study with Michele Baker at various locations throughout New Orleans. After practicing for a very short time, Kim felt such an improved state of well-being—spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically—that she knew a serious yoga practice would encompass the rest of her life. She often says, “Yoga has saved my life at least three times over,” and she shares her stories at length with anyone who will listen.

A Florida native, Kim did her graduate studies in gender, race and class issues in American literature at University of Florida in Gainesville. In 1998, she developed a strong interest in working with graduates of underperforming inner-city high schools. It was then that she visited New Orleans for the first time and was so moved by the city that she relocated within the year. Having taught and worked here since, she considers New Orleans home and has not been able to stay away for any significant period without knowing intensely what it means to miss New Orleans. The city’s travails have only strengthened her fierce love of the place and the people here.

A graduate of Michele Baker’s teacher training program, Kim currently teaches community yoga classes in the Lower 9^th Ward, as well as at Swan River Yoga Shala, and her priority is to further facilitate the study of yoga in areas of the city that have been underserved.

Certified Anusara Yoga® instructor Catherine McCarthy is a native New Orleanian and Emmy-nominated TV&Film Producer/Director, based out of New York City since 1993. While pursuing her Master’s degree in Film at NYU, she began her studentship of yoga under the guidance of senior Anusara Yoga teachers Amy Ippoliti and Elena Brower. After she completed her first teaching certification in Kripalu Yoga in 2002, Catherine started to study directly with Anusara Yoga founder John Friend and became a Certified Anusara Yoga instructor in 2008. She has achieved the 500-hour status with the Yoga Alliance and is an active member of KYTA and the NYC/NOLA yoga communities.

Since August 2005, Catherine has been spending the majority of her time New Orleans (NOLA), serving her post-Katrina community via teaching yoga and making documentary films. Through the transformative and therapeutic technology of Anusara Yoga, Catherine encourages students to radically affirm their vast potential with strong bodies, open hearts and curious minds. She enjoys the Anusara teachings which embrace contrary compliments simultaneously, focusing on physical alignment, while making the whole journey of learning seriously playful. You can hear Catherine’s voice on the Anusara “Invocation” CD by Tala Records, as well as on Krishna Das’ “All One” CD , as a member of the Kosmic Kirtan Posse.

Inspired daily by her students and over the years by her teachers John
Friend, Amy Ippoliti, Elena Brower, and Rajanaka philosophy scholar Douglas Brooks, Catherine is thrilled to share all that she has learned both on and off the mat. Thanks to the life-affirming encouragement and relentless support from her husband, family and friends, Catherine is helping rebuild her hometown of NOLA, one practice at time.Contact Catherine: Coeuryoga@yahoo.com

About Libby Bryan:

Libby Bryan has been practicing yoga in different forms since her teenage years. She earned her B.A. in business management in 1995 from Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri, where she also studied ballet and modern dance. In 2003, Libby discovered Jivamukti yoga at the New Orleans Athletic Club and began to study under Michele Baker.

In 2004, Libby relocated with her family to Kufstein, Austria, and continued practicing in Germany at the Jivamukti Center in Munich. Under the direction of her mentor, Petros Haffenriechter, and the founders of Jivamukti yoga, Sharon Gannon and David Life, she completed Jivamukti Teacher’s Training in New York in May 2007.

Immediately following her certification as a Jimvamukti instructor, Libby began her teaching career at the Anaratma Yoga Shala in Innsbruck, Austria. There she led classes for students at all levels who were inspired by her enthusiasm and comprehensive approach. Libby taught in Innsbruck until her return to New Orleans in November 2007.

In her classes, Libby caters to the possibilities of the students with a focus on alignment and flow, each person at their own speed. Her intent is for the student to work with their breath and intuition, focusing their inner strength to direct what their physical body can achieve. She teaches that the goal of yoga is to find the connectedness of the individual to all beings, and that, in so doing, one can realize strength and confidence through their practice and peace and happiness in their lives. Contact Libby: Libby@swanriveryoga.com

Laura studied yoga off and on for 12years until taking one ofMichele's classes, where she then became highly devoted and aconstistant participant in the yoga teachings. This inspiringexperience led her to develop aserious practice. She then went on to receive her certificationfrom the SivanandaAshram in the mountains of Val Morin, Canada, a 200 challenging Teacher Training course with extensive discipline of asana, pranayama, jnana, raja, and bhakti yoga. Laura is currently working towards her Anusara certification, and hascompleted numerous workshops and Immersions with the likes of JordanBloom and Kelly Haas. She frequently works with students who are newto yoga, or those who have limitations due to injury. Laura alsoteaches yoga at The New Orleans Athletic Club, in local elementary schools and a women's shelter.

Before Sarah K. Inman was introduced to the aerial arts in 1998, she had been studying yoga, jujitsu, and boxing. A skilled hula hooper and member of Aurora Aerial and the Whirly Bones Circus Arts Collective, she and Raven Hinojosa began teaching aerial yoga at Swan River this spring. When Sarah’s not performing, training or teaching, she writes. Her first novel, Finishing Skills, was published by Livingston Press in 2005. Several of her short pieces have been anthologized.

About Melissa DeOrazio:

Born in Texas and currently based out of New Orleans, Melissa has been practicing yogasince 2000. She completed her Level 1 Teacher Training for Kundaliniin May 2006 in Austin, Texas, and has completed one of five modules forLevel 2 Teacher Training. She is also a musician and songwriter,performing with her husband as 'Melissa On The Rocks'. She iscommitted to community, and feels that music and yoga are positive waysto bring that essential element into the world: creating common unitythrough community.
Contact: mjmullins66@hotmail.com

Aaron Lind M.A., is a certified yoga teacher in the Swan River Yoga style developed by Michele Baker, ERYT. He has also studied alignment and body mechanics extensively with Cat McCarthy, Zhenja LaRosa, and Jordan Bloom of Anusara Yoga, and completed Martin Kirk's Anusara anatomy training for yoga teachers in Chapel Hill, NC. He is incredibly grateful to all his teachers for sharing incredible healing wisdom that has brought him much relief and joy, which he wishes to share as a teacher. He is very excited to share his knowledge of yoga in its many forms with the wonderful New Orleans community. Aaron actively engages yoga as form of service, and strives to provide students with a skillful blend of intelligent alignment, flowing vinyasa, and deep yogic philosophy.

A native of Boise, ID Aaron moved to New Orleans in 2001 to participate in the incredible local music scene and complete Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Jazz Guitar from the University of New Orleans. He brings his musical experience to Swan River in the form of Kirtan events, Mantra classes, and uplifting chants in yoga classes. Aaron's intention for teaching yoga is to provide students with an opportunity to deepen their experience of life on and off the mat by creatively engaging bodies, hearts, and minds to flow more gracefully in the currents of our everyday experiences. Namaste!

Ali Arnold is a recent graduate of SwanRiver's inaugural teacher certification program, but she has been teaching dance in New Orleans since 2003 and performing since 2000. She finds movement in all forms to be transcendent, allowing her to escape the intellectual mind (where she spends most of her day as an instructor of English at UNO). With Sacred Movement Yoga, she fuses her two favorite forms of movement, tribal bellydance and asana, in one mind-blowing class.

Addy discovered yoga in 1999. As a college student, yoga brought her a sense of strength and balance to be prepared to deal with many of life’s challenges. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New Orleans in General Studies with a focus in Women Studies and Anthropology with the hopes of studying birth from a cross-cultural perspective.

Addy’s mother was a midwife who taught her to have respect for and fascination with the world of birth. Exposed to pregnant women her whole life, Addy’s attraction to the world of birth has only deepened throughout her life. She feels so grateful for being born into this world of women and babies.
In 2007 she attended a 200hr yoga teacher training in Sedona, Arizona and there realized that her two passions could become one; yoga and birth. As a prenatal teacher Addy wants the women to recognize and learn through pregnancy and birth their personal inner strengths and beauty by using yoga as a tool. Addy has a certification in the Advanced Swan River Yoga Teacher Training, and is currently training as a DONA certified doula.

Lauren received her yoga teacher certification through the first Swan River Yoga School in October, 2008, under the direction of Michele Baker. She took her first class in High school and found herself being continuously drawn to classes throughout college, after which she decided that she wanted to share yoga by teaching. After moving to New Orleans in 2003 to attend Tulane, Lauren fell in love with the music, people, and vitality of the city, unveiling her rebel nature and revealing the explosive possibilities of life. At Tulane Lauren studied psychology and Latin American Studies and taught english as a second language. Her greatest passion is traveling, a time when all of her interests merge and unity exists.

Lindsey is a local actor and improv comedian who moonlights as a law student at Loyola University College of Law. She is a native New Orleanian and spent time teaching in Orleans Parish public schools. She has recently begun teaching yoga at schools in our community. Lindsey has been passionately practicing the art of yoga for 4 years and loves nothing more. She is a recent graduate of thel Swan River Yoga teacher training under the direction of Michele Baker.

Tony is a Certified Swan River Yoga teacher and devoted yogi who has studied consistantly with Michele Baker since the year 2000 when he came into class with tremendous pain and scepticism, which instantly turned into surrender and being one of Michele's most devoted students and friend. He now has an incredible yoga and meditation practice, taking his devotion of practice and service very seriously. Tony just started the first "12 Step Yoga Program" ever in New Orleans similiar to the 12 Step of A.A., which will focus on assisting those with addictive tendancies. in our city and turning them into healing life affirming traits. We are very proud to have this program at Swan River Yoga.Tony will also assist a yoga program specializing on reaching out to Veterans of war as his passion for the topic of Ahimsa increases, and those that have been through the challenging experience of loss of love ones passing on.

Being a Bhakti Yogi, Tony is an avid dancer who can tear it up all night with his dancing shoes on in celebration. He is a huge supporter of local music and second lining in the community, and a Fine Art collector, being of the infamous Mary Cassatt family lineage. Tony has also just announced his engagement to his beloved Natalie to take her hand in marriage!

Jo Starnes earned the title Yoga Siromani from the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre. She was introduced into yoga here in New Orleans and has been studying under Michele Baker(2008) and Shelly Jackson (2007). Living in New Orleans is a special honor, many of us have paid the price to hold such a revered position. After experiencing losses on many levels, Jo sought out an alternative way to bring mental calmness to an emotionally challenging time. With her practice and teaching, Jo is honoring her first guru (teacher), LIFE. Jo also is a Reiki practitioner and independently studies natural healing methods. She also teaches at the Louisiana Himalayas Center.

Contact Jo at sjostarnes@gmail.com

Jim Baird

Jim first fell in love with Hatha Yoga many years ago, but it took the events surrounding Katrina to ignite his passion. Under the watchful eye of his teacher, Michele Baker, his practice blossomed and he realized his path was to share his joy with others. With his recent certification from Swan River Yoga School he is determined to bring his knowledge and enthusiasm to those beginning or renewing their practice of Hatha Yoga. Jim co-owns a popular New Orleans restaurant, making him mindful of the difficulties and benefits of making Yoga a part of your daily regimen.

Contact Jim@swanriveryoga.com

Stephanie Smith

Having practiced Yoga for 9 years, with the last six (6) as a student of Michele Baker and Jivamukti, Steph deeply understands the transformational aspects of Yoga and brings this awareness into her class. As a devoted kundalini Yoga student, she interweaves breathing exercises (pranayama) from this style of practice to offer additional benefits. Her background is diverse and covers a range of experiences, such as: collegiate athlete at Michigan State University, Masters Degree in Coastal Ecology from LSU, designed and developed the West Nile Virus Surveillance System for the Louisiana Office of Public Health, which has won international and national recognition for Louisiana. Her passions include film making with an emphasis on educational DVD’s, environmental/social issues, and herbal medicine. The goal of her class is to blend metaphysical themes with the physical experience to encourage perspective shifts for a joyful and steady connection with our environment, community, self and beyond. Starting 2010 she will design her class to focus on the chakra system to bring insight to areas that need liberation. It will run as a continuous series.

Contact Stephanie@swanriveryoga.com

Lori Tipton

Lori loves yoga so much that she doesn’t even care if you mock her about it. After several years of a very tumultuous relationship with yoga, in 2006 she became dedicated to a serious practice. Under the guidance of the future guru, Michelle Baker, yoga became less of something she did for exercise and anger management, and more of a way of life. In 2009 she graduated from Michelle Baker’s Swan River Yoga Teacher Training program. In retrospect, she feels this certification was just as important and challenging as her degree in Psychology from Tulane University. Prior to her yoga training, Lori studied Psychology and Sociology at Tulane and was involved in such eclectic and fun organizations as the Big Easy Roller Girls (Whore T. Culture) and the WhirlyBones Circus Variety Collective. She is eternally grateful to all those teachers, friends, naysayers and life lessons which have helped to make her the person she is today!

Lori plans to bring meaning, laughter, hard work and good music to her Swan River Yoga classes. She is developing her own style of “Awesome-asana” using the valuable tenets of Michelle’s teaching. She and Jacksun Slaughter are also planning the first practice of “Yoga on the Rocks” which involves neither physical asana or literal rocks but lots of laughter, soul searching and Bhav-ka (Bhav + Vodka). She feels so lucky to live in a city as beautifully diverse as New Orleans, and looks forward to sharing all aspects of yoga with her community.

Lori’s heart is bursting with love and gratitude for her father, Billy Tipton; her guru, Michelle Baker; her personal Vishnu, Andy Overslaugh; her partner in crime, Jacksun Slaughter, and her beloved pups, Brando & Harlow.
XOXO

“Everybody knows that there is a place which is totally fulfilling. Not a desperate flick of fulfillment, it is a state of fulfillment. You may experience despair that you’ll never know that. Good! Because through that despair comes surrender and through that surrender you get closer to it.” - Ram Dass

Contact Lori@swanriveryoga.com

Cassie Segal

Cassie Segal is a certified yoga teacher in the Swan River Yoga style developed by Michele Baker, ERYT. She has also studied alignment and body mechanics extensively with Cat McCarthy, Laura Flora, Scotta Brady, Zhenja LaRosa, Kelly Haas and Jordan Bloom of Anusara Yoga. She has 50 hours of Anusara level one teacher training. She began to practice yoga in 2003 with Kelly Panus, Cheryl Golich and Sean Johnson. In 2008, she began studying with Michele Baker, ERYT. She has 16 total hours of training in Thai Massage from Michael Buck (aka Mukti) and Saul David Raye. "I am incredibly grateful to all my teachers for sharing this incredible healing wisdom that has brought me much joy and for their love and support throughout my budding practice. I wish to share this wisdom as a teacher." She strives to provide students with a skillful blend of intelligent alignment, flowing vinyasa, and deep yogic philosophy.

Haiyan’s first introduction to yoga was through an old raggedy book in the library of a dusty Chicago building in 2003. The book titled “12 Lessons in Raja Yoga” engulfed him and he spent the next few months meditating on the first lesson. Though he never went past the first lesson, the book changed his life direction! (wonder what would have happened if he had read the rest of the 11 lessons!)
It was not long after that he was introduced to Hatha Yoga. While he initially struggled with this aspect of yoga, over time a sweet harmony was created between the physical and meditative aspects of yoga
While continuing the study of meditation, through various Buddhist traditions and recently through self Inquiry, he joined the Swan River Yoga Teacher Training Program in 2009. Under Michelle’s guidance he has learned the basics of teaching yoga and embodying the teachings. He is very grateful for the opportunity to share the gift of yoga with anyone who is interested.
Curious by nature, Haiyan loves to play in and explore this crazy, lunatic,illusary and yet adorable experience called life.

Contact Haiyan@swanriveryoga.com

Tess Monaghan

Tess Monaghan feels extremely lucky to have found the special community that is Swan River Yoga shortly after moving to New Orleans from New York in January of 2008. She completed Michele Baker's teacher training program in 2009 When she is not practicing yoga, Tess heads up Build Now, a non-profit organization that constructs new houses for families who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina. She has found yoga to be a powerful and inspiring complement to this work and is excited to have the opportunity to share the benefits of yoga with others. Tess is grateful for all of her teachers -- everyone at Swan River Yoga; her clients and colleagues at Build Now; friends and family; and the music, people, and culture of New Orleans.

Contact Tess@swanriveryoga.com

Catherine Burke

Catherine Burke began studying yoga in New Orleans over ten years ago with Alvina Haverkamp, when yoga studios were a rare sight in the city. She left New Orleans in 2000 to study art at the Cooper Union in NYC, and all of a sudden started seeing people everywhere walking around carrying yoga mats. In New York she discovered the larger world of yoga at the Jivamukti Yoga Center in the East Village, as well as at various neighborhood yoga studios. After receiving her BFA in 2004, she travelled to India and studied yoga in Rishikesh. Since returning to her hometown in 2007, she has been blown away by the high integrity of yoga that has developed in New Orleans, under the guidance of Michele, Keith, and Libby. She became a certified Swan River teacher in October of 2009 and is excited to now share with her students the inspiration and knowledge she has been so lucky to receive from all the wonderful teachers in her life. Eternal thanks and love to Michele for her love and devotion to yoga and New Orleans.

Contact Catherine@swanriveryoga.com

JackSUN (Jackie) Slaughter

Jacksun's (Jackie Sumell) classes infuse a sense of play with strength, her ultimate class constructs a space where you work really hard with out realizing it-- where you leave feeling complete, having worked really hard but barely noticed because you laughed through out. Jacksun has been committed to the practice of yoga as a form of innercise since 2004. Her teachers include 120-year old Swami Bua and his disciple Angela Caruso, both living and working in New York, her Jnana Guru's Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox and Robert King- and of course the Morpheus love light guidance of Michele Baker. She can not express enough gratitude through words to her distinct and subtle teachers, but hopes it is expressed through the power and play of her classes and community commitments.

Contact Jackie@swanriveryoga.com