Rising Lotus Yoga

Jessica Frank is a 500-RYT Deaf yoga teacher certified in the Sivananda lineage. She is based in southern California and has been teaching yoga in American Sign Language since 2011. She has long been an advocate for access to yoga for Deaf people and is a co-facilitator of the nonprofit, DeafYoga Foundation, an organization focused on sharing yoga in sign language. When she’s not teaching a class, you can probably find her hiking somewhere with her Ewok lookalike pup.

Elizabeth Philipose has been on a meditative path for fifteen years. She completed a four-year program in the frequency of meditation, and four levels of training in bioenergetics, breath work, and embodiment. She has a daily practice and retreats several times a year. Her style is unique, eclectic and highly attuned to subtle body energy; transcendent and embodied, spiritual and scientific, multidimensional and accessible. She offers knowledge that brings the mind into alignment with energy bodies and connects us to our authentic, masterful self. Besides teaching meditation, she has twenty years of classroom experience as an international politics professor.

Soft, grounded, and always holding space, Rae brings relaxing assists and creative sequencing to all her classes. She teaches yoga as an inquiry - a way to shed layers, understand our experience, heal emotionally and physically, and strengthen the essence of who we really are. 

Jay Averell has been a student of Iyengar yoga since 2001. He graduated in 2006 from the three year teacher's training program at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of Los Angeles and has recently passed assessment at the first level for certification by the Iyengar Yoga National Association of the U.S. His extensive medical background allows him a great knowledge and understanding of the anatomy of the human body, which he incorporates into his classes. He attended the Iyengar Yoga convention in 2007 in Las Vegas where he studied with Gita Iyengar. The senior teacher that he regularly studies with is Manouso Manos. He has been teaching yoga classes since 2005, and his love of Iyengar Yoga is evident to his students through his infectious enthusiasm.

I believe that all movement is valid. There are many paths to take. The idea that there is only one way is a thing of the past. I explore the meaning of mobility, the science around stretching, and how to make lasting freedom and change in the physical structure of our bodies. I share a blend of tradition and science and  PLAY is EVERYTHING. I marry the old with the new.

I am committed to being the change in the yoga community that I wish to see. I am excited about whats happening right now and am thrilled to be a part of it.

Thank you to Manouso Manos, Claire Hartley, Christine Stein, Carrie Owerko, Jules Mitchell, Matt Phippen, Vladimir Jandov, Anna Delury, Noah Mazé, Edwin Bryant and Pema Chodron for your teachings over the years. Coming in contact with all of them, their joy and curiosity keeps my flame lit!                                

Other people who inspire are Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk, Dr. Peter Levine, B.K.S Iyengar, Todd Hargrove and Jill Miller.

Keep learning, keep growing, and always ask a million questions. Peace.