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Joanne Gardner RYT 500
In November 2007, I received registration with the Yoga Alliance at the 500 hour level. My teaching embraces the knowledge I have gained from many excellent teachers while helping students achieve a balanced practice including breath awareness, mindfulness, strength, flexibility, flow and the ageless principals passed down through the ancient yoga lineage. Opportunities continue to arise which allow me to share my skills as a yoga teacher and dietitian through programs that integrate the various limbs of yoga complemented by lifestyle and nutrition education.

The roots of my yoga practice reach back into the 1970’s. I took my first yoga classes as a college student. These classes became the foundation for the exploration of yoga through the wisdom of many teachers. These teachers represented Yogi Bhajan’s 3HO Foundation, Yoganada’s Self Realization Foundation, Swami Rama’s Himalayan Institute, B.K.S. Iyengar and the Siddha Yoga Foundation.

I participated in a yoga teacher training program in Madison WI in 1980 which led to teaching weekly yoga classes in 1981. My daily practice developed further while studying under various teachers, several whom had been trained by Iyengar. During the next two decades, teaching yoga was secondary to developing my professional career as a Registered Dietitian and nutrition consultant and raising two wonderful daughters. However, I continued to teach occasionally at the YMCA, local churches and schools.

In 1998, I began a teaching apprentice program based on the Vinyasa and Ashtanga traditions with Kathleen Kelly Hoffman, owner of the [Green] Bay Area Yoga Center. She recognized my dedication to the practice of yoga and acknowledged the depth of my previous structured and independent studies. I have been teaching weekly classes at the Center since 2002. We have been blessed with workshops conducted by Dr. Mari Elaine Cobo (Ranjani) from Encinitas, California and Michael Stone from Toronto, Canada, who have greatly influenced my personal practice and teaching.