Alison's picture.  photo credit: Jocelyn Filley Alison West, ERYT, CO-DIRECTOR YOGA UNION CENTER FOR BACKCARE & SCOLIOSIS
established Yoga Union in 1996 after studying widely and teaching Yoga in NY for ten years. She practiced Astanga Yoga for a number of years while studying Iyengar Yoga for alignment, working in particular with Kevin Gardiner and Genny Kapuler. Alison has studied with many of the senior Iyengar teachers in the United States, and has traveled to Pune to study with the Iyengars.  Both her mother’s scoliosis and her own thoraco-lumbar curve awakened her to spinal asymmetry and led her to study with Bobbie Fulz and then Elise Miller, whose certification program she completed in 2005. With Deborah Wolk, she has established the Yoga Union Center for Backcare and Scoliosis, the first of its kind on the East Coast.

Alison has formulated Principles of Practice that can be applied to most forms of Hatha Yoga, and brings to her teaching the insights born of the ongoing study of anatomy and kinesiology with master teachers such as Irene Dowd, Tom Myers, and Gil Hedley for dissection.
Alison conducts biannual Teacher Trainings in New York City, teaches workshops nationwide and in Europe, and teaches both group and private classes in Manhattan.  The Yoga Union TT is registered at the 500-hour level.

Alison can be reached at yogaunion@nyc.rr.com or at 212-889-8643.
Please visit www.yogaunionbackcare.com.

(photo credit: jocelyn filley)

Deborah's picture

Deborah Wolk, ERYT  CO-DIRECTOR YOGA UNION CENTER FOR BACKCARE & SCOLIOSIS
Having practiced yoga since 1994, Deborah found that specifically practicing alignment-based yoga could control back pain and arrest the progression of her scoliosis.

That awareness inspired her to complete Alison West’s Yoga Union Teacher Training in 2000. Deborah then studied Yoga and Scoliosis with Bobbie Fultz, completed Karin Stephan's Advanced Studies Program in Therapeutics and Healing in 2003 and was certified as a Yoga for Scoliosis teacher through Elise Browning Miller's teacher training in 2005. In 2002, Ms. West invited Deborah to teach the scoliosis segment of the Yoga Union Teacher Training and since then she has taught Yoga & Scoliosis workshops in New York City, nationwide and in Europe. She continues her bi-annual teacher training scoliosis workshops for Yoga Union and for Karin Stephan's Advanced Studies Program. In 2003 she created the first weekly Yoga & Scoliosis class on the East Coast. Weekly Back Care classes and tri-annual scoliosis workshops are offered at Yogasana Center for Yoga in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Now, with Alison West, she Co-Directs the Yoga Union Center for Backcare and Scoliosis and teaches a wide variety of classes for students with back problems and scoliosis including specialty classes for children and classes for students with Harrington Rods and other spinal fusions.

Deborah can be reached at dwolkYoga@gmail.com or call 212-677-0064. Please visit www.yogaunionbackcare.com.

(photo credit: Alison Bradley)


JEANNE-MARIE DERRICK
 
 WENDY "SANTOSHI" BARONELLO
 DEBBY GREEN has been studying and teaching yoga for 15 years, and holds an Introductory Level Iyengar Yoga Teacher certification. Currently, she teaches at Yoga Union for Backcare and Scoliosis, Equinox and privately in NYC.  She is certified by The Rolf Institute of Structural Integration as a rolfing practitioner.  Her work derives also from many years as a dancer.  She studied ballet from a formative age with the great Cecchetti ballet teacher, Margaret Craske.
 
EVE HOLBROOK  has been practicing yoga for 17 years.  Introduced to it as an acting student, she was initially attracted to yoga for the relief it provided from her back pain and the insight it gave her about why that pain kept resurfacing.  When she moved to New York to work as an actor, yoga became an invaluable resource in dealing with the demands of life as a performer, and she grew more devoted in her practice.

In 2001, Eve became interested in sharing the benefits of yoga with others, and began teaching classes at theatre companies and studios in New York City.  Since then, she completed a two-year teacher-training program at  the Iyengar Institute, earned a national certification (junior intermediate level one) from the Iyengar Yoga National Association of the United States, and founded The Nerve of Expression, a community project which offers yoga  to artists with multiple sclerosis.

In June of 2006, Eve traveled to Pune, India to study directly with BKS Iyengar, his daughter Geeta, his son Prashant, and recently returned for two months in the fall of 2008.  She continues to study at the Iyengar Institute of New York, where her primary teachers are James Murphy and Lara Warren.  She has also studied extensively with Mary Dunn and Kevin Gardiner.

Eve has worked as an actor and producer on the Broadway stage, in the film and television industry, and in regional theatres throughout America.  She studied acting at Northwestern University, The British American Drama Academy, and The Old Globe Theatre.

Eve strives to communicate the possibility of being effortful without aggression, of embodying the depth our ourselves without strain.  In this way, as they progress in their practice, she hopes to convey to her students a sense of yoga as a means of developing the mind and bringing insight into the way we live our lives.


  ROBIN THORPE
 MIMI ROSETTI