JIVAMUKTI YOGA® NEW YORK
Teaching Team
Meet the teachers who guide our practice.
Director - Jivamukti Yoga® New York
Adv. Certified JivamuktiJTAP Program Director
Adv Certified JivamuktiAdv Certified Jivamukti
300 Hr Jivamukti | Sound Healing
Sacred Kundalini Yoga Therapy
Jamie Logan
300 Hr Jivamukti
Yoga Nidra, Yin, Vinyasa
Katonah Yoga | Vinyasa
Spiritual Warrior | Vinyasa
300 hr Jivamukti
Spiritual Warrior | Vinyasa
Christie Young
Christie has been teaching Jivamukti Yoga since completing her 300hr at Govardhan Eco-Village in Galtare, India in 2024, under senior teachers HaChi Yu and Petros Haffenrichter. Since then, she has completed 200+ additional teacher training hours in NYC, expanding her knowledge to include Iyengar and Ashtanga traditions. For Christie, yoga has been a source of infinite inspiration, clarity, joy, and connection to the Divine; as a teacher, her intention is to make space for every student to have their own realization of the benefits of yoga.
Alexis Tissian
Alexis Tissian is a yoga teacher based in Brooklyn, NY. She has trained at VeraYoga NYC (200-hour RYT), Kula Yoga NYC (75-hour), and Jivamukti NYC (75-hour Spiritual Warrior), among others, with a focus on pranayama, Katonah Yoga, hands-on assists, contemporary Pilates and more. Her classes aim to spark joy through movement and music, drawing from the traditions and teachers she’s grateful to have learned from.
HaChi Yu
HaChi Yu is an Advanced Certified Jivamukti Yoga® teacher, international teacher training facilitator, and (re)founder of Jivamukti Yoga® New York, which recently opened its new Brooklyn flagship and is now the only official Jivamukti School in the US. Born and raised on the Lower East Side in the 1980s, she grew up dancing in the city’s parks, sidewalks, and theaters before spending more than twenty years as a professional ballet dancer. That love of movement and music is still very much part of how she teaches. Her classes are thoughtful, vigorous, and joyful, grounded in the teachings of her beloved teachers Sharon Gannon and David Life and the understanding that how we treat others is at the heart of our practice.
After founding LaLaLå! Jivamukti Yoga Los Angeles, which sadly closed during the pandemic, HaChi returned home to NYC, first rebuilding the Collective in Chinatown to help keep the teachings alive in the city where they began. Today, she leads Jivamukti Yoga® New York and is the founder of Sharanam Institute BK, a nonprofit dedicated to making yoga, contemplative education, healing arts, and community development accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds. Sharanam Institute is a school for divinity...and grows from a universal belief: that opportunities to find refuge, learn, and feel supported to grow should be part of everyday life, available to everyone. Whether teaching a class, mentoring teachers, or opening the doors for a creative gathering, HaChi hopes to offer what her own teachers have given her—a place to return to, room to grow, and a refuge for becoming.
CONNECT WITH CLAUDIA DEBS
Instagram · @brooklynbhav (opens in a new tab)claudiadebs.com (opens in a new tab)Claudia Debs
Claudia is a Brooklyn native whose work lives where movement and sound meet. She is the Program Director for continuing education at Jivamukti Yoga New York and a faculty member for its teacher trainings. Alongside her teaching, she works in sound design as a Foley Artist for film and television. Her yoga path began at Jivamukti Yoga on Lafayette while she was studying theatre at NYU Tisch.
She draws on her training in several modalities (FRCms, Roll Model Method, NASM-CPT) and is passionate about the way sound and movement can guide students to listen to their bodies. She is grateful to Sharon-Ji and David-Ji for merging the artist’s endeavor with the yogic path, and for inspiring a community that isn’t afraid to keep the soul of yoga in the daily practices.
CONNECT WITH JESSICA STICKLER
Instagram · @yogastickler (opens in a new tab)Jessica Stickler
Jessica Stickler grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico and has always felt an irresistible magnetic pull towards New York City, where she has been living since 1998. Jessica discovered yoga as a means to manage anxiety and depression, and was attracted to the beauty of the forms and the depth of the philosophy.
Jessica has been teaching Jivamukti Yoga since 2008 studying directly with Sharon Gannon and David Life, the co-founders of Jivamukti Yoga. She serves as a mentor in Jivamukti’s apprentice teaching program and teaches Jivamukti Method internationally.
Jessica loves to teach a wide range of students, from beginners through advanced practitioners, and has worked closely with those who are recovering from injury. Her classes incorporate dynamic movement, often choreographic sequencing, with special attention to alignment and modification options. Classes are infused with a variety of inspiring music, meditation, and spiritual teachings.
CONNECT WITH MAKAYA REV LOVE
Instagram · @revlovemusic (opens in a new tab)Instagram · @yogaforactivists (opens in a new tab)Makaya Rev Love
Makaya (aka Rev Love) is a yogi, musician and revolutionary who aims to use yoga and music to revolutionize the worlds within and without.
As a lifelong dancer, yoga was a natural evolution on her movement and spiritual path. And as a lifelong musician, sound healing was a natural progression in her musicianship. Her certifications include Jivamukti 300hr, Jivamukti 75hr, Prison Yoga Project 200hr Trauma Informed Yoga, 200hr Sound Healing Certification, Radiant Lotus Qigong Certification, and she is also a Certified Sacred Activations and Medical Intuitive practitioner.
She continues to learn everyday in order to best serve humanity in this time of great change and awakening. Krishnamurti said, “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Makaya explores how we can use our practices to heal society and ourselves. She teaches at Jivamukti Yoga Brooklyn, to incarcerated individuals on Rikers Island, and she is the resident yoga instructor for Burgundy Roots Retreats.
CONNECT WITH SIRI SAT PAOLI
Instagram · @sirisatk (opens in a new tab)Siri Sat Paoli
Siri Sat is a native New Yorker with 25 years of experience teaching Kundalini and Classical Hatha Yoga. A certified IAYT Yoga Therapist, Teacher Trainer, and Program Director of the Sacred Yoga Therapy Training, she integrates energetic healing with an emphasis on precise posture, breath, meditation, and sound as powerful tools for self-healing and transformation. Her teaching is deeply informed by her foundational background as a professional dancer and choreographer, bringing a refined sense of rhythm, embodiment, presence, and musicality to her classes. Known for making subtle and esoteric practices accessible and down to earth, she combines depth with warmth and humor, creating an inclusive space in which students can understand the practices they are doing while discovering their effects through direct experience. Her work also includes private yoga therapy and energetic healing, working individually with clients to create personalized practices that address their particular needs and support healing, greater awareness, and meaningful change.
Siri Sat is the founder of Sacred Yatras, established in 2009, through which she leads transformational retreats, pilgrimages, and sacred journeys throughout the world. Her work has taken her across Europe, China, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States, with retreats and pilgrimages in India, Egypt, Mexico, and beyond. Having made annual pilgrimages to India for more than two decades, she brings a rich cultural perspective and a deep respect for the traditions and sacred landscapes that have informed her work. Across her classes, trainings, private work, and journeys, Siri Sat’s approach is grounded in the belief that yoga is available to everyone as a means to heal, expand awareness, and deepen one’s connection to their own essential nature.
CONNECT WITH VERA KASPER
Instagram · @iamverakasper (opens in a new tab)Vera Kasper
Vera Kasper is a yoga teacher, hormone health specialist, and founder of Orē Retreats, based in Brooklyn. Holding 200- and 300-hour RYT certifications, she teaches at Bhakti Center, Prema, and Kala Yoga, and as part of the Jivamukti NY / Sharanam teaching team. Informed by her training in Katonah, pranayama, and meridian work, her classes move from dynamic, breath-led practice to deep stillness. Whatever the pace, her teaching is grounded in Traditional Chinese Medicine and somatic awareness, helping students build strength, steady the nervous system, and truly inhabit their bodies.
Alongside teaching, Vera runs an independent wellness practice focused on hormone health, cycle syncing, and preventive, individualized care. Her approach brings together functional medicine perspectives with TCM, Ayurveda, and European traditional practices, honoring the body as an intelligent, cyclical system rather than something to be fixed. Whether on the mat, in a one-on-one session, or on retreat, her work centers on one idea: your body is not against you, and learning to listen to it changes everything.
Chelsey Forbes
Chelsey Forbes is a lover + Katonah Yoga certified teacher and practitioner. Her classes are a playfully cosmic charcuterie board of sound, breath, and movement recipes that reference ancient Yogic texts and soma. First introduced to mindfulness and Yoga philosophy during childhood illness & trauma, she began a search for ways that kept the inner child safe, in awe, alive, and liberated from the confines of the human mind. After studying Media Culture, Art History + Journalism at university she went on to Hospitality and Non-Profit work, bringing a multilayered approach to teaching, and creating a deeply connective, collaborative, and authentically cinematic experience. She has studied with many influential teachers from different lineages since 2017 and is committed to inclusivity and accessibility as mutually dependent pathways - in the classroom and beyond. Chelsey is a court jester and jack-of-all trades. She leads various trainings, retreats + 1:1 therapeutic practice online and around the world.
I read the room. My classes are spirited and versatile, ranging from structured + functional to cathartic + challenging. I am inspired by nature, history, and the body’s natural intelligence + ability to heal itself… curated sound and vibration will be utilized to tell a story that shifts us out of the critically thinking headspace. We focus on self-study and nervous system regulation by blending fluid and dynamic sequencing, alignment, meditation, mantra, nourishing restorative poses, and breath. My goal as a teacher is to honor yoga as personal, political, magical, and medicinal.
Originally inspired by the philosophical texts and activism through the Jivamukti lineage, I went on to study esoteric wisdom and practical framework woven through Katonah Yoga.
CONNECT WITH DANIEL VALDES
Instagram · @terrapinyoga (opens in a new tab)Daniel Valdes
Daniel Valdes is a yoga teacher who completed his 500-hour certification at Vinyasa Yoga School in Rishikesh, India, and his 75-hour Jivamukti Spiritual Warrior training through Jivamukti Yoga® New York. His advanced personal practice is rooted in a love of continuous learning and growth—it is the journey itself that keeps him coming back. Inspired by his teacher Simon-ji, Daniel continues to explore yoga beyond the physical body, approaching practice as an ongoing opportunity to deepen his understanding of himself and his connection to others.
PRACTICE WITH US
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