O2 Yoga Teachers

Jourdan Abel

I began practicing yoga to relieve chronic pain from a broken back eight years ago. After a few months on the mat, more than just my back felt better, and I was hooked. I practice yoga for both the physical and inner peace and balance it has brought to all aspects of my life. I teach yoga because I want to share the grace, wisdom, and fun of it with others. I strive to teach classes that are woven along the thread of vinyasa, with a deep attention to alignment and healing, and with some exploration and laughter thrown in. I am grateful to the O2 yoga teachers and students for the chance to learn from and with them.

Bob Carr

"At the age of 30 I discovered the experience of 'flow state' as a cyclist. There was something exciting and powerful about breaking through to a level of singular focus through exercise and I gravitated toward that feeling. After 5 years of teaching cycling in downtown Boston, I decided to join a yoga class that followed my cycling class. The experience of connection with myself was immediate. Through the coordination of gaze, breath, and motion, yoga opened new roads for exploring the body and the spirit."

Bob maintains a personal practice deeply grounded in Astanga yoga. He strongly believes that yoga is found in the breath, and teaches a vigorous class that strives toward the union of breath and continuous motion. His teachers include Mimi Loureiro, Beryl Bender Birch, Stephen Cope, and each of his students. His spiritual practice is guided by the writings of J. Krishnamurti.

Lynne Carr

I believe in staying active in body, mind and spirit as a path to healthfulness. Yoga is the only activity I have found to simultaneously engage and challenge all three. Initially, I started practicing yoga as a companion activity to help restore my body after running, weight training and group exercise classes. It soon became clear, though I still love a good run with my dog, that yoga would benefit me as much as these activities and leave me feeling rejuvenated.

In my teaching, I focus on helping students find and respect their growth edge and move safely beyond it, while at the same time reminding them not to take their practice or life too seriously.

Carol Ciaravino

I came to yoga at mid-life after a 25-year career as a psychotherapist and a psychoanalyst. After a career based in words, concepts and deep emotions, yoga felt light, simple. Just show up. Come to the mat and practice, practice, practice. Yoga has given me a feeling of stillness inside, a sense of optimism that I can do things that I once would have thought impossible and a connection to the wonderful teachers and community of O2. A friend of mine says that we teach what we most want to learn and so it is that I teach yoga.

Lori Green

First off, I am an Ohio girl, born and bred. That seems to explain a lot about me to many people. I have loved to sing and dance ever since I could walk and talk and I am a liberal thinker so naturally I had to move to NYC at the age of 20. There I studied dance and singing and explored the world through books and travel and, of course, by simply living in the City.

In 1993 I moved to Somerville to find a simpler life and a new perspective. I had abandoned my dance classes in my 30s, and going back at the age of 40 I found I could no longer keep up with the ‘kids.’ I don’t remember how I settled on yoga, but I tried my first class at Kripalu and was hooked. In yoga I could draw on my dance alignment and move into a physical training that I could maintain well into my older years. Yoga has also answered the call for combining so many of my other life interests— love of nature and learning, beauty of movement and stillness, introspection, spirituality, and community through practice and teaching.

In 2003 I took a teacher training course with Beryl Bender Birch. That is where I met Mimi, Elliot, and Heather. I started practicing at O2 immediately and when the teacher training came to Somerville I signed up. My new perspective is this: Seek to notice something beautiful everyday, strife to live in peace, balance, truth, and harmony with every living thing, and don’t do it if it ain’t fun. Yoga is fun!

Barrett Lauck

Barrett (RYT Yoga Alliance, 500 hours) has been teaching group and private yoga classes since 1998. Trained in vinyasa yoga and interdisciplinary yoga, Barrett melds asana, breath, music, philosophy, and playful improvisational movement into her vinyasa sessions. She also holds certification in prenatal yoga and works with pregnant and postpartum women as they prepare physically and mentally to give birth and become parents. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree studying Therapeutic Yoga.

Emily Leadholm

I took my first yoga class at O2 five years ago and it has slowly and steadily become a central part of my life. I get a feeling of strength and peacefulness from the practice and a sense of belonging and friendship from the community at O2. And then there are all the ways it's changed me that I'm only barely conscious of; yoga does its work on me without me even knowing it.

Mimi Loureiro

Mimi has been living and breathing her dream of being a full-time yoga teacher for 15 years. She created O2 Yoga in 1998 as a way to introduce people to the system she believes is like no other for changing and improving body, mind, and spirit. She has a BS in nutrition, a BA in psychology, and an MS in exercise physiology. These studies led her to believe even more strongly in the benefits of what you do with the body and put into your mouth really does matter. Yoga is a natural extension of this belief. “Yoga represents a way of harnessing all the good energy, focusing it on one point, to create a more harmonious individual and therefore a more peaceful world,” she says. Her infectious enthusiasm and love for teaching comes through in everything she does. She specializes in strong anatomical focus, adjusting the body to better align and strengthen the spine and therefore create better posture, better mood, better interations with the world, and a more centered and quiet mind.

Mimi’s creation, O2 Yoga is a unique system that draws from the philosophy of the eight-limbed path of Patanjali. O2 Yoga is athletic, empowering, energizing, and life-changing. O2 Yoga is a community of teachers and students who believe in the connection to all living beings and therefore our responsibility to be conscious of all of our actions, words, and intentions. O2 Yoga encourages a proactive interaction with the world.

Mimi has been thrilled to receive many “Best of”s, including “Best of the South End,” “Best Yoga in Boston” by the Weekly Dig, and “Best Yoga in Boston” by the Boston Phoenix, just to name a few! Most importantly, she is inspired every day by her husband, Steven, her two boys, Dylan and Deven, and her family’s ever-increasing animals, including 3 dogs and 6 chickens. Mimi runs teacher training and retreats locally and internationally. She is also incredibly joyful and passionate about animals, vegan cooking, home schooling, traveling with her family, and helping her husband rebuild their antique sailboat, which will take them around the world someday soon.

Elliott McEldowney

I came to yoga after a history as a runner followed by a near endless stint in gradate school and substantial time in the gym, all of which left me chronically sore and tight. What I found in yoga was a way to challenge myself physically, intellectually, and emotionally and heal my body. I try to incorporate that combination of challenge and healing in my teaching.

Elliott has trained with Beryl Bender Birch, Ana Forrest, Baron Baptiste, Richard Freeman, and Mimi Loureiro. He teaches a class that incorporates strength, flexibility, effort, and surrender.

Diana Milan

Melanie Mitsch

Melanie fell in love with yoga because it can be as simple or as complex as the day allows and is something everybody can do. She believes there is a posture or series of poses for every mood and all poses are accessible to every body with some form of modification. Melanie has been practicing yoga in the Boston area for 8 years. What started out as a weekly class at her gym turned into a deep passion that led her to take the Teacher Certification Course through O2 Yoga. She teaches yoga in her free time from her job as quality assurance manager at Tamale Software. All of Melanie's experiences, both on and off the mat, influence the classes she teaches, including teachers, students, family, and friends.

Ann Panopoulos

From the moment I I first stepped onto the mat, I knew this was more than just a physical practice, and something that would always be a part of my life, as my mind and body began to transform in ways not achieved with other forms of exercise. I've practiced many different traditions, yet upon taking my first class at 02, I knew I had found something truly special.

As a clinical social worker, my days are spent attending to the needs to others, and while I find this work to be incredibly satisfying, it can have a profound effect on my emotional state. Yoga not only bestows a sense of physical well being, but restores me to a sense of grounding, empowerment, and connectedness. Throughout lifes's challenges, the mat has been my sanctuary, teaching me strength, serenity, and surrender.

My practice is deeply rooted in the astanga system and I chose to embark upon teaching as I decided it was time to give back all that the practice has given me.

Katherine Pomponi

I began practicing yoga to achieve physical goals. Five years later and 40+ pounds lighter, yoga has not only improved my body physically, but has inspired me in so many ways. Yoga has brought a sense of balance, peace, and mindfulness not only on my mat, but in my hectic personal and corporate life. Through teaching, I hope to give other students the joy and passion of yoga I have received from so many knowledgeable, wonderful, and supportive teachers.

Frederique Thiebault-Adjout

Frédérique came to yoga from martial arts (karate and tae kwon do) and was hooked right away. Coming from Europe in 2000, she loved the friendly, non-competitive ambiance at O2, and made friends with many people in that community. Several years and a lovely daughter later, O2 has become as much a part of her life as yoga itself.