Peggy Leder Pepemehmetoglu has been studying intensively with Colleen and Rodney for the past 5 years. She has completed 1000 hours of Yoga Shanti Teacher Trainings. As well as teaching at Yoga Shanti, Peggy has a private practice as an art therapist working with all ages. She is a photographer and loves to capture the beauty that surrounds her on a daily basis on the east end of LI. Peggy holds her bachelor’s degree in art education from the University of Vermont and her master’s degree in clinical art therapy from CW Post, LI University. Peggy resides year round in Sag Harbor, NY.
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Fasanella
Raised on Long Island’s sandy shores Mia is an avid sailor with a passion for protecting coastal ecosystems. In her hometown of Hampton Bays she co-founded the environmental non-profit Ecological Culture Initiative. She began practicing yoga in high school to improve her balance and flexibility as a cheerleader. She completed two 8-week yoga instructor training courses and taught yoga throughout her undergraduate years at SUNY Oswego. In her junior and senior years of college she helped mentor the next group of yoga instructors for the university fitness centers. Mia completed her 200 hour training at Yoga Shanti in 2017. She graduated in 2018 from SUNY College at Oswego with a BA in Anthropology and a minor in studio art. In 2019 she completed Urban Zen Level One Training. She continues to study with Colleen Saidman Yee and Rodney Yee because she is passionate about their alignment focused sequencing. Gratitude, breath awareness, balancing poses and reiki all inspire her personal practice and teaching. She considers yoga to be her best tool for managing Type 1 Diabetes from a place of physical and emotional wellbeing.
Channing
Sylvia has been studying yoga for over 15 years on the East End. While Colleen and Rodney have been her teachers for most of that time, her first teacher was her sister Isabella, learning headstand and shouldershand in her studio apartment in Montevideo, Uruguay. She has since completed and mentored numerous Yoga Shanti teacher trainings, and taught in studios across Long Island and New York City, making special trips to José Ignacio, Uruguay to teach for her sister at The Shack Yoga studio. Sylvia has a background in various styles of yoga: Hatha, Ashtanga Vinyasa, and Iyengar styles, as well as heated practice, Jivamukti and Anusara styles. Her practice is deeply steeped in the Yoga Shanti method developed by her teachers, and her classes are often challenging but easy to follow, fun and lighthearted! Sylvia is a practicing visual artist with a BA in geology from Oberlin College, and loves to create visual representations, tools, and games to deal with esoteric concepts. When not teaching, she has spent the years since graduating working on farms, in gardens, and with school garden programs on Eastern LI. She is currently (virtually) working towards a degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine at Pacific College in New York.
Brennan
Maureen is a native Long Islander who has recently returned to her “roots’’ in Southampton, NY. Her yoga journey began in New York City when she was an avid runner and saw an ad for “yoga for runners” class in a YMCA in the late 1980’s. It was the beginning of an exploration of yoga which has spanned over three decades. After a career in the television business, Maureen and her husband and daughter moved to London in 1998 where Maureen continued her yoga practice in mostly pre-natal classes. (She had three sons born in 1998, 2000 and 2002.) After moving back to the USA in 2007, Maureen continued to explore all different types of yoga classes. In 2017, she completed a 200hr yoga teacher training at the Long Island School of Yoga and began teaching at the beach in the summertime. In the summer of 2018, she took her
first class at Yoga Shanti with Rodney and then some classes with Colleen and felt she had finally found her yoga “home.” In 2021, she completed both the 200hr and 300hr teacher training at Yoga Shanti and credits Colleen and Rodney and all the mentors for keeping her sane during the pandemic when all of her children returned home. She is thrilled to be dipping her yoga teacher toe in the Community classes at Yoga Shanti and filled with gratitude to remain teachable. The journey continues…
Hwang
Sophie Hwang was born and grew up in Seoul, Korea, and is now living in NYC. Yoga has been a big part of her life for over 15 years. The practice has helped her to be stronger, flexible in her mind and body and inspires her to be present and truthful in every moment. As she practiced yoga, she realized the importance of correct alignment to keep her body safe, calm the mind, and breathe freely. Sophie views alignment as a tool that can be explored through seeking balance in her life both on and off the yoga mat.
Sophie has completed 1000 hours of teacher training at yoga schools in NYC (200-hour Yoga Teacher Training at YogaWorks, a 200-hour and two 300-hour Advanced Teacher Training at Yoga Shanti with Colleen Saidman & Rodney Yee) as well as completing additional trainings in Korea. As she learns more about yoga, she feels more humble as a teacher and student, but also realizes that it is the beauty of life to wander between not knowing and knowing.
In her classes, Sophie offers a mix of creative, playful, and safe sequencing while emphasizing proper alignment to help deepen her students’ practice. Her goal is to help her students nourish their bodies and minds from deep listening and compassion.
Golden
For the last decade, my life has been centered around yoga—teaching, training and mentoring others. After receiving a BFA in photography and media from CalArts, I returned to New York and participated in my first teacher training at Yoga Shanti, Sag Harbor. Yoga has subsequently become an integral part of my life, and through Three Suns, I hope to offer wellness and the local magic to others.
As a yoga instructor, I teach private and group classes at Sky Ting Yoga (in NYC), and Yoga Shanti (NYC and The Hamptons). I serve as a teacher and mentor in Teacher Training programs along side Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman Yee, the founders of Yoga Shanti. In addition to teaching classes at Sky Ting Yoga I am Faculty at their bi-annual training and mentorship program.
Candies
Mary Frances, also known as Marf, grew up in New Orleans, LA. She now lives in Santa Monica, CA with her fiancé and their cat and dog! Her yoga journey began at 16 when she sought out an alternate movement practice after quitting ballet. She quickly fell in love with the practice of yoga and hasn’t stopped since. She found solace in the practice as a way to manage her chronic anxiety and build community. She completed her first 200hr in 2020 with Rodney and Colleen and then her 300hr in 2021. She has since assistant-mentored several training sessions at Yoga Shanti. She loves the constant learning and self-discovery that yoga provides. Her classes prioritize Shanti sequencing, creating space in the mind & body, and having fun! See you in the zoom studio!
Ford
Kathy’s curiosity for yoga began almost 30 years ago as a graduate student in nutrition sciences at Tufts University in Boston. What started as a form of exercise grew to become a profound practice in self study and learning how to cope with life’s many highs and lows. In 2020, during the pandemic, Kathy fulfilled a longstanding goal of completing a 200-hr yoga teacher training program with Yoga Shanti. She has since completed an additional 200-hour and a 300hr-hour Advanced Teacher training with Colleen and Rodney. She was able to complete all the teacher trainings online from her home in Hawaii. Kathy loves being a student and even more a part of the Yoga Shanti community. She remains involved as a mentor in their teacher training programs and teaching community yoga classes via Zoom for Yoga Shanti. Kathy hopes to integrate her knowledge of nutrition and wellness with her yoga trainings.
Haessler
Born and raised in East Hampton Stacy is thrilled to be able to share her love of yoga with the community in which she grew up. Stacy’s classes are uplifting, light hearted, alignment focused and thoughtfully sequenced. Stacy completed the 300-hour Yoga Shanti Teacher Training program in 2011, the 100-hour advanced training in 2014 and the Urban Zen Integrative Therapy program in 2014. She has since gone on to be a faculty member in Yoga Shanti Teacher Trainings.
Pettigrew
Originally from Quebec, Canada, Eric began his career as a professional dancer and continues to pursue his passion for movement and healing through yoga, massage and homeopathy.
Eric is a teacher & practitioner of Yoga for nearly 15 years. He is an established homeopath as well as a massage therapist. His private practice, Holistic Life Works, is based in NYC and Eastern Long Island. He currently participates in the “Urban Zen” integrative therapy program that brings holistic healing techniques to hospitals and other medical institutions. Eric is also a “master trainer” for Y4C (Yoga for Cancer) that allows him to offer yoga classes catered for individuals affected by cancer and to educate other Yoga instructors into this methodology.
Eric’s yoga classes are fun and informative. His goal is to increase awareness of the body and the mind while sharing and experiencing the flow of yoga and its healing practice. To contact Eric for private massage, yoga instruction and homeopathy visit holisticlifeworks.com.