Santa Monica Yoga / home
About Us

Santa Monica Yoga offers a broad range of classes in yoga and complementary disciplines for every level of student. Our caring staff of teachers brings years of experience to every class. It is our goal that you feel welcomed, nurtured and challenged here.

Daniela Ardalla teaches an integrative and exploratory style of yoga movement based on ancient and modern techniques which enhance our well being and connect us with our inner self.  Her classes offer a non-invasive and progressive approach to movement, leading you towards appreciating your body as it is and accepting growth and evolution.  Daniela’s class is taught in English and Spanish.

Ann Barbour teaches Pilates and GYROKINESISŪ with the goal of continually developing new ways to approach movement, instruction, and communication. Ann believes there should always be inherent beauty and flow in even the most difficult movements and an ability to work without strain.

Leslie Bogart focuses on the therapeutic potential of yoga. She specializes in working with beginners and with people who are recovering from illness or injury. Leslie is trained as a nurse and has extensive physical therapy experience.

Nathalie Canessa uses her knowledge in various styles of hatha yoga, dance, and vedic meditation to create a meditative, slower, vinyasa (flow) style class with emphasis on breath and alignment. She assists her students in finding their own Ritam (rhythm or evolution), balancing flexibility and strength, to move with grace, and to connect to the joy that resides within us.  Her main teachers and influences are Max Strom, Saul David Raye and her late father, who taught her to always notice the beauty in nature.

Mary Donovan creates a knowledgeable, inspiring environment to respectfully awaken the wisdom of body, mind and spirit.  A teacher at Santa Monica Yoga for eight years, her gentler flow-style classes devote attention to alignment and breath, and are influenced by the Iyengar and Ashtanga traditions.   Mary draws on her training as a mind-body healer and psychotherapist to create a sacred space to open and renew.

Jennifer Edwards is a certified Iyengar yoga teacher.  She has studied with BKS Iyengar in India and at the 2005 Yoga Journal Estes Park Iyengar Intensive. She is a graduate of the three-year Teacher Training Program at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of Los Angeles, and served as vice president of the Iyengar Yoga Association of Southern California.  Jennifer is a dedicated practitioner who has taught at studios throughout L.A.  She approaches teaching with reverence, precision, assurance, humor, and personal joy.  Her classes focus on the essentials of yoga and offer students the opportunity to experience first hand the many benefits of yoga.

Gimel Everett has been a yogini for thirty years, and speaks from experience when she says yoga is self therapy. If you want strength, courage, balance, joy; if you need to reduce stress, relieve heartache, get through trauma or spur creativity; if you want to heal, increase vitality/immunity, grow younger and more authentically beautiful; yoga works- it's scientific, it's spiritual, it's personal. Gimel is a living example of what she teaches. Her classes are intuitive, breath inspired blends of vinyasa flow, Anusara and tantric yoga.

Cindy Fraser teaches a slow, deep practice influenced by Taoist and hatha yoga principles, offering students of all levels the opportunity to explore the power and the beauty of body and breath. A yoga practice of 15 years brought Cindy to teaching.

Laura Gideon has been a part of the exercise industry for the past 25 years as a fitness business owner, certified group fitness instructor and IM=X certified Pilates trainer & mat class instructor. She also earned her Master’s Degree in Exercise Science from SCSU in 1997. Laura brings to her class a unique blend of strength and flexibility from the teachings of J.H. Pilates in addition to incorporating the principles of postural alignment from the Alexander Technique. Her class is designed to accommodate all levels with encouragement toward advancement in an injury-free setting.

Nancy Goodstein has been teaching yoga for 15 years.   Now, as a student of Pattabhi Jois, she focuses on Ashtanga yoga.  The method is a highly disciplined continuous flow, which creates a meditative mind and develops a strong body.  Nancy asks her students to work very hard, while keeping a sense of humor about it.

Kyra Haglund teaches hatha-raja yoga in a compassionate, knowledgeable, and energetic manner. She views yoga as a multilayered journey that inspires greater understanding of and connection to the true self within. She draws on her background as a dancer to evoke inner grace and balance in a safe, creative environment.

Keri Lee has been a practitioner of Iyengar yoga under the guidance of Mary Dunn, Lisa Walford, Marla Apt, Anna Delury and Kevin Gardiner.  In addition to her yoga, Keri has danced in a number of Broadway shows. For nine years she studied and taught the movement principles of the Yoshida Technique, with its creator, Martha Yoshida as well as ballet for Finis Jhung at the Broadway Dance Center in New York. She has a BA in English. Her passion is overly apparent in her teaching filled with joy, precision, humor and clarity.