Teachers

Anne has always loved wellness. When she found yoga and the profound mind-body connection, she was hooked for life. She has taught yoga and trained in various ways in the fitness industry since 2002. She shares her infectious energy and enthusiasm in hot classes, flow, and sculpt. Her classes leave you feeling empowered to unlock your true potential on and off your mat. When you take her class, get ready to feel inspired, challenged, and stretched both mentally and physically. You will find balance, joy, strength, and gratitude. Anne also finds her passion in training yoga teachers and helping them find their voice and talents to become inspiring teachers themselves. Anne says her most fulfilling and challenging role comes as a mom to four daughters with her husband. They all enjoy adventures together, snow skiing, wake surfing, and traveling. Anne is a certified teacher with the Baron Baptiste Yoga Institute, Hot Yoga, Hatha & Vinyasa Yoga, and a NASM certified personal trainer.

Charlene taught herself basic yoga to supplement sports activity in high school. In 2011 she discovered the traditional hot yoga practice and quickly fell in love with the challenge of the heated room. Over the years, her practice has allowed her to reprogram her outlook on life, exit toxic relationships, cope with loss, and survive the Arizona summer heat. Shortly after attaining her Hot Yoga teacher certification with Yoga Pod Cherry Creek in 2017, Charlene began teaching hot classes in Lowry and knew she had found her hOMe. Today, she loves balancing her hot yoga practice with fitness/conditioning, restorative, dance, and vinyasa classes. As a teacher, she is a passionate advocate for her students’ holistic health and knows that a yoga practice can be instrumental in one’s health journey. You’ll often find her chatting in the hallway with other members of the community. She spends most of her time on her business – helping clients reshape and rebuild their financial futures.

Christa is an internationally recognized yoga and wellness educator and executive with experience in both academic and corporate settings. She is ambitious and wholehearted about developing and sharing visionary concepts, services, and products that keep our local and global communities wellness in mind. Her background includes: -PhD in 2015: Comparative Religions, Hinduism, Cultural Theory, Ethics/Social Justice, Yoga, Wellness Dissertation: Tracing an American Yoga: Identity and Cross-Cultural Transaction -Co-authored a textbook: Is This Yoga: Concepts, Histories, and the Complexities of Modern Practice. Routledge, 2021. – Executive leadership at the Yoga Alliance/Yoga Alliance Foundation: Heading the efforts to update the Standards for over 100,000 global yoga teachers and schools. When she isn’t working she enjoys spending time with her friends and family; especially her two young sons, traveling, reading on the top of a mountain (or snowboarding down one), yoga, and dancing.

Craigg is part of corporate America Monday through Friday, nine to five… but a yogi ALWAYS!

Craigg’s goal is to make yoga accessible to everyone. We are all beautiful shapes and sizes and you don’t need to be the most flexible to be strong in your practice.

You will find Craigg leading Flows, Yin, and Ashtanga. You’ll also see him attend many different classes. The root to rise community is his family and you’ll always find him supporting his fellow yogis! Outside of yoga you will find him hiking, paddleboarding, walking his dog, or at one of his favorite microbreweries!

He also enjoys making a unique playlist, so come check out the tunes and move with us!

Inger brings creativity and compassion to their classes and inspires students of all abilities and backgrounds to explore their practice from a place of curiosity and intensity. Having studied everything from yin to barre, prenatal yoga to paddle board yoga, Inger has spent the last decade supporting students and training new teachers on their yoga journeys while deepening their own understanding and knowledge of yoga both on and off the mat. Their classes are guaranteed to bring a smile, sweat and moments of philosophy and inquiry. Their greatest joy is uniting students together in community and friendship and they embrace both the brand-new yogi and the experienced practitioner in classes that offer a bit of spice for everyone. Off their mat you can find Inger working toward their MPA (Masters in Public Administration). When not studying they’re off exploring nearby trails with their family and pups or creating fun gluten free culinary delights.

While Karen loves playing with the sequencing of asanas (the poses), you’ll also learn about the other seven limbs of yoga in her classes. Yogis usually leave her classes feeling energized, aware, connected, and centered. She started a daily practice in 2007, and then began teaching yoga in 2009. She has learned to let go of perfection and embrace a mantra from Judith Lasater: “Life is practice, practice is life.” For Karen, the patient persistence she brings to yoga has been especially helpful in one of her most fulfilling practices: parenthood. She hopes you, too, take yoga off the mat, since those open to the power of yoga begin to witness their lives change. Blocks, barriers and fears melt away as practitioners establish a deeper connection to their true nature. In addition to completing a 200-hr CYT program (in the tradition of Baron Baptiste), she has completed a 300-hr advanced teacher training with Rolf Gates. She looks forward to sharing her passion for yoga at Root to Rise.

Katie’s teaching style: Nurturing, grounded, accessible, and joy-filled.

A lover of life, travel, and people, Katie fell in love with yoga when a cross-country move brought her from the Midwest to Denver.

A recovering perfectionist, Katie loves the simple but profound notion of yoga as a practice. You are invited into Katie’s class, just as you are. If you can’t touch your toes or if you like to stand on your head.

If you can’t lay still in the final savasana or if savasana is the only thing you come for. Come as you are. Expect to breathe, to move, and to be loved. The great loves of Katie’s life are her husband, Nicholas, and their three-year-old, Leo. She loves great vegan food, live music, farmers’ markets, and all things Colorado!

After many years of hot practice, alongside the inspiring teachers and fellow hot practitioners in the Denver yoga community, Katie decided it was time to dive in and become certified to teach yoga.

After completing her 200hr Vinyasa, and 60hr Hot and Aerial training here in our beloved studio, she considers Root to Rise home.

In Katie’s class, practitioners should expect alignment, breath cues, and hands on adjustments, all with the intention to empower students to deepen their practice.

Shanti, shanti, shanti – Peace, peace, peace…

This is what brings Kristi to her mat time after time, the peace and serenity that yoga provides. Kristi began her yoga journey in 2002 with Vancouver ashtangi James Nicholson in a YMCA training program for volunteer fitness instructors. Kristi then explored hot yoga at Rising Om Yoga, where she taught heated vinyasa and yoga sculpt classes for 6 years. While in Florida, Kristi added a 200 RYT training with Alyson Foreacre, Founder of Yoga Den to her many fitness certifications and power yoga training. Coming to yoga with a fitness background, Kristi’s teaching style embraces power and grace through intentional moving mediation, a mindful balance of strength and ease.

The yogic philosophy that this practice is for everybody is evident in all her classes as she welcomes you to join her on the mat!

Lindsay took her first-ever (hot) yoga class while studying at the University of Oregon. From her first class, she was hooked – and knew deep down that this was a practice that she would be pursuing for a long time. Approximately six years after that first yoga class, Lindsay completed her Bikram Yoga Teacher Training in Los Angeles, CA (Fall 2011). This nine-week intensive course was one of the most challenging things she had been through and looking back, one of the best times of her life. Lindsay has taught in studios all over – from Eugene, OR to Athens, GA, Seattle, WA to Nairobi, KE – and now in Denver, CO. Although she was trained in the traditional hot yoga style, Lindsay teaches a class that encourages play and experimentation. She enjoys giving direct instruction that allows practitioners to simply follow the guided class and accomplish a moving mediation. You can expect direct cueing, along with personalized corrections, and even some hands-on assistance in her classes.

Lisa started practicing Bikram yoga in 1999, loving the intense and meditative quality of the 26 postures along with the detoxifying and loosening effect of the heat and humidity.

She finally decided to attend teacher training in 2012 and has taught in various cities and while living abroad.

Lisa has since received her 200-hour yoga certification and also enjoys teaching Power, Vinyasa Flow, Yin and Restorative yoga. Lisa believes in the power of yoga to heal, strengthen and enhance physical, mental and emotional health.

Her classes are energetic, nurturing, challenging and fun. Off the mat, Lisa loves running, skiing, hiking, traveling and general adventure-ing with her husband and two daughters.

Liz became a 200hr CYT in 2008. She became enthusiastic as a teacher when she connected how yoga principals of breath work, alignment, and mental clarity transcend into her passions for running. She has completed over 20 marathons, 10 ultra-relays, offers private yoga lessons and provides wellness coaching for runners. Liz believes her teacher superpower is helping practitioners come back from injury and truly heal through the hot series. As an athlete who has deconstructed the 26 postures with her PT and applied them to her own body’s breaks and rebounds, she can mindfully relate to practitioners of all levels. Originally from North Carolina, Liz now lives in Denver where she enjoys playing tennis, skiing with her family, hiking 14ers with her 2 daughters, trail running with friends and strolling alongside her English Setter, Wendell. One of her favorite poses is camel, as it open the heart space, unlocks buried emotions, and challenges us as individuals to test our vulnerabilities.

Megan has been practicing Bikram style yoga since the late 90’s when she lived in Chicago. She moved to Denver in 2000 and enjoyed being a part of a hot yoga community. She has since practiced in Vail, Los Angeles, Singapore and Melbourne Australia (all places she has lived for work). Megan retired from her corporate HR executive position in 2019 due to health issues. She healed quickly by practicing with modifications. A passionate believer in the healing powers of yoga, she decided to pursue teaching. She received her RYT200 for Hot Vinyasa at TruFusion in 2020, followed by a Hot Yoga certification through Yoga Pod in 2021. Megan views her time on the mat as a gift – her time to zone out the world, quiet the mind, and heal whatever aches. As such, you will hear themes of being centered and building resilience, with a focus on the health benefits of various poses. Her music is an eclectic mix of energizing songs with some 70’s or 80’s oldie but goodies, as well as calmer songs.

Originally from Turkey, Mehmet has been in US since 2001. He started his yoga journey while he was training for endurance sports in 2014.

Since 2014, he completed marathons, Ironman Triathlons, and Ultramarathons, including Leadville 100. Yoga has helped tremendously with recovery, stretching and strengthening muscles that he has never used before.

Mehmet has been practicing Hot Yoga since 2015 and started teaching Hot Yoga in 2023. He is a lifetime student and enjoys learning while teaching and exchanging experiences.

Root to Rise Yoga has given him to be a part of an incredible and welcoming community, great mentors and students he keeps learning from.

Colorado born and raised, Neil has been a public school educator for over a decade, and has studied Yoga, Tai Chi, and Kung Fu in order to cultivate a foundation of discernment, awareness, self-regulation, and stillness in the everyday hustle and bustle.

He has studied yoga for over 15 years and Chinese Martial Arts for over 10.

He studied under the guidance of Yogis Dominique Bolish, Krista Bonura, Kat Lloyed, and Sifu James McIntire. The focus of his classes is an intermingling of the play of meditation, breath, movement, and music with the hope to bring a sense of fun and well-being to classes.

Each practitioner should leave with a deeper understanding of self and connection with their being in space. For further info, check out npoflow.com.

Sarah found her yoga roots in a Bikram/hot yoga practice during college and fell in love.

She has always felt it complements her health and fitness journey perfectly.

In her class, Sarah focuses on alignment, intentional breathing, and slowing down to create a space of moving meditation.

It wasn’t until Sarah found these things in her own practice that “yoga” started to make sense.

Sarah enjoys yin yoga and myofascial release work when not teaching her hot yoga class. Outside of the studio, Sarah can be found hanging with her two Goldendoodles, Atlas and Onyx, or teaching first graders.

Vic’s yoga journey began with the occasional class at breweries, specialty programs, and online videos at home. It was when he first took a class at a studio where he fell deeper in love with the practice, attending as many classes as possible. The journey went deeper when he entered Yoga Teacher Training at Root to Rise. It has become a second home and family and he is thrilled to be a teacher among such great talent. His teaching style is structured with a lot of creativity, exploration and fun. Expect to laugh. While he enjoys a strong physical practice, he loves the notion of slowing down and feeling united with mind, body, and breath. He became certified in Yoga Nidra after falling in love with the specialized practice. If you do nothing but come to class to find your breath, quiet the mind, and smile, his goal has been achieved. He also takes pride in using non-conventional yoga music to inspire movement. His philosophy is success comes from simply being present.