Email Susanna at
susannanicholson
@eircom.net.

Read feedback on Susanna's teaching.

photo: Lauren Rutten

SUSANNA NICHOLSON, R.Y.T., director of Union YOGA LOFT, began study of yoga at age 13 and later trained as a teacher in a 500-hour Yoga Alliance certified program outside New York (www.starseedyoga.com). She has since taught yoga in universities, corporations, hospitals, colleges, gyms, and private studios internationally.

Susanna founded Union YOGA LOFT in 2002 as a cooperative community focused on providing student-centered, accessible yoga. Read about Susanna's approach.

After years of iyengar and ashtanga practice with advanced practitioners and students of BKS Iyengar and Sri K Pattabhi Jois, including Jyoti Chrystal and Raji Thron, Susanna prepared to train in depth with teachers in the viniyoga tradition.

Her first and present viniyoga teacher, Paul JJ Alix, studied with TKV Desikachar and Gary Kraftsow, founder of the American Viniyoga Institute. Susanna also studied privately with other senior viniyoga teachers: Hanne Gillespie of Dublin, founder of Viniyoga Ireland; Malek Daouk of the Institut de Yoga in Lausanne, Switzerland; and Evelyn Figueora, Desikachar's translator on tour in France and Spain and a teacher at the Paris viniyoga center. Susanna herself has also studied with Gary Kraftsow and TKV Desikachar, as well as with Paul Harvey, founder of Viniyoga Britain; with Kaustub Desikachar; and with Sophie Hoare, a student of Vanda Scaravelli, who wrote the introduction to Desikachar's Heart of Yoga.

Susanna also intensively practiced vipassana meditation under the guidance of Marjo Oosterhoff, a Dutch translator of vipassana literature who studied and practiced the Theravada tradition in Burma, and who is also director of Passaddhi, a retreat center on the Beara Peninsula of Ireland.

Read feedback on Susanna's teaching.

Viniyoga. Student-centered yoga, progressive and adaptive, and suited for every body! Learn self-awareness and techniques such as vinyasa krama (individually adapted flow yoga) by focusing on breath control, sound, and mantra.

Adaptive Ashtanga. A system of vinyasa (flow yoga) and held poses that incorporates jumping, hand balancing, and other advanced hatha work, popular among high-energy practitioners. We select and modify ashtanga poses for students who need greater or less challenge.

Prenatal Yoga. Increase energy, relieve shoulder pain, strengthen joints, and work through stress using postures that are safe for pregnancy. Women should wait until the end of the first trimester before beginning a yoga practice.

Afterschool Yoga. For second graders and up. Includes animal poses, jumping, fun-in-the-sun salutations, moonbeam salutations, jokes, and storytelling.

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Union classes are ongoing unless otherwise specified. Email Susanna to confirm class dates and times, and for additional information about workshops and seminars.