Julie Martin (E-RYT 500)

Julie Martin, Director of Brahmani Yoga in Goa, India, is an internationally recognized teacher of both Ashtanga and Vinyasa Flow Yoga. Previously based in Brighton, UK, she moved to Goa in 2003 and helped set up and is Director of Brahmani Yoga - now one of the leading yoga centres in Goa. Julie has been teaching yoga for 13 years and practicing for nearly 20.

Starting her career as a professional dancer, Julie has always been fascinated with the workings of the body and how the relationships between the body, mind and spirit are inextricably linked. Following a dance related injury, she moved on to explore various forms of yoga and worked closely with a number of talented teachers. She studied intensively with Derek Ireland, Kristina Ireland, John Scott, Rolf Najukat, Gingi Lee as well as Pattabhi Jois She has also been greatly influenced by Bryan Kest, Erich Schiffman and Shiva Rea.

Julie truly believes that all forms of yoga should be accessible to everyone as long as they are practiced and guided with awareness. Her aim is to instill the idea of personal freedom in individuals to enable them to make the practice their own. She emphasizes freeing, awakening and opening each person's awareness, in a fun and dynamic way.

Julie is entertaining and exhilarating. Her style is unique, organic and free flowing, and her classes reflect this natural, 'freestyle' approach.

• Julie will be teaching throughout the season.
• You can email Julie direct by clicking here.

Marlene Henny

Marlene Henny became a certified Iyengar yoga teacher in 2003. She is certified with Yoga AllianceTM at the 500-hour level.

She is currently teaching in Amsterdam at Yoga Moves. In addition, she is a faculty of the teacher-training program at Yoga Moves and she travels around to teach Pranic Vinyasa flow and Energetic Alignment workshops in the Netherlands. Her teaching style is a combination of Vinyasa and Iyengar yoga. She teaches with a clear eye on body alignment and gives clear descriptions on how to work intelligently with yoga, but also incorporates the influence of her dance training where she lets students move the body through its entire range of motion on the wave of breath.

She lives in Amsterdam and in the past few years has spent her winters teaching in India/Goa where she has organized a number of yoga retreats. In the past, Marlene performed and taught dance in several professional studios in the Netherlands and Israel. Marlene enjoys teaching and connecting to her students and helping them to find their bodies, grace, power and essence.

Melanie Cooper

Melanie has been practicing Astanga since 1993 and teaching since 1997. She has a background in massage and healing and brings this experience and knowledge to her adjustments and teaching. She is Hamish Hendry's apprentice in London and has studied with him and assisted him for five years. She has also studied with Guruji in Mysore, Nancy Gilgoff and Julie Martin in Goa. Melanie teaches on Yoga Alliance registered courses in Goa and in Bristol, UK.

She is an experienced and dedicated student and teacher of yoga and her love and enthusiasm for yoga comes across in her teaching.

Sally Brooks

Sally has been in the fitness industry for 25 years, running her own studio until she developed her passion for Ashtanga Yoga over the last decade.

Sally lives and teaches in Brighton and India and has a profound understanding of teaching methodology, movement and management of energy in terms of practice.

Joanne Tchortov

Joanne has been a dedicated practitioner of Ashtanga Yoga since 1997. She completed a Teacher Training program in 2005 at The Downward Dog Yoga Centre, with Ron Reid and Diane Bruni. She values a daily practice and enjoys sharing her love of yoga. Joanne has been teaching yoga classes in Toronto and will be teaching and assisting in the morning classes throughout the season.
Joanne is also the General Manager at Brahmani Yoga. You can email her directly by clicking here.

Anna Smallwood

Anna Smallwood was first introduced to yoga in 1998 part of her intensive training as Professional Contemporary Dancer. She completed a Bachelor of Dance at the Victorian College of The Arts, in Melbourne, and always maintained her yoga practice whilst working as a dancer. She immediately fell in love with the Ashtanga and Vinyasa flow practices as it allowed her to find freedom through movement, yet unlike dance, it was driven by the breath.

Anna completed her yoga teacher training at Brahmani Yoga, Goa, India with Julie Martin in 2005 and has kept returning to India ever since then, to both teach at Brahmani yoga, and to deepen her own yoga practice.

Anna has trained with a number of senior teachers in Europe, Australia and in India, as well as assisting Rachel Hull on her Shakti Spirit teacher training course. When Anna is not in Goa, she is teaching on the beautiful South Coast of New South Wales, in Australia.

She enjoys sharing her understanding and love for yoga with others, and witnessing the transformation it brings to her students.

Nathan Gray

Nathan Gray will be taking a sabbatical for a year.

Nathan has been practising Yoga for 13 years and has been teaching in East Anglia, England for the past 7 years. With his own successful Yoga & Holistic Health Company, as well as being Director of The Fitness Angels, a fund raising group of Health & Fitness Professionals, Nathan teaches with enthusiasm, energy, compassion and understanding. He also teaches in various other locations including Brahmani Yoga, where he teaches Beginners Vinyasa Flow and other Classes for the season, as well as assisting on the Teacher Training Programs and running a number of Workshops.

With a background in Massage and Therapy, working within numerous health groups and hospitals, Nathan's focus is on the healing aspects of Yoga and making anything attainable to every individual. With a heart full of passion, and a head full of dust, Nathan continues to further his knowledge and understanding of Yoga with the help of a number of amazing and gifted teachers. He looks forward to seeing you on the mat.

Adriane Klumpp

Adriane has been practising Ashtanga yoga for over seven years and Pranayama for the past four years. She is a long-term student of Julie Martin and completed her teacher training here in Goa in 2006. During her travels she has studied with Guruji in Mysore, and with many other senior Ashtanga teachers including Nancy Gilgoff and Louis Ellis. Adriane is also a dedicated Thai massage practitioner and has completed and assisted on several courses worldwide. During the summer months she is teaching and massaging in Brighton.

Adriane will be assisting in classes throughout the season and will also be available for Thai Massage treatments.

Ashley Bond

Ashley has been studying yoga for 15 years having trained in the Sivananda and Ashtanga Vinyasa traditions, with teachers such as the late Sri Patthabi Jois, David Swenson, Nancy Gillgoff and 3years with Radha and Pierre at YogaPlus in Crete. She has also just recently returned from an intense Iyengar style training in Australia with Glenn Ceresoli.

After years of intense dynamic yoga, Ashley feels it has taken a toll on her body and is now practising and teaching with precision and alignment.

Ashley has found that the Iyengar style is an intelligent and systematic approach to the practice, holding the poses for longer and replacing unconscious habits with conscious awareness, keeping alignment in the body to allow the energy flow. This method can be put into place with any style of yoga.

Ashley has had the privilege of teaching all over the world from Thailand, UK, India and Iceland. She has a daily meditation practise, studies pranayama, and is an experienced Reflexologist and Bodyworker in Chavutti Therimal.

"My yoga practise is a continuing journey that has completely changed my life and I feel so lucky I can share my knowledge with others; it's such a gift!"

Emil Lime

Emil has been practicing yoga for 8 years. His main teacher is his wife Melanie Cooper. He also practices with Hamish Hendry in London and Julie Martin in Goa. He completed his teacher training in Goa with Julie in 2007. Since then he has been assisting in the winter at Brahmani and during the summer with Melanie in London.

He will be assisting morning classes at Brahmani throughout the season.

Inna Costantini

Inna first discovered yoga 9 years ago and never looked back. With a background in media and a stint in fashion PR, she experimented with a variety of yoga paths, before deciding to trade her desk for a yoga mat, and embark on an intensive Yoga & Ayurveda teacher training course in Goa. In London, she practises Ashtanga with Hamish Hendry and Norman Blair (whom she also assists) and carries on learning through workshops and with her teachers.

Inna is fascinated by yoga in all its forms, its effects, and the intricate links between physical and mental well being. She loves helping and watching students develop, and believes yoga is a lifelong learning process: a dedicated, regular -and yet fun- practice can only bring about energy and happiness.

Inna is also the press officer for Brahmani Yoga and Julie Martin's personal assistant. You can email Inna here

Esther Visje

Esther fell in love with the dynamic forms of yoga about four years ago. To deepen her practice and understanding she did the Vinyasa Flow Teacher Training at Yoga Moves in Holland, after which she gradually started teaching. To deepen her understanding about yoga and life she likes to travel to beautiful places like India. During her traveling she has had the opportunity to study with some great teachers (Prem Carlisi, Rolf and Marci Naujokat, Louise Ellis). In 2008 she completed the Ashtanga Teacher Training at Brahmani and coming season she will be assisting in this training and the morning classes.

Helen Noakes

Helen has been practicing hatha yoga for 17 years and started her journey in Australia inspired by the teachings of Dr. Iyengar. After discovering and attending classes with various students of Vanda Scaravelli, she completed a two year teacher training with Gary Carter at Natural Bodies Yoga Centre in Brighton, UK. Her various body work experience in massage by foot pressure, hot stones and holistic medical massage over the last 15 years has a strong influence on her style of expressing this inspirational approach to yoga. She also manages a massage training school here at Brahmani sharing a unique technique called Chavutti Thirumal. Helen's style of teaching posture and breath work is strongly influenced by Erich Shiffmann and Monica Voss, whilst her main teachers Elizabeth Pauntz and Sandra Sabitini lived and worked with Vanda for many years. Helen travels around the globe in the summer teaching on retreats and hosting massage training courses. Her classes are open to all levels and all ages and are packed with lightness and fun!

Liz Warrington

Liz has studied and practiced yoga for 16 years. During which time she met her teachers Diane Long and Sophie Hoare, among the very few to have been trained by Vanda Scaravelli. Vanda is perhaps best known for her beautiful book "Awakening the Spine" and it is the essence of her work that Liz teaches. She emphasises the use of the breath to both undo the body, release tension and to allow the elongation of the spine - the key to our well-being. Inviting students to bring attention to the ground as a source of rest, and to see the poses not as something into which the body need be pushed or pulled, but instead, as framework for the discovery of joyful, light movement.

Viriam Kaur

Viriam Kaur discovered Kundalini Yoga ten years ago and has been teaching in London, India and Thailand for the past five years. Having played with kundalini and chakra energy through shamanic and trance dance, Viriam was inspired to try Kundalini Yoga one rainy London evening and tapped into a source of inner wisdom - seeing things in a new light. She went on to train with Guru Dharam Singh Khalsa and Darryl O'Keefe at SKY School of Kundalini Yoga and was given her spiritual name by Yogi Bhajan. Having taught in studios in London for a while, she came to India four years ago to study with Ayurvedic doctors and develop more as a healer. Viriam feels that Kundalini Yoga is a way of realizing your true self and tapping into your body's own innate healing wisdom. She writes regularly for Yoga Magazine (UK) and writes several columns for spiritual website Essence of Life (www.eolife.org). She is also working on a mantra album.

Emil Wendel

Emil was born in Switzerland and has been in Asia since the mid-seventies, studying Sanskrit and Indian Dharma, as well as Chinese Philosophy and Taoism. Following the Hatha-Yoga tradition of his main teacher, Clive Sheridan, Emil advocates and teaches a method of merging asanas, pranayama and dhyana to develop and deepen a yoga practice beyond the mere physical experience.

He is instructing at various workshops and teacher trainings in Europe and Asia on the subjects of yoga philosophy and its main traditions. When not on assignment, Emil travels the world teaching workshops and retreats in various places. Emil will be teaching the Philosophy Classes during the Brahmani Teacher Training Programmes.