About Our Instructors

Our Mission Statement

Through yoga, meditation, healing classes and retreats, oneness blessings, and nature hikes,

we strive to help us reconnect in body, mind, and spirit, awaken our true presence, power, and passion,

and help heal ourselves and this precious planet Earth.


Roy Holman
Namaste.  I began teaching yoga and meditation in 2000, and I basically teach what has been helping me grow, awaken, and heal old wounds. I have found yoga, meditation, retreats, and hiking in nature to be very helpful in my own personal healing. I am passionate about teaching, serving, and witnessing as we awaken our true passion, purpose and power.  My goal, in short, is to help us remember who we are and ease the transition into the new Golden Age.

I have lived abroad for over five years, including travels around Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia in 1986, and all around the planet in 1988, biking around Western Europe, then by train across the former Soviet Union, and through China. I graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 1991 with a BA in Sociology-Psychology. I then joined fact-finding delegations to Central America, and lived in Guatemala for almost three years doing human rights work, refugee work, teaching, and researching the effects of US policy.

I discovered yoga and meditation and began the inner journey in 1995, at a very challenging time in my life, when my life was a mess and I was struggling with depression and an eating disorder.  Yoga helped me ground, center, and find myself.  I’ll never forget the feeling after my first yoga class – it was a revelation.

I completed a two year Hands-on, Heart-centered Energy Healing course in Seattle in 1998, then completed a Meditation and Healing teacher’s training course in 2000, and was also ordained as a Minister. I was then certified as a reflexologist in 2005. I am a 500 hour Certified Yoga teacher, in the Viniyoga tradition. The style of yoga I teach is a grounded, breath-connected, meditative, flowing traditional hatha yoga - a meditation in motion really. I call it “Feel Good” Yoga, because I simply teach what feels best to me, my body, and my students. I include breathwork (pranayama) and meditation, and also try to incorporate the many aspects of healing I have learned. I finished writing my first book in 2010, second in 2012, and have another in the works.

I was initiated as a Oneness Blessing giver in 2011, where we act as conduits to transfer divine grace to help assist the awakening process. I then went to India in late 2011-2012 for six weeks to Oneness University, where I studied yoga, did some deep inner work, and got trained as a Oneness Trainer, so I can train others to be blessing givers. Our goal is to awaken as many people as possible to assist the shift into the Golden Age in 2012 and beyond.

My spiritual belief system is simple: I try to see Spirit - Divinity in everyone and everything, from looking into my cat’s eyes, to walking in an old growth forest. One of my favorite joys in teaching is seeing the look in the students’ eyes at the end of class, or after a oneness blessing. This is what yoga is all about – integration of body, mind, emotions, and spirit.  Ultimately, we are all not only connected, but made up of the same sacred energy, and the sooner we remember this, the sooner we will create a more kind and compassionate world.  I presently live in Everett , Washington , with my cool cat Mo (my guru!).  

Roy's Healing Self and Earth Blog:   http://healingselfhealingearth.blogspot.com/

To hear an audio interview with Roy, please go to:  http://www.newspiritjournal.com/media/index.html   or radio interview with Roy at  

C:\Documents and Settings\Roy\Local Settings\Temp\ITN_12o01o10_shonagh_home_roy_holman-1.mp3    

 

Chris Borys   (Chris has taught many retreats with Roy)


Chris often teaches with Roy at their retreats in the Pacific Northwest as well as abroad.  She is delighted to share her love of yoga with you. Chris has studied and practiced Yoga since 1972 and earned her Hatha Yoga Teacher Certification in 1998. Her classes include techniques from a variety of Yoga disciplines and is suitable for all levels with an emphasis on working at your own capacity with compassion and loving kindness. Take this opportunity to deepen and expand your personal practice or explore Yoga for the first time in a supportive and inspiring environment.



 



Linda Lapping   (Linda taught with Roy in Yelapa in 2008, and will teach with Roy in the future.)


Linda Lapping, former owner and director of Heartbeat Yoga in Kent, practices and teaches in the Viniyoga tradition. Her main objective is to reach out and teach others about the amazing transformation yoga has on the mind, body and spirit. Being exposed to yoga at a very young age, Linda has witnessed first hand the positive effects a daily yoga practice can make. She is certified and registered with Yoga Alliance.

 

Deirdre Wilcox   (Deirdre will teach with Roy in Costa Rica in February of 2012)


Deirdre is a Certified Yoga Teacher who brings to her teaching 18 years of experience in private practice as a body therapist and movement educator. Her focus is on bringing conscious awareness to habituated patterns in all their expressions: psycho-emotional, deeply held beliefs and expectations, neuromuscular movement.  Her classes focus on helping students make conscious choices in a supportive environment, with an emphasis on honoring your own current capacity with compassion and kindness. This is a wonderful opportunity to experience yoga for the first time or to deepen and expand your own practice in a warm and inspiring environment.


 

Rene De Los Santos  (Rene taught in Guatemala 2007, and taught with Roy in Yelapa, 2012)

Rene is a Health & Well-being Leader for the YMCA of Greater Seattle. He is a Certified Yoga Instructor in the Viniyoga tradition with over 15 years experience leading dance, movement and conditioning classes. He encourages students to work at their own pace and find joy in everything they do. Rene also enjoys traveling, meeting people, meditation, kirtan and follows Native American traditions to stay centered and happy!

 

 

Shannon Middleton    (Shannon has taught several retreats with Roy )


Shannon fell in love with yoga in 1998. She discovered how its calming effects helped her stay balanced through the stresses of college life. Once out in the "real world" yoga continued to help her stay grounded, and ultimately led her away from journalism to teaching yoga. In 2002, she attended a teacher training at the Seattle Center for Yoga and began teaching at the Mukilteo YMCA. Since then, she has completed another teacher training at the Yoga Centers and started her own business called "Tranquil Turtle Yoga." Now, she teaches about 14 classes a week in a variety of different settings. Although she is trained in the Iyengar method, which focuses on correct alignment, Shannon believes in adapting yoga to the needs of the individual. Her classes incorporate relaxation and restorative poses, as well as poses that challenge her students. She likes to remind students that yoga is a journey not a destination.

Bill Hale, M.D. (Bill will teach mindfulness meditation with Roy at Skalitude in May, 2012)

Bill practices psychiatry and mind-body medicine at the Sastun Center of Integrative Health Care in Kansas City.  For over ten years he has been teaching people how to suffer less --even in the midst of

pain or other stressors -- through an intensive 8-week course in Stress Management based on Mindfulness Meditation.  He has practiced meditation since 1973, and mindfulness meditation (Insight

or vipassana meditation) since 1988. Dr. Hale attended medical school at Kansas University, followed by a psychiatry fellowship at the Menninger School of Psychiatry in Topeka, Kansas.  In addition to his residency, he completed a two-year internship at Menninger in Biofeedback Therapy.  He has trained in Ayurvedic medicine in India through the auspices of a Fulbright Fellowship, and trained in Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction at the clinic of Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of  Massachusetts School of Medicine. 

 

Natasha   (Natasha taught with Roy in Guatemala in 2011) www.being108.blogspot.com

Yoga is a wonderfully magical journey, allowing the natural spirit to blossom.  As I practice and learn, the more I realize that I am opening up in ways beyond just flexibility and strength within my body.  I hope to share these experiences and benefits of my own living practice.  My approach to learning and teaching is to help people find joy and comfort that comes from letting go.  Incorporating the power of breath and the attitude of witnessing, one can learn to unleash the reservoir of energy from within.  I have spent the last memorable years in my quest and exploration, as I learn to live yoga not just on the mat but in every moment.  Looking forward to sharing our energy.  Namaste.

 

 

Liziah Woodruff  (Liziah taught with Roy in Mexico, 2011)

Liziah is a Certified Yoga Instructor, creative artist and humanitarian.

Liziah enjoys teaching yoga to adults, children and teens with the intention

of inspiring people to live their best lives. Liziah believes in cultivating inner power

and radiance through increasing self awareness, confidence, peace and joy.

Her classes are fun, creative and accessible.

 

Gina Salá (Gina will hopefully be teaching and leading global vocals with Roy in the future)

Gina is a vocalist, voice instructor and cross-cultural chant leader with a repertoire spanning 23 languages.  She has been practicing chant and mantra for over 30 years, beginning with her childhood time in a yasodhara ashram. She performs her global vocal repertoire and leads workshops  and chanting focusing on the power of sound and voice internationally. She was lead singer for Cirque du Soleil's "O", has performed at the UN, the US Pentagon and has learned and shared songs and sound healing techniques in stages, living rooms and huts throughout much of the world.

 Through the international language of music and chant, she will guide us into a deeper and more joyful experience of connecting with ourselves, each other, the natural world and the local people we will meet.   www.ginasala.com   

Julia Fay   (Julia will teach with Roy at Paca Pride once again in July of 2012)
Julia brings a passion and gift for voice and song, and will lead us in some global vocals kirtan and chant at the retreat, guaranteed to open your heart. She is also 500 hour certified in the viniyoga tradition, and will teach some of the yoga classes..

 

 

 

 

 

Frog Mythology

In Native cultures frogs have stood (or sat) for symbols of renewal, rebirth and purification. They are said to hold divine powers of transformation, and when we embrace our shadow and face our wounds (kiss our inner frogs), the healing begins. As frogs shift from one world to another, water to land, tadpole to frog, they teach us that change is not something to fear but to embrace. Personally, I love listening to the chorus of frogs, joyously

celebrating the start of another rejuvenating spring. 

May you leap with faith!

Ribbit! ~ Roy Holman


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    Roy Holman (425) 303-8150    holmanhealthconnections.com