Yoga Garden would like to welcome two new teachers to our beloved community: Anna Parker, Brooke Stokes and Michael Whiter. Read more about Anna, Brooke and Michael and see their schedules below.
—— Anna Parker ——
An experienced SmartFlow teacher and dedicated student of Annie Carpenter, Anna is a product of the vibrant Los Angeles yoga community. She has assisted multiple teacher trainings and followed scenic yogic byroads to teaching opportunities on both coasts and in Australia. Anna views each class as narrative, an explorative journey of physical, mental, and spiritual geography. Every class, each vignette, combines Southern sweetness and LA fire, quirky playfulness and boundless compassion.
Anna teaches with anatomical precision and a keen eye, prioritizing stability and longevity. In the firm belief that sequences have consequences, she meticulously crafts each class to create multiple layers of experience in a specific direction. Anna trusts in the intelligence of both language and touch to hone awareness and discernment. Though she focuses on physical nuances to facilitate steady attention and absolute presence, Anna views the practice through the shape-shifting, surrealist lens of M.C. Escher, where one element morphs seamlessly into another, the physical informing the spiritual and the spiritual feeding back again into the physical.
Schedule:
Saturday – 8:00-8:55 AM – Power Yoga
Saturday – 5:00-6:30 PM – Vinyasa
—— Brooke Stokes ——
Brooke began studying yoga in 2003 as a freshman in college. She started her practice in hot yoga and Bikram, and received her 500 HR RYT in this method in 2009. Immediately after, she was introduced to Anusara Yoga through a dear friend, and she focused her studies in this method with her teacher, Christina Sell. Brooke continues to study with Christina, and is also deeply influenced by the teachings of George Purvis and Douglas Brooks.
She is currently enrolled in graduate school through the California Institute of Integral Studies, studying to receive an MA in Women’s Spirituality. An integral part of what she brings to her classes, this program is supported by traditional academic research and scholarship in philosophy and religion that also draws from the many grassroots women’s, social justice and ecological movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It explores spiritual and religious traditions in which the experiences of women are both immanent and transcendent, earth-and-sky embedded, and embodied in the web of being.
Brooke is a student of yoga, of philosophy, and of life. She is passionate about the path of study and practice, and lovingly encourages her students to try new things, to have fun and play hard, and to get a little “uncomfortable” sometimes and to be receptive to what arises. Brooke’s classes are playful, clever, and challenging; they’re athletic, spiritual, and therapeutic.
Schedule:
Monday – 4:45-6:10 PM – Vinyasa
Tuesday – 12:00-1:15 PM – Vinyasa
Thursday – 12:00-1:15 PM – Vinyasa
Saturday – 10:30-11:55 AM – Vinyasa
—— Michael Whiter ——
Michael Whiter, RYT is a graduate of the YogaLife Institute’s 200-hour Classical Yoga Teacher Training program and continues his studies in the 500-hour program. Michael has been practicing yoga for ten years and uses yoga philosophy to guide him in his daily life. He encourages students to go to their edge while honoring their bodies and to remember we are all beginners each time we come to our mats. Michael’s classes focus on compassion, self-study, joy and balance.
Schedule:
Wednesday – 4:45-6:15 PM – Hatha Align
Friday – 5:00-6:25 PM – Hatha Align
