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Practitioner Biographies
Jim Almo, NCLMT, began his study of anatomy and biology nearly ten years ago while working as a standardized patient teaching assistant at the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans. A fascination with human functionality, and a desire to have a positive impact on the world around him led Jim to the Muscular Therapy Institute in Cambridge, Ma. He graduated from the two-year professional program in June of 2006, and has been a nationally certified, and Rhode Island licensed massage therapist since. Jim’s practice concentrates on specific pain issues and integrates a combination of pressures and techniques, including deep tissue, myofascial work, and trigger point therapy. Clients are also offered simple take-home stretching and awareness tips to empower their own healing journey. Christy Chase, MAT, is the mother of two young sons, and feels the presence of yoga as a welcome oasis in a busy life. As a schoolteacher, she works hard to meet the individual needs of her students, and carries that practice in her yoga teaching. Christy has been studying Iyengar yoga since 1993. In 2007, Christy completed an intensive two-year Teacher Training program in the Iyengar method. Christy is grateful for her teachers: Suzanne Newton, whom she credits with starting her yogic journey, Linda DiCarlo, her teacher in Cranston, and Patricia Walden, who leads her Teacher Training in Boston. Sara Davidson, ERYT-500 has been a yoga teacher for over twelve years and is an Certified Anusara™ teacher. As a dedicated and inspired student of John Friend, the founder of Anusara Yoga®, her teaching invitingly offers the student to participate in the creative and heart-opening opportunities and experiences of yoga, while deeply honoring the science of alignment to serve that higher aim. Studying with John throughout the years has been a continual source of support, inspiration, and vision. Practicing meditation since 1992, she is presently studying and practicing various meditation techniques that explore the tantric vision, practice, and lineage of yoga under the guidance of Paul Muller Ortega. Back to Top | Back to Schedule Rebecca Donnelly, RYT, is an Anusara- Inspired™ yoga teacher who Rebecca has practiced many different styles of yoga, and found her
home in Anusara™. After completing her teacher training in 2005 at Rebecca has engaged a serious yoga practice for ten years and has been
teaching for eight. Rebecca was first drawn to the healing aspect of
yoga practice while dealing with a few old injuries from an athletic
past. Soon after, she noticed other highly-intelligent changes had
naturally occurred in her body. She was walking tall, breathing
deeply, sleeping well at night, and smiling more often. She hopes to
bring these same open-hearted experiences to her students with
Anusara’s life-affirming philosophy and Universal Principals of
Alignment™. Naama Gidron, RYT, is the Co-director of Motion Center and is a certified Iyengar yoga teacher with over 15 years of yoga practice and 10 years of teaching experience. Naama first discovered Iyengar yoga in 1987 while at Columbia University. She has studied extensively with senior teachers, most recently with the Iyengars in Pune, India. Naama’s teaching style emphasizes alignment and awareness. It is clear and concise, energetic, and engaging. She enjoys working with a wide range of students, including athletes and seniors. Naama teaches classes, private instruction, specialty workshops, as well as retreats. Simone Lukas-Jogl discovered Rolfing Structural Integration after almost twenty years of struggling to accommodate a recalcitrant body with a passion for dance. After two surgeries, she had found “her” form of dance (Latin ballroom) and she developed a keen interest in learning how to reconcile competitive ballroom dance with the biomechanical limits of her body. Of course, this quickly developed into a search for ways to change her body's limits. Receiving Rolfing bodywork turned out to be an amazingly effective way to push the envelope - so much so, that she decided to become a Rolfer herself.
She has worked as a Rolfer on three continents and is fascinated by the ways our body's physical structure responds to culture, trauma, and emotional states. She continues to be amazed at the wide variety of effects people experience when she helps them free their body structure from no-longer-useful patterns of holding: relief from pain, ease in movement, deep relaxation, or emotional break-throughs. At Motion Center, Simone offers not only hands-on bodywork, but also one-on-one movement sessions which are an opportunity to deepen structural changes, build somatic awareness, and find ways to evoke one's most structurally sound movement patterns. Jill Manning has devoted herself to the study and practice of yoga since 1998. In June 2000 she received her initial certification from Integral Yoga Institute in New York City. She has since gone on to study with many of the world's most revered living yoga masters, including Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, (with whom she spent fourteen weeks at his yoga shala in 2006, 2007, and 2008 trips to Mysore, India). Jill continues to travel to India yearly. Jill's other notable teachers and mentors include David Keil, Joan White and Rodney Yee.
Jill co-taught Wake Up Yoga's (Philadelphia, PA) 250-hour Yoga Alliance registered teacher training program from 2004-2009. Recently relocated to Providence, RI, Jill is excited to bring Ashtanga Yoga to this community, and strongly believes that everyone can benefit from this practice. Jill makes her new home in the Armory District with her husband Mike and two dogs Charlie, and Angie. Katie McNamara, a native Rhode Islander, Katie received her BA in dance and anthropology from Connecticut College. After graduating, she danced Patricia Schneider started practicing yoga to complement years of teaching skiiing, fitness classes and strength training full time in Colorado. Recurring injuries led her to the therapeutic qualitites of Anusara yoga. Immersions, workshops, weekly classes, therapeutic trainings and hours of study enable her to teach with a fun, safe and dynamic approach, supported by the "Principles of Alignment" of Anusara yoga. "I enter the studio with my cup half full and leave with my cup overflowing from the energy and knowledge received from the class. I learn so much from my students when I teach. Patricia's teachers include: Jamie and Justin Allison who opened her heart to this wonderful practice, Todd Norian, Ann Green, Naoh Maze, Ross Rayburn, Betsy Downing, Desiree Rumbaugh, Sianna Sherman, Geri Bleier, Doug Keller, Amy ippoliti, Sara Davidson and John Friend, founder of Anusara Yoga. Patricia is married to John, who still teaches out West, and has a grown son, two adopted cairn terriers, and lives in Warren, RI. She teaches yoga and is a personal trainer. Michelle Struckholz has been studying dance since the age of 4. With extensive ballet and modern dance training, she received her B.S. in Kaeli Abrahams Sutton, NCLMT, is the founder and Co-Director of Motion Center. Deeply intrigued by the way the physical form embodies and informs our “self”, she has spent the last 19 years investigating the interweaving of body, heart and mind. Her study of modern, classical and ethnic dance has included specialized training at the Hypaxis Conservatory in N.H.; the Alvin Ailey School, Dancespace, and Djoniba Dance and Drum in New York; and Senemeew and Ballet Foret Sacre in Senegal West Africa. To further her understanding of the structure and function of the body, Kaeli attended the Muscular Therapy Institute in Cambridge, MA. She has been a Rhode Island Licensed and nationally certified Massage Therapist for the past eight years. With advanced training from Kam Thye Chow in Thai Yoga Massage and Carol Osbourne-Sheets in Prenatal, Labor and Postnatal massage, she specializes in Therapeutic and Relaxation Massage, Thai Yoga Massage and Pre- and Perinatal Massage. With her extensive background in yoga, dance, bodywork, and anatomy and kinesiology, Kaeli brings to her work a deep understanding of the body's capacity for movement, and its primary importance in finding an authentic connection to self and a compassionate connection with others. Peter Wührl has worked as a holistic osteopathic therapist in Providence, RI (RI Licensed) and now runs an osteopathic center in Hamburg, Germany. A graduate and postgraduate professor of courses in visceral osteopathy and pediatrics in Europe and North America, Peter is the co-author of a textbook on visceral osteopathy (published in English 1/2010 by Eastland Press). Additionally, he serves as co-editor of the German Journal of Osteopathy. Peter continues to see private clients when visting Rhode Island to instruct in visceral osteopathy.
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Virayoga in Manhattan, Rebecca went on to teach publicly and privately
in New York City. Now making her home in Rhode Island, Rebecca draws
on the wisdom passed on to her from the wise teachers senior teachers
she continues to practice with.
Simone took her Rolfing training with the European Rolfing Association in Germany and the Rolf Institute in Boulder, CO and was certified in 1998. Since then, she has studied extensively with Hubert Godard to understand Structural Integration from a movement perspective, taken classes in Rolfing technique and visceral manipulation, and started a personal practice of Continuum movement in order to delve more deeply into the world of somatic movement. 
A graduate of New York University, Jill has pursued an intellectual study of yoga in order to place asana practice in a larger context for herself and her students. Her understanding of the Bhagavad-Gita and the Yoga Sutra's, along with other Shastras, brings an important dimension to her own practice as well as her teaching style. She currently studies Sanskrit with Manorama in New York City and with Sri Lakshmish Bhat of Mysore, India. Also informing her teaching and understanding of yoga are her her travels throughout India, in which Jill immerses herself in the country's culture (as well as the Great Ganga). 
with the Philadelphia-based contemporary companies Group Motion, Scrap Performance Group and Leah Stein Dance Company, all which encouraged her contributions in choreography and improvisation. She was active in Young Audiences, a program that brings workshops and performances to schools around the state, as well as teaching dance in after-school programs and summer camps. She co-founded and directed the Bald Mermaids, named “best new modern dance company” by Philadelphia’s City Paper. She has shown her work most notably at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Philadelphia’s Painted Bride Art Center, the Carriage House (Providence, RI), Galapagos Art Space (Brooklyn, NY), the Projekt Theatre (Dresden, Germany) and at the Silesian Dance Festival (Bytom, Poland). Choreographic residencies include Rhode Island College Dance Company, Providence College Dance Company and Roger Williams University. She has had a ten year career as a pilates teacher and presently teaches at and is certified through Jen McWalters Studio in Pawtucket, RI. Katie is currently on faculty at Rhode Island College. Along with her husband Olase Freeman, she co-directs their new company, Bald Soul. 
Dance from James Madison University in 1997. Michelle then ventured to New York City where she studied ballet with Jackie Villamil, modern with David Dorfman, Kevin Wynn and many others, and performed with CORA. Two years later, Michelle landed and stayed in San Francisco for 10 years and had the pleasure of working with Kathleen Hermesdorf and Albert Mathias of Motion Lab, Company Mecanique Dance Theater, Annie Rosenthal and Company, David Dorfman Dance, and EmSpace Dance. Michelle has a strong passion for the human form and it’s physical motion. In addition to teaching at Motion Center, she is a certified personal fitness trainer and is pursuing RI therapeutic massage licensure. Michelle hopes to get many more people moving and dancing in Providence.
She holds a Bachelors degree in Culture and Dance from Long Island University and continues to study with American and African teachers in Boston and New York. |
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