Agatha Glowacki

Agatha Glowacki completed Jivamukti teacher training in 2006 then set about building the Jivamukti satsang in DC along with mentor and fellow instructor Janaki Jill Abelson. Agatha hopes to follow the teachings of founders David Life and Sharon Gannon, who emphasize that the #1 job of a yoga teacher is to see each student as a holy being. Her classes combine strong vinyasa sequences with teachings on scripture, chanting, meditation, and nonviolence, coalescing in a creative yoga practice with a spiritual message. Her blog Jiva Journeys explores interfaith understanding, ethical vegetarianism, and social/political action.

Cory Bryant

Cory Bryant is a 2008 graduate of both the Flow Yoga Center (200 hour) and the Jivamukti Yoga School (350 hour) teacher training programs. He first experienced the transformational teachings of Sharon Gannon and David Life shortly after 9/11 while living in NYC. Life has not been the same since. Cory truly believes that yoga can and is changing the world in a positive way and aspires to live by the words of his beloved teacher, Sharon-ji, "together we can create a world not based on the old paradigm of our culture that tells us the 'earth belongs to us and exists for us to exploit'-- to be political is to care for others. We encourage our students to dare to care about others. As yoga practitioners, we cannot be content to live in our own little ‘I-me-mine’ bubble while the rest of the world deteriorates.” Cory has a PhD in food chemistry and works for the U.S. Food & Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. He is currently pursuing a Master's in Public Health through the University of Minnesota.

Hari-kirtana Das

My classes emphasize yoga as a spiritual discipline. I blend a time-honored understanding of the goal of yoga with an innovative and energetic practice to help us reach that goal. Chanting, philosophy, pranayama and meditation are all essential elements in my classes. I provide a balance between challenging asana sequences and an exploration of asana fundamentals, mix traditional kirtan with modern music tracks, encourage a devotional orientation to elevate our intention, and use hands-on adjustments as an essential teaching technique. More than anything else I aim to make my classes personal and fun. My interest in yoga was first inspired by Gomez Addams; the relentlessly cheerful, spontaneously subversive and profoundly eccentric patriarch of the Addams Family who, as far as I know, was the first person (fictional or otherwise) to regularly do shirshasana on primetime TV. The devotional aspect of yoga eventually provided the foundation for my spiritual practice and I was formally initiated into the Vaishnava tradition of Krishna Bhakti, with its emphasis on kirtan, mantra meditation and Vedic philosophy, in 1978. I spent the better part of the following four years living in ashrams and spiritual communities. I expanded my yoga practice at the Jivamukti Yoga School in New York City in 2007 and became a certified Jivamukti Yoga teacher in 2009.

Jennifer Rak

Jen has been practicing yoga for over 7 years. Her first real practices were based on Iyengar yoga and introduced her to the nuances of connections in the body and between the body and breath. From there Jen began to develop a sadhana, a daily spiritual practice and exploration. While living in New York, Jen tried various styles of yoga which led her to adopt a daily mysore Ashtanga practice combined with classes at the Jivamukti Yoga School. Jen has completed the Flow Teacher Training (200-hour) as well as the Jivamukti Yoga (300-hour) teacher training with Sharon Gannon and David Life. She offers challenging classes with a sense of humor and believes that practice is what transforms our knowledge into a means for real freedom. She is very grateful to the DC yoga community which includes many wonderful teachers and students from whom she has learned so much and continues to do so.

Jill Abelson

founded the DC Jivamukti satsang in 2005. Through tireless loving dedication to her teachers, she built from the ground up a huge community of practitioners, mentored a new generation of yoga teachers, and orchestrated the largest ever individual city workshop event with Jivamukti Founders Sharon Gannon & David Life, in September 2008. She is a certified Jivamukti Instructor at the 800-hr level. Jill currently teaches in San Francisco at several studios, as well as in Washington, DC.

Kathy Judd

I focused primarily on Ashtanga yoga for the first few years of my practice, and then branched out and studied a variety of styles – Interdisciplinary, Jivamukti, Iyengar, Kundalini and Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy to name a few. My teaching style incorporates a little of all of that. I teach yoga as a spiritual practice, to me it’s the only real reason we do this. The asana practice is humbling to say the least, so I infuse my classes with laughter, good music and focused intention to bring perspective to the practice as a whole. I am an Experienced-Registered Yoga Teacher at the 200-hour level with Yoga Alliance. I am a 300-hour Certified Jivamukti Yoga Teacher, and have been teaching yoga more or less full time since 2004. I also have certifications as a Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy Practitioner (www.pryt.com) and a YogaKids Facilitator (www.yogakids.com). I’ve assisted in the 200-hr teacher training at Pure Prana Yoga Studio and served as a mentor in the YogaKids program. Over the course of all this I’ve had over 1800 hours of advanced training in areas such as history and philosophy of yoga, assisted asana and adjustment technique, therapeutic dialogue, body/mind integrative techniques, applied anatomy, group facilitation, yoga for children and more. I live in Alexandria with my two kids, Grant and Samantha and teach most of my classes at Pure Prana Yoga studio (www.pureprana.com) in Old Town.

Ximena Gutierrez

is an experienced communicator who uses her radio and television background to share herlove of yoga with her students in the United States and Latin America. Gutiérrez is a certified Jivamukti Yoga teacher originally trained in the Sivananda tradition. She holds a master's degree in communication and education from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She is featured on the television series Aire Yoga, shown daily on PBS's Spanish-language network V-me. Ximena is also a member of the faculty of Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, the nation's most trusted source for wellness and personal growth. Her teaching style combines intense physical energy with compassionate guidance to turn deep postures into even deeper life changes. You will be encouraged to cultivate the power of positive thinking and sense of humor to reach the realization that we are all one.

Ximena Savitch

Ximena Savitch, Certified Jivamukti® Yoga Teacher, 300-RYT, began her yoga journey 10 years ago practicing Kundalini Yoga at her local community center, in search of balance and peace while working and attending college full-time. The energizing practice introduced her to many aspects of yoga: the chakra system, chanting, asana, and meditation. Soon after she discovered Vinyasa Flow and Ashtanga styles, and was drawn to these styles, finding the meditative aspects of the physically challenging asana to serve her as she searched even further for continued mental and physical health. She is a graduate of the 2009 Jivamukti® Yoga (300-hour) teacher training. She was initially drawn to the Jivamukti Method because of its rigorous flow sequences, along with the integration of yogic philosophy, chanting, and strong emphasis on activism and animal rights. Previously, she received her 200-hour teacher certification from Flow Yoga Center in Washington, DC, in the Vinyasa Flow style of yoga, where she was introduced to the Jivamukti Yoga method. Teaching Style: Ximena incorporates many aspects of her personal practice of Ashtanga and Jivamukti styles of yoga to her classes. She challenges her students with a fast-paced class, while keeping a focus on alignment and breath awareness.