Instructors

Diane Anderson

Diane Anderson began her study of yoga and spirituality in 1987. Dealing with a major depression and, shortly thereafter, diagnosed with insulin-dependant diabetes, Diane knew it was a time for a big lifestyle change. She began attending a Kripalu gentle yoga class and noted its immediate healing benefits. She soon devoted herself to the practice, seeking every yoga book and resource she could find.

A highly caring and intuitive teacher, Diane offers compassion and love to all who walk through her studio’s doors. Beginning each Hatha yoga class with an opportunity to set a positive intention or affirmation, Diane teaches pranayama breathing, along with positive affirmations and visualizations, which benefits the body’s tissues, organs and other systems. She then ends each class with a moment of gratitude, which for her is one of the most powerful and transformational forms of meditation and prayer available.

In addition to teaching yoga classes, Diane enjoys sharing her gifts of healing touch, intuition and aromatherapy. She offers private, partner and small-group sessions both in and outside the studio, and also creates Hatha yoga and spiritual-mental practices for individual practice.

You can reach Diane at diane@nwcommyoga.com or 206.478.0745.

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Bernadette Roberts

Bernadette brings compassion and playfulness to yoga, which she believes can help us remain open to what the practice offers, while reducing the risk of injury.  She first learned yoga from her childhood ballet teacher, who ended ballet class with a few traditional asana, including savasana, which she called ‘sleeping ragdoll’.  With many thanks to other early teachers, Bernadette has been a lifetime explorer of dance, martial arts, and movement as meditation and spiritual offering. She loves chant, mantra, and the support of being in a community of seekers in the hatha yoga tradition.  She thanks Kathleen Hunt at Samadhi Yoga for her Certified Yoga Teacher Training at the 200 hour level.  Bernadette's work as a physical therapist with both children and adults, has given her special insight into alignment and the importance of breath in all that we do.  She is happy to share the wealth of treasures her many teachers have given her, and hopes always, to learn from her students.

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Debra Dragovich

Debra Dragovich has been practicing Pilates for several years and has been teaching Pilates for 4 years. She received her training in Pilates mat work and equipment at Vitality Pilates in Mount Baker. Besides her interest in Pilates, she is an avid swimmer and has competed in local masters’ competitions as part of the Seattle Athletic Club Sea Slugs swim team. She also enjoys indoor cycling. The discipline and precision of Pilates core conditioning has been of great benefit to her in these activities, and she has found that it has enhanced her day-to-day life by increasing flexibility, balance and strength.
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Megan O'Laughlin

Megan O’Laughlin began practicing yoga in 2002 as a way of turning inward during her Peace Corps service in West Africa.  She has continued to work in public service as a clinical social worker and returns to her yoga mat to find peace within challenge. Megan was certified by Yoga Alliance at the 200 hour level in 2005 after completing a teacher training at the Alabama Yoga School with Jennifer Wolfsey in the lineage of Sri Dharma Mittra.  She is currently undergoing a second yoga teacher training with Bob Smith and Ki McGraw at the Seattle Hatha Yoga Center.  She recently obtained certification as an instructor of Street Yoga, which brings yoga to homeless youth as a tool for moving through past traumas and enjoys teaching weekly classes to youth served at the Orion shelter in downtown Seattle.  Megan teaches Hatha-Vinyasa style asana practice, encouraging dynamic flow with careful attention to alignment and the breath.  She is grateful for her teachers and to yoga for bringing profound self-acceptance and joy into her life and feels it is an honor to share this knowledge with others. 

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Liziah Woodruff

Liziah completed her yoga teacher training in 2005 and is a certified yoga teacher.  Since graduating,  Liziah has had the wonderful opportunity to share the art of yoga with both kids and adults.  One of Liziah's favorite places to teach is at Children's hospital, where she worked with kids that had eating disorders.  Liziah Has a BFA in acting and performing arts form Cornish College of The Arts. Liziah teaches yoga with the intention to bring joy and inspiration into people's lives.

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Carey DeMartini

Carey DeMartini is a registered yoga teacher at the advanced level with the Yoga Alliance. She has been integrating the powers of the mind, body, and creativity in her classes with students of all ages for over nine years. Carey completed teacher trainings with Ana Forrest and Shari Friedrichsen. Additionally, she is certified to teach prenatal yoga and trained in yoga therapy with The Samarya Center in Seattle. Her classes emphasize core strengthening, breath awareness, encouragement of practicing from a place of ahimsa (compassion and non-violence) and self-acceptance. As a new mom, she is learning to take her yoga beyond the mat--to be in the present moment and remember to breathe. She is also a licensed mental health counselor and art therapist.

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Jennifer Abel

Jennifer Abel strives to bring her enthusiastic and mindful attitude to students who search for a whole-body approach to health and wellness. Her classes emphasize breath-work and explore the strengthening and opening potential of each pose. She believes it is important to bring a sense of humor along with your mat to class. Jenn is particularly interested in yoga as an effective method of cross-training for athletes, and as a powerful way to stay centered and grounded in our daily lives. She’s also a yoga prop geek!

Jenn first encountered yoga when her mother forcibly dragged her to a class at age 18. That day, she was hooked! Jenn soon found her life transformed by yoga’s ability to both heal and create powerful communities of like-minded folk. She is certified by the Yoga Works 200-hour program, and will soon complete her certificate with Street Yoga of Portland, OR.

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Betsy Snyder

Betsy began her yoga practice in 1997, when she moved to Seattle from the east coast. She is a graduate of the Yoga Works Teacher Training program, and has a well-rounded background with over ten years of experience in the healing arts. She is a licensed massage practioner, a Reiki master, and a teacher of Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® lessons. Betsy’s yoga classes blend flowing sequences with an exploration of the finer points of asana to help students create a safe, strong practice.

An effective movement practice is a never ending process of fine tuning self awareness so that we can be open to more possibilities, more choices, take a step beyond where we usually dwell to see ourselves from a broader perspective. Then we can choose to continue on our path, or to change course if that’s what we need to do. Sometimes a small shift in the way we move, the way we breathe, the way we stand, can open up whole new vistas. It’s not so much about ‘change’ or ‘transformation’ for me- more about growing into who we really are, who we’ve been all along. Yoga is a wonderful way to access the self on this level.

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Kristina Schwartz

Kristina Schwartz has been practicing pilates for 12 years and has been certified as an instructor since 2009. She received her training in London, England through Body Control Pilates - a world leader in Pilates training. She also received her Pilates and Pregnancy certification. Kristina loves the convenience of Pilates and the ability to take it anywhere and is inspired by the idea of making it accessible to everyone. Along with Pilates, she is interested in most things that keep her physically active and is always looking to try something new!

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Seanna Browder

Seanna Browder has been intrigued with yoga since she was a teenager and has been able to deepen her practice for many years at Northwest Community Yoga. In fall 2009, she undertook the rigorous 200-hour teacher training certification at 8 Limbs Yoga in Seattle and is thrilled to be giving back to Northwest Community Yoga as a teacher. Her strong intent is that her practice benefits others and that she forever remains a student, always learning from other students and teachers.

Her teaching style is a hatha flow practice with strong emphasis on pranayama. She can testify to the fact that yoga and breath can release stuck patterns in the mind and body. Seanna came to yoga seeking physical relief from years of sitting in front of a computer and tightness stemming from running. She found so much more. Yoga is a great teacher for accepting who you are this moment. Some days you bend, some days you don’t. As long as you are breathing, it’s all good.

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Sylvia Chia

Sylvia came to yoga after a serious knee injury. Unable to run anymore, she turned to yoga for exercise, but found that yoga provided so much more. Trained in the Atmananda Sequence (RYS-500) in 2000, she has since continued her yoga education through workshops with Mia Borghatta (pre-natal yoga), Adrienne Burke (Ashtanga), Donna Fahri, Richard Freeman (Ashtanga), Troy Lucero (Ashtanga), Eric Stewart, and Paula Tursi. Sylvia is interested in a wide range of yoga asana disciplines and seeks to provide each individual with options to develop an asana practice tailored to their body type.