Mentor

Sal Flynn

Counsellor, Psychotherapist, Yoga therapist, educator.

Underpinning Sal’s work is more than 35 years of practice & the study of Yoga in Australia & India, as well as western counselling & psychotherapy.  She has trained yoga teachers at Nature Care College (Sydney) and currently trains Yoga Therapists through the Yoga Therapy Institute nationally.

Sal believes mentoring is an important cornerstone of practice for any teacher or therapist.  To fully integrate our embodied experience it’s important to take time to reflect.  Reflective practice is enhanced when discussed with a trusted other - with a skilled mentor or supervisor who poses inquiries, identifies & explores themes and supports us to deepen our understanding of ourselves in our work. It is a space for development of skills, attending to self care and maintaining ethical standards. 

Sal has had a varied yoga teaching career & been resident Yoga Therapist at Richmond Hill Women’s Clinic (Melbourne) Sarah Key Physiotherapy (Sydney).  She is registered with AAYT, C-IAYT, Yoga Australia and the Counsellors and Psychotherapists Federation of Australia.  She presently runs workshops & retreats, and has a private therapy practice in Byron Bay.

Website: http://www.stillmotion.net.au/supervison_mentoring.html

Contact Sal: sflynn@stillmotion.net.au (please include 'AOT mentorship' in the subject line)

Mentor

Jess Glenny

Hypermobility, complex trauma, neurodifference, ashtanga, restorative, yin, dance, writer.

Jess is a Yoga Register Teacher (Elder) and a C-IAYT registered Phoenix Rising yoga therapist based in London, UK. Jess has been practising yoga since 1981 and teaching since 2003. Jess teaches Mysore-style ashtanga vinyasa, restorative yin yoga, and conscious dance. She has hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos and specialises in working with hypermobile people. Her therapeutic work is mostly with complex trauma. Jess is autistic and loves working with neurodifferent people. She is also a writer and dancer.

Jess says, 'Mentoring offers yoga teachers a safe supportive space to reflect on their experiences of teaching. This is an invitation to notice what’s working for you in your teaching and what isn’t, and to explore new approaches and ways of being as a teacher that may make your teaching more effective. The focus is on your development as a whole person, on discovering your inner resources and evolving a teaching practice that derives from your own unique centre.

Jess is the author of The Yoga Teacher Mentor: A Reflective Guide to Holding Spaces, Maintaining Boundaries and Creating Inclusive Classes, and Hypermobility on the Yoga Mat: A Guide to Hypermobility-Aware Yoga teaching and Practice.

Website: https://www.embodyyogadance.co.uk

Contact Jess: jess@embodyyogadance.co.uk (please include 'AOT mentorship' in the subject line)

Mentor

Lucy Karnani

Connecting, Conscious Communication teacher, mentor and coach, Holding Space practitioner, gentle Yoga for healing, author.

Lucy has been leading training programs and coaching individuals in effective communication for nearly 30 years. Transitioning out of the corporate world in the early 2000s, she developed a regular and committed personal yoga practice from which she gained many health and wellbeing benefits. Consequently, Lucy is passionate about the transformational value yoga can bring to a person’s life. She feels blessed to be now sharing both her loves – Conscious Communication and Yoga!

Lucy has been designing and delivering Communication Skills training workshops for yoga professionals since 2012, as part of yoga teacher and therapist training programs, as well as stand-alone programs offered by yoga studios in both Australia and the USA. She is the co-author of the book CONNECTING - Conscious Communication for Yoga Teachers and Therapists and recently became a Certified Holding Space Practitioner with The Centre for Holding Space. 

As well as sharing her expertise and experience in various training programs, she particularly loves her work as a yoga teacher mentor, where she feels very grateful for the opportunity to support others on their yogic and teaching journeys.

Website: https://www.yogacommunication.org

Contact Lucy: lucy@yogacommunication.org (please include 'AOT mentorship' in the subject line)

Mentor

Gaby Porter

Thinking Environment facilitator, Yoga teacher and Somatic Movement Education coach. 

Gaby is an experienced yoga teacher and somatic movement exercise coach. She first worked with Donna Farhi in 2003, and was immediately drawn to her deeply nourishing, developmental and compassionate practice. Gaby trained with Donna in 2008 and has assisted Donna, Lisa Petersen and Christine Howitt at teacher training courses and several intensives. She qualified with Lisa as a Hanna Somatic Movement Education coach in 2015 and hosts her UK trainings.

Gaby is also a facilitator, coach and mentor to people and organisations in museums and galleries, heritage and theatre. She draws on her experience of appreciative enquiry and deep thinking, inspired by the work of Nancy Kline. As a qualified Thinking Environment facilitator, Gaby offers presence and a quality of profound attention in which others may think afresh about what matters most for them. She encourages and supports others to see, hear and experience possibilities which they didn’t know existed or they were capable of and to be fully themselves.

Gaby has recently moved to Scotland and is currently living between Edinburgh on the east and the Isle of Bute on the west. She loves her family, friends and community; gardens, birds and wild places.

Contact Gaby:  gaby@gabyporter.co.uk (please include 'AOT mentorship' in the subject line)

Mentor

Lois Whiteman

Psychotherapist, Trainer, and Yoga Teacher.

Lois has twenty years’ experience as a yoga teacher in Brisbane Australia. Her style of teaching is significantly informed by Donna Farhi’s approach. In 2021 she completed The Art of Teaching.

Lois is also a social worker specialising in psychotherapy. Her experience spans over forty years. She works in the field of trauma and general mental health. She has run a private practice since 2003. Lois has specialised in teaching yoga and mentoring the provision of yoga in the field of mental health.

In the last twenty years a large part of her work has been reflective professional supervision and mentoring. From this she brings a sound practice-based understanding of the client-therapist and student-teacher dynamic, group dynamics, and the unfolding of the mentee’s own unique talents and personality within their field of practice.

Teaching yoga today can challenge one’s confidence and requires courage to pave one’s path and remain true to one’s values in what is increasingly an industry rather than a service based on an ancient tradition. The insidious nature of burnout may result in a loss of direction. Lois’ has faced all these challenges herself and supported others to stay true their own ethics and values in spaces that at times conflict with deeply held principles.

Lois is deeply interested in the interface of a teacher’s own personhood and their yoga teaching. As yoga teachers, we are the tool through which our teaching flows. One of the best ways to become a confident and skilled yoga teacher is to explore the interface of the inner Self, through guided reflection on one’s teaching and practice with a trusted and experienced mentor.

Website: https://www.loiswhitemanpsychotherapy.com.au/mentoring-yoga-teachers

Contact Lois: loiswhiteman@yahoo.com.au (please include 'AOT mentorship' in the subject line)