ABOUT US

Texas Yoga is a collaboration between Ellen B. Smith, and Charles MacInerney. Charles and Ellen have trained and mentored hundreds of yoga students through the Living Yoga Program, a 200-hour yoga teacher training certification course which they own and operate in Austin, Texas. Graduates of the Living Yoga Program now teach yoga in 45 states and 15 countries around the world.

As with the previous Texas Yoga Retreats, our focus remains on building community. We hope you will see this as an opportunity not only to study with great yoga teachers from a variety of traditions, but also as an opportunity to make new connections and friendships, and strengthen and renew old ones.

If you know of other yoga enthusiasts who might resonate with what we have created with the retreat and our vision, Building a caring and inclusive yoga community, please consider inviting them to join you on this retreat.

OUR VISION

BUILDING A CARING AND INCLUSIVE YOGA COMMUNITY

Meet our team

Charles MacInerney at the Texas Yoga RetreatCharles F. MacInerney, E-RYT-500, C-IAYT-1000, has been a fulltime teacher of yoga, meditation and mind/body skills since 1989. He teaches ongoing yoga classes in Austin, Texas, offers yoga workshops at studios around the country, and leads Yoga & Meditation Retreats as well as Yoga & Writing Retreats throughout the US, Mexico, Costa Rica and Guatemala. He is founder of Expanding Paradigms through which he regularly presents at National and International Conferences, and offers training for businesses, hospitals, education and government. He has written articles for numerous magazines including the >Yoga Journal.Charles has created and run two Cardiac Yoga programs, for Seton Hospital and for the Austin Heart Hospital, and been keynote speaker for two Cardiac conferences sponsored by Seton Hospital, along with numerous other conferences around the country, most recently, the International Association of Yoga Therapy conference in 2014.

Charles is Co-Founder of the Free Day of Yoga, Living Yoga Teacher Training Program, and the Texas Yoga Retreat. Please visit his primary website at www.yogateacher.com, or contact him by email.

EllenSmithTexasYoga

Ellen B. Smith, M.A., E-RYT. Ellen is a certified Ananda™ Meditation Teacher and certified and registered Hatha, Vinyasa, and Restorative Flow yoga instructor. With a Master’s Degree in Spiritual Psychology and background as a diversity facilitator, she has worked for decades as a mentor to people of all walks of life. Her passions are teaching hatha yoga and Intuitive Mentoring, a name she coined to describe the unique coaching work she does. Ellen uses her own blend of deep listening, intuition, genuine praise, and quality resources to help others recognize and utilize their innately positive qualities. She has a passion for learning, and integrates information about yoga, qigong, health, longevity, disease intervention, nutrition, meditation, and psychology into sessions. She offers compassionate instruction with a touch of humor, honoring each student’s abilities.

Ellen is Co-Founder, Director, and faculty member of two Austin, Texas businesses: the Living Yoga Teacher Training Program, a 200-hour Yoga-Alliance and Yoga-Register approved yoga teacher training program and the Texas Yoga Retreat , a bi-annual yoga event. She lives in Austin, Texas. Contact: email or 512-266-7926 (24 hr. voice mail).

DonnaBelkTexasYogaDonna Belk (co-founder of Texas Yoga) left the program in Charles’ and Ellen’s capable hands at the beginning of 2009 and will be greatly missed. Donna can now be reached through her websites, www.restorativeflow.com which is a style of yoga she developed called Restorative Flow Yoga and she offers a manual and training based on that style. She also offers consulting in the area of Conscious Death and Dying with a Yogic Perspective (www.consciouslivingdying.com). Donna has been studying hatha yoga and meditation for more than 25 years. She began teaching after becoming certified from Barbara Germenhausen of Yoga House in Austin, Texas, where she also assisted with yoga teacher training there.

Megan Sela, our Retreat Administrator and Graphic Designer started working at the retreat over twelve years ago and is a native Austinite. She currently lives in Lakeway with her two lovely daughters and enjoys knitting, travel, cooking and being in the mountains. Megan runs a small marketing firm that caters to yoga and alternative small businesses as well as e-commerce businesses. Visit OmGirlMarketing.com for more information. Megan also provides henna body art at the retreat and events in the Austin area, learn more or prebook your appointment for the retreat at OmHenna.com.

Lynne Stoltenbergour Retreat Administrator grew up in Canada and has been involved with horses her entire life. She first understood the affect of equine therapy 35 years ago while she was working at a group home for First Nation Youth in northern British Columbia.  These youth were shut down as a result of the trauma they had experienced in their lives and she found the only way for them to be able to talk about their feelings was when they were on a horse.  At that time, she began to practice Yoga and Pranayama understanding how to become present in the body and how to yoke the movement and the breath. Lynne has been teaching eclectic style yoga for 20 years. She teaches beginner, intermediate and advanced yoga, but her favorite is the prenatal yoga. It is a privilege to guide young mothers in breath and bodywork while allowing the unborn babies to experience as little trauma as possible before birth.  Lynne is currently working at with Hope Rising as a equine professional, partnering with a LPC in equine assisted psychotherapy.  Hope Rising is an organization that rescues young women and children from the sex traffic industry.  Her hobbies are tennis, yoga, flying ,touring motorcycles and of course horses.

Jesse (at Sites for All Eyes) is our amazing webmaster.

Listen to some of our past Presenters share about the retreat in general and their personal experience at the retreat.