Melissa McKay, is the director of Kusala Yoga. She has been practicing yoga since 1994. She has practiced various traditions at different times including Iyengar, Ashtanga and Vinyasa and has a deep appreciation for each of them. She also practices Theravadan Buddhism which has led her to attend intensive silent meditation retreats at least once a year since 1998 for up to a month at a time. She studied meditation in Burma in 2000 and 2003 and can not wait to return. She believes in the transformative power of yoga and meditation.

Julia Frodahl is certified to teach yoga through Alison West at Yoga Union. Julia's poetic approach is a distinguishing characteristic in her classes, and her extensive knowledge of anatomy helps students find the precise alignments that deepen the benefits of the yoga asana practice. Julia is also a composer, musician, performing artist, and founder of the 8-piece mini-orchestra Edison Woods.

A dancer since childhood, Cassie Mey has always been interested in the language of the body. While practicing vinyasa yoga for 8 years, she has deepened her physical range of balance, energy, and breath. Over 4 years, through mindfulness meditation practices, she has worked to settle her mind and then live through an open heart and body. Cassie began to link these practices- dance, yoga, and meditation, through OM's teacher training in the spring of 2006. She is currently dancing with Molissa Fenley, (whom she has worked with since 2003), performing in the US and abroad. She is also on the leadership board of the Interdependence Project- an East Village meditation group that incorporates the Arts and Social Activism with Buddhist Contemplative studies (under the Shambhala linneage). Cassie enjoys teaching a gentle vinyasa flow that proposes curiously attuning physical and inner awareness to the present moment/um of the breath.

Marissa Nielsen-Pincus is dedicated to movement, believing in its power to balance, heal, and energize. Her classes are focused and exploratory, incorporating alignment and breath to bring the whole self into balance and openness. Marissa did her teacher training at the Yoga Center of Brooklyn. She has continued to study with Anusara and Iyengar teachers and is currently inspired by the work of Irene Dowd and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. Born in Portland, Oregon, Marissa began dancing at the age of 4. She studied contemporary dance at the London Studio Center and lived for 4 years in London, studying and performing around England. Here in New York she performs with Third Rail Dance and does low flying trapeze with Fly By Night Dance Theater. She would like to thank all her teachers and students for their constant inspiration.

Maja Sidebaeck first discovered yoga in her hometown of Stockholm, Sweden in the early nineties. From the sense of clarity, balance and openness the practice of yoga brought her, she knew immediately that she wanted yoga to be part of her life. Through the years her love for yoga has only grown and led her to complete the OM yoga center teacher training program in the spring of 2006. Her classes are infused with a sense of joyful exploration and compassion while being mindful of alignment and invoking the transformative power of the breath. She also likes to add a bit of a challenge and have fun. When Maja is not practicing, teaching or thinking about yoga she writes her own sophisticated pop songs which she performs around the city with her soulful and jazzy voice.

Co-founder of Kusala Yoga, Mélanie Chevarie (www.nutryoga.com) has been practicing yoga since 1992. At the age of 19, she travelled all over Asia studying meditation and yoga. In 2001, she received teacher training from Laughing Lotus and later on from OM Yoga Center. Mélanie is also involved in counselling for rape/incest victims and as a doula in prenatal care. It for this last reason that she moved back to her native Canada to persue her study in becoming a midwife and where she is co-teacher of the Yoga Teacher Training at Joy of Yoga in Montréal (www.joyofyoga.net).