Jennifer Hamblen, Founder of AdventurousYogi

For the past 15 years I’ve been an avid trekker of mountains around the world and seeker of knowledge in both academics and wisdom acquired off the beaten path in holistic healing, yoga, breathwork, and the natural world. After discovering yoga 10 years ago, I received my yoga teaching certification in hatha yoga with an emphasis on Iyengar alignment in 2005 and have been teaching yoga classes on the road, on beaches in Mexico, to adolescents on mountaintops, and at yoga studios in Monterey and Carmel, California. I have taken teacher trainings in series IV and VI of Tibetan Heart Yoga, taught by the Yoga Studies Institute (www.yogastudiesinstitute.org). In 2007, I founded AdventurousYogi. We offer yoga retreats in beautiful places around the world, some combined with trekking in gorgeous mountains and visiting extraordinary cultures, others with volunteer opportunities in places like Bolivia, where children in orphanages are in need of our love, hugs, and smiles. Of course they give back as much as we offer, sending us off full of their youthful energy and hope.

When not travelling on yoga-based adventures, I still find plenty of reasons to stay on the road. Most recently, I have volunteered in Bolivia both in orphanages and with helping poor communities acquire clean drinking water and basic sanitation facilities. I learn so much about how to live life from the people of the Andes, who work their land with their bare hands and feet, with no money in their pockets and huge smiles on their outgoing, friendly faces. With two others, I have created a nonprofit to empower indigenous peoples of the Andes and the Americas to find ways to live healthfully, with sufficient funds for clean food and water. It is called Earth Spirit Rejuvenation (www.earthspiritrejuvenation.org). In the near future, AdventurousYogi will be offering yoga retreats with volunteer opportunities in small villages, helping build latrines, wells, and greenhouses, and sharing yoga, and ourselves, with the locals in places like Bolivia. I look forward to hearing from you and hope you will be joining us for an incredible experience!

Namaste and Peace,
Jennifer Hamblen

Karen Graves

Karen Graves, RYT, has been practicing different yoga disciplines for 11 years throughout the eastern United States. She is a working single mother of three children teaching nine classes a week in addition to her full time career at the local ER. Karen obtained her yoga certification from Yandara Yoga Institute in Baja Mexico and continuously participates in continuing education oppurtunities, including Yama Studio in Baltimore Md, and the Les Mills International program, Bodyflow. She is employed by Golds Gym in Martinsburg WV, City Hospitals Wellness Center, teaches the employee yoga break for the hospital and has independant classes at Stonebridge Country Club. She finds balance and serenity in her classes, learning from her students as much as they learn from her. Karens yogic discipline is “a little bit of this, and a little bit of that”, taking pieces from Ashtanga and Hatha yoga and weaving classes that can most closely be described as Vinyasa Flow with Iyengar alignment. Warm ups incorporate tai chi, stressing breath and body awareness through slow meditative movements. Students experience a cardiovascular as well as spiritual awakening in Karen’s classes. Expect to sweat, expect to breathe, expect to be present. Classes always end with a mediation that incorporates guided visualization and pranayama, leading students into a state of relaxed awareness and leaving with a renewed internal gratitude.

Chelsey Gribbon

I have practiced yoga for the past six years and have taught on and off for the past year. Initially, I began going to yoga to compliment my already athletic lifestyle, but after the first few classes, I discovered that it was much more. It was a lifestyle. With each class I became more aware of my body and its sensations, creating a desire to know more about the practice and where it came from . I continued with my yoga journey by practicing hot yoga, Anusara, Iyengar, as well as several other forms. After leaving my home-state of Alaska at the age of 18, I traveled through the Rocky Mountain region, Central America, and southeast Asia over the course of 4 years. During my travels, I always found time for yoga, as it balances and grounds me the most. On a trip to Baja Mexico in October of 2005, I completed a certified yoga teacher training, during which I delved into and embraced my practice more intensely and ascertained that yoga is not simply a physical exercise, but an ideal that I applied to my daily life. Since then, I taught at The St. Helena’s Hospital in California, as well as fellow raft guides and clients along California rivers. Daily, I continue to learn and be humbled through my yoga practice. I believe that yoga is an art of self expression and I bear this in mind in my hatha- vinayasa flow class. I love watching people grow and open up in their own way through yoga, I feel very blessed to be able to share this experience.

Elizabeth Martin, RYT, RMT, CH

Elizabeth is a natural teacher and leader and through teaching yoga has found her place of balance both on the mat as well as in her heart. She lives on Vancouver Island BC running her Massage Therapy practice and teaching yoga. Her education began 12 years ago in Alternative Medicine and Nutrition. She earned her Chartered Herbalist Diploma and continued on to study Womens Reproductive Health and Childbearing. She received her Doula Certification and attended both hospitol and home births. Throughout the years she has taught gymnastics as well as bellydance classes. For 4 years she facilitated Womens’ Healing Circles, focusing on positive parenting, healthy lifestyle and sharing of community. This was mostly for new, single or low income mothers, and had guest speakers on Fertility Awareness/ Birth Control, Moontime Wisdom, and Breastfeeding Support. At age 23 she started Massage Therapy College in BC Canada, a 3000 hour medical modeled therapy-based program with the highest standards for Massage Therapy Training in the world. She has since been training to teach the Jusstise Method of Fertility Awareness. In 2005 she attended Yandara Yoga Teacher Training in Baja Mexico and had one of the best months of life, learning and living communally and expanding as a human. She has been dedicated to Yoga since, teaching classes, workshops and living her life in a new, more balanced way. She lived in Hawai’i for 2 months of 2006 at a yoga retreat community, doing a karma yoga work trade program and taking yoga and dance classes every day. (http://www.kalani.com) Here she took the yoga Intensive teacher trainings with Darren Main and learned even more about being a yogi in today’s world. She is happily dedicated to sharing what she knows, and learns just as much through teaching. Her classes are Free Flowing, Iyengar based and extremely positive, so be ready to smile all day after a class