Teacher Bios
Meet the teachers:
Debi Lewis
Debi Lewis is an artist, musician, yogi, mystic and muse. She discovered yoga in 1983 and since then has studied many forms of yoga and has synthesized them into what she has named Joyflow. She has taught yoga for over 20 years and is registered with the Yoga Alliance at the highest level. She is the owner and director Joyflow Yoga Studio and the principle instructor of Joyflow Yoga Teacher Training, accredited by the Yoga Alliance.
Debi has certifications in Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, the Enneagram (through Riso-Hudson's Enneagram Institute), Laughter Yoga and Yoga Meets Dance. She has training in Reiki, Healing Touch and Thai Yoga. Debi has many years of training in music (classical flute) and art (painting). She is a Sufi initiate through the Sufi Order of the West and is fascinated with DanceMeditation. Debi has recently been accepted to the faculty of The Gestalt Institute of New Orleans. Her forthcoming book, "Yoga Nine Ways: Awaken to Source with Yoga and Enneagram", expresses her ground-breaking ideas integrating these wisdom traditions with life changing and practical applications. She is beginning to lead Yoga Nine Ways workshops and retreats around the world. Go to her personal website: www.yoganineways.com for more information.
Ana Bruton
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Ana began her yoga journey 12 years ago in attempt to complement her lifestyle as a young, competitive swimmer. Originally, Ana practiced yoga to strengthen over-used joints, to gain attention and focus more precisely, however, it quickly became so much more. This journey with yoga took Ana all the way through college, as a Division-I, national swimmer, allowing her to compete at the highest levels of athletics while remaining focused and calm. After college, Ana's yoga practice kept her driven and balanced during the rigors of graduate school. After years of practicing different styles of yoga, Ana began to see all of the beautiful things that manifested in her life, in large part due to yoga, and recognized that she wanted to be able to share the benefits of practicing yoga with others. For years, Ana practiced at CorePower Yoga in San Diego, so it felt natural to complete the yoga teaching training programs there. Ana's teaching style focuses on a strong flow, moving with the breath, balance, strength and intention...ohhh, and amazing music! Ana's main goal as an instructor is to guide individuals in their own graceful journey, while encouraging love, light and awareness. Ana teaches different levels of yoga, everything from fun beginner classes to energetic/challenging advanced classes. Each time Ana has the opportunity to watch her students practice yoga and transform their life’s journey, it serves as unending inspiration. Come flow, sweat, breathe, and balance with Ana!
Asher Beam
Asher Beam began practicing yoga in 2005 when faced with a great personal adversity. Yoga helped bring mental focus and relaxation to her life in a time of turbulence. In the years following, she began to realize the true joy of practicing and desired to share this joy with others. Asher enrolled in the Joyflow teacher training program in September 2010 and has just completed it this April 2011. She is an enthusiastic teacher and gets pleasure from teaching all varieties of students by using the spirit of encouragement to further her student’s individual yoga journeys. She is employed as a registered MRI technologist and is fluent in human anatomy and physiology. In her spare time, Asher is fond of spending time with family and friends, practicing classical piano, and working for her family’s Christmas ornament business.
Christy Wheeler
Christy started practicing yoga in Chicago in 2005 while in school for Massage Therapy, and has been hooked ever since. Her interests in healing, helping people, and living a healthy lifestyle mesh very well with yoga, its practices and philosophies. She knew she wanted to teach even after her very first class, motivated because of the amazing affect it had on her own body, mind, and soul.
Christy has experience in several different styles of yoga including Ashtanga, Hatha, Vinyasa, Mysore, and Iyengar. She particularly enjoys the strength and power of the Ashtanga style and the flow of the Vinyasa style. Christy made the decision to attend a teacher training program in Chicago in 2009 but things changed in life, as they often do, and she came to Jackson, MS instead. After finding Joyflow and sharing her story with Debi, she found her timing couldn't have been better, as the Joyflow program was about to start. Christy completed her 200 hour RYT with Debi at Joyflow in 2010. She plans to continue her training by obtaining her 500 hour RYT certificate and becoming a registered Yoga Therapist. Currently she is employed as a Massage Therapist in Ridgeland. Christy’s two passions, massage therapy and yoga, continue to help her to live a healthy lifestyle and to assist others in their journey of health and wellness. “I look forward to being able to share my love of Yoga with you all.”
Kate Nicodemus
Kate has been practicing yoga for the past 13 years. When she was a teenager she got diagnosed with scoliosis and doctors put her into a brace. For years she had tried to make her back problems better but nothing seemed to be successful. One day she went to a local studio, back then living in Prague, Czech Republic, for her first class and has been practicing since. For the past two years she has been trained, and recently certified at the advanced 500 RYT level, by a most influential B.K.S. Iyengar inspired teacher, Ruth White, who lives in England and runs the Karuna Yoga Centre. Her teaching is inspired by accuracy and detailed attention from Iyengar tradition in combination with her love and passion to teach people yoga and help them to gain not only flexibility, better posture and strength, but also to find inner calm and balance. She also has three little girls who love to practice yoga with her and who became her biggest fans and supporters.
Kristina Kelly
Kristina Kelly recieved her RYT certification from Joyflow, with an interest in Kundalini yoga, many years ago. Her life changed when she began to practice yoga regularly and realized that the direction of her life was not as it should be. "I honestly believe it was yoga that helped me see my job was killing me (literally) and my family life. So I made big changes and I am so much happier for it." However, Kristina's real love is bellydancing, which she has studied, taught and performed avidly for many years. She teaches both Cabaret and Tribal styles, and delights in learning dance styles and costuming from all over the world. Her dance troupe The Missihippi's can be found performing frequently in the Metro-Jackson area.
Laura McCarthy
Laura began practicing yoga with Rodney Yee videos about 15 years ago and her love for yoga instantly blossomed. During college in Berkeley, CA, she was opened to a new world of yoga-- more styles and studios than she could imagine. Having been a competitive cross-country runner, Laura was drawn to the challenging nature of the Bikram style of yoga, while dabbling in other styles. While traveling after graduation, she had the opportunity to take classes in different countries (often taught in different languages) and different styles -- everything from Iyengar to Kundalini to Yin Yoga. When Laura moved to London, she was fortunate enough to live near the Sivananda Vedanta Centre, which ran a wonderful pre-certification training program for teachers (three levels to complete before even applying for teacher training). She worked her way through each of the levels, attended beautiful kirtans, and did volunteer work in the co-op's vegan restaurant. Next Laura played in the mountains of Colorado for a year, studying law and doing yoga in Boulder and at retreat centers in the Rockies. Then she moved to Australia with her husband in 2006. While pregnant with her second child, Laura completed her RYT-200 at My Health Yoga in Brisbane, Australia and taught classes up until 2 days before she gave birth. Her client base grew over the next 2 years as she taught in gyms and community centers, and in 2009 she started Serenity Yoga, offering group classes, private workshops, yoga therapy, and Ayurveda wellness workshops. She has additional training in children's yoga and pregnancy yoga through Radiant Child Yoga, and has experience working with Multiple Sclerosis patients. Laura also does yoga therapy with adults and adolescents at a local partial-hospitalization psychiatric facility. She likes to constantly explore new ways to move and get in touch with our bodies and minds through yoga, and loves a good detox sequence or fun flow to inspire you to keep exploring all that yoga has to offer.
Therapists at Joyflow
Jackson Fields
Jackson Fields is a certified holistic healer in the Andean shamanic healing tradition, an ancient system of medicine held by the indigenous peoples of the Andes Mountains of South America. At 10 years old he became aware of his heart’s calling for it and a few years later left his home in Tennessee in search for whatever it was. One fateful day in 2004, while a senior at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina, he met his beloved teacher, a master shaman, or spiritual healer, from Columbia. At that moment he knew his calling had at last been answered. From there he embarked on a long journey of 8 intensive, rigorous, deeply moving, and transformative years of personal healing, spiritual growth, and training in an amazingly rich and sophisticated system of natural medicine and healing. Today he is working on his 3rd level of training in the school known as Xolar Vibronics, offering his expertise in healing to the community and world at large. His healing programs utilize many healing modalities in the field of vibrational medicine supported by the ancient shamanic healing practices. They are guaranteed to change the lives of anyone interested in better health, peace, growth, and personal empowerment. For more information contact him directly at 828-275-7851 or paramdesh29@gmail.com.
