As Your Teacher

My intention is to offer learning and healing experiences that demonstrate equity and inclusion for all human bodies, hearts and minds. To guide experiences of learning that are co-created and heart centered. To empower individuals to use their own discernment and knowing to make choices that best meet their needs. 

Experienced Yoga Instructor

I have been teaching Hatha Yoga and Yin yoga since 2017. I’m a 500 E-RYT Certified Yoga teacher, and I also bring 20 years of Personal Training experience, specializing in pre & post rehabilitative work, to my yoga instruction. I hold a Personal Training certification through the American Council on Exercise and am a Balanced Body pilates instructor. I Graduated from the University of Vermont, Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude with a double major in Psychology and Sociology.

image of me sitting and smiling on my yoga mat

Working with people suffering from pain and injury calls me to continually increase my knowledge of the body and its makeup. I’ve completed additional studies in anatomy with Mount Sinai hospitals FAMI program. In addition, I’ve taken  advanced anatomy studies with Ellen Saltonstall, and have completed many Cross Country Education modules including rotator cuff therapeutics, spine & back care, osteoporosis and osteopenia. I continue my yoga studies with my teacher Dr. Kavitha Chinnaiyan and the Sabda Institute. Most recently I completed eighty hours of study in Trauma Informed Weightlifting with the Center for Embodiment and Trauma at JRI (Justice Reinvestment Initiative) and am currently undertaking Essentials of Elite Performance with Z-health’s neurocentric (brain based) education for movement professionals. I am CPR certified with the American Heart Association. My yoga teachers and influencers include Dr. Kavitha Chinnaiyan, Todd Norian, Michelle Cassandra Johnson and many more. 

“I know you will like Joann as she is practical, knowledgeable,
and experienced. Funny, too! “
~Barbara, yoga student

Certified TRE® Provider

2 women laying in butterfly pose

I’m a certified TREⓇ provider (Tension & Trauma Release Exercise). I studied TREⓇ  with Jay Gleason MS, LCMHC, LADC of Burlington, VT, and I assist at his TRE® provider Level 1 & 2 certification training program. I continue my trauma studies with the works of Stephen Porges, Peter Levine, Deb Dana, Bessel Van Der Kolk, Resmaa Menakem, David Berceli et. al.

Five years ago I joined my first TRE® group class as a participant to bring more ease into my life experiences living with complex PTSD. TRE® has helped bring more balance and healing to my body. And, since tremoring regularly, my incidences of chronic pain (back & neck), irritable bowel, sleep disturbances, and anxiety, all of which interfered with my ability to work and thrive, have been significantly reduced. Because it has been such a positive experience for me personally, I remain committed to offering TRE® to people as an affordable and accessible strategy for recovery, reducing pain, stress, and the symptoms of stress and trauma.

What brings me to this work

My passion for teaching people how to heal and grow from stress and injury grew out of my own journey with pain. After contracting meningitis in 2012, followed shortly thereafter by a diagnosis of cPTSD, I spent five years with very challenging chronic symptoms that required me to give up the work that I loved; the lifestyle I knew and the friends that went along with it.

Along my healing journey I learned a lot about the nature of trauma and healing. One of the most inspiring teachings for me lies in the inherited nature of trauma. When my own pain pattern began to eerily align with my mother’s chronic pain pattern things became clear. I deeply wish to end this cycle of pain for my own children, my family, my human family. One of the great gifts of this journey has been building the stamina in myself to follow my heart, which has brought me to share this work with others.

My Commitment to diversity and anti-racism

I teach people who want to grow from stress and injury to heal themselves by developing an empowered relationship with their bodies. The stress and injury caused by living in our racialized culture that actively persecutes certain members of my human family harms all of us. Healing happens in community, in relationship. 

 

It is my deepest intention to create inclusive safe spaces for human connection and healing. It is my sincerest desire to cause no harm–and I acknowledge that I will, at times, cause harm. As a white yoga teacher I am working to recognize where I may be appropriating yoga and take restorative actions. I am committed to doing my work to untangle my own bias, to educate myself, to make reparations, and to change culture by supporting others who are willing to do the uncomfortable work of healing our own culturally racialized ways of being in the world. 

 

All that said, I live in very white rural Vermont and am rather introverted. I have only limited experience in diverse groups. At this stage of my growth I am expanding my awareness of the ways I perceive the world from my white perspective and center my white experiences in my offerings. I am strengthening my racial literacy, learning, and refining my offerings to decolonize my courses. I still have many blind spots in myself to uncover and much to learn as a white woman and an educator and facilitator committed to becoming increasingly anti-racist in myself and my work. 

 

I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land, the Abenaki people, on which I live, work, and play, now called Vermont. I make this acknowledgement to show respect for the people and their 12,000 years on this unceded land. I honor their sacrifice and centuries old traditions of expressing gratitude for the Earth and her gifts.

 

As a cis gendered woman I benefit from the advantage of living in a heteronormative society. I am witness to the chronic pain, suffering and societal aggression towards LGBTQIA folks in the U.S. Although it is not my direct experience, I have close family and friends, peers and colleagues who are experiencing harm and discrimination in their lives. I am committed to expanding my understanding and refining and/or rebuilding my methods and practices so they are accessible to all people, regardless of gender identity. By continually studying and engaging in trauma informed movement communities I am learning and adapting my conditioned way of being in diverse communities so that I show up in ways that honor all folks’ lived experiences. I welcome feedback for my own growth and refinement and remain open to others in this growth journey.



A bit more about me…

As  a mother of 3 teens/young adults I’m humbled every day by all I have to learn from them. When I pull myself away from my inner workaholic, I enjoy paddling with my daughters; engaging in thought-provoking conversations with my son; foraging for mushrooms; snowshoeing; playing with my sax; collaging; reading and learning how to keep my house plants alive! I also hold the hope to return to some of my old favorites: snowmobiling, ice fishing, basketball, jumping rope and swinging kettlebells. I hope to one day earn a black belt in judo or aikido.

A bit more about me…

As  a mother of 3 teens/young adults I’m humbled every day by all I have to learn from them. When I pull myself away from my inner workaholic, I enjoy paddling with my daughters; engaging in thought-provoking conversations with my son; foraging for mushrooms; snowshoeing; playing with my sax; collaging; reading and learning how to keep my house plants alive! I also hold the hope to return to some of my old favorites: snowmobiling, ice fishing, basketball, jumping rope and swinging kettlebells. I hope to one day earn a black belt in judo or aikido.

Private Yoga Lessons ~ Personal Training ~ Movement Coaching ~ TRE® Tension and Trauma Release Exercise