Teachers

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 Suzanne Mazzarelli's yoga roots began with a heart-felt, alignment-based practice which eliminated her back pain and continues to influence her both on and off the mat.  She is a certified Yoga Therapist and believes strongly in yoga as a healing practice that returns us to balance and wellness.  Classes flow with precise alignment cues and an attention to breath.  She is skilled at offering modifications for all body types, and levels of practice, and encourages her students to meet themselves (without judgement) where they are today – whether tired, tight and achy or energized and open. She specializes in working with students who experience chronic pain, whether it is physical or emotional. Suzanne also offers Somatics, private Yoga Therapy Sessions, and Ayurvedic consultations.

 Maria has been a dedicated yoga student since 2003, and completed her 200HR Yoga Teacher Training through Be Well Community Yoga in June of 2021. She seeks to help students deepen their body awareness and build physical strength and flexibility, while creating space for them to explore their consciousness, get in touch with deeper layers of self, and ease stress.   

 Crystal has been practicing yoga since 2017, initially for anxiety relief, back pain relief, and a natural way to sleep better. Throughout the years, she realized how beneficial yoga has been in so many more ways than she was seeking, and wanted to share her practice and internal healing with others. Crystal completed her 200 hr Yoga Teacher Training Certification in June 2021 through Be Well Community Yoga with Suzanne Mazzarelli as her teacher, mentor, and spiritual guide. With focus on a more therapeutic practice, she hopes to help others build strength and mental ease through movement and breath work. 

Ally has been practicing yoga for 9 years, and earned her 200-HR yoga teacher certification in 2019. She is also a certified Mvt109 Facilitator and a Reiki Practitioner. Her main focus is a Vinyasa style practice with meditation and chakra integration.

Ally was originally drawn to yoga for the mental health benefits of calming the mind and moving energy through the body. She quickly fell in love with both yoga and meditation, and they quite literally changed her life. She believes yoga is a journey, different for us all. While we are all drawn to it for different reasons, it unifies us and brings us closer in a deeper way.

She’s passionate about clean eating, sustainable living, nature restoration, saving all the animals and the planet, one day at a time.

 Following years of home practice, and enriched by his many powerfully influential teachers, Joe James is  eager to share the practice he loves. Calm, laid-back, humorous and soothing, Joe’s teaching organically mirrors his own personality. As a RYT-200 instructor,  Joe cultivates a safe, nurturing atmosphere, and invites his students into the world of yoga to explore and deepen their relationship to body, mind and breath. 

 Monica Zinke, a Canaan native, is a mom, nurse and outdoor enthusiast. Monica’s yoga practice deepened through the pandemic, finding a spiritual and emotional calm in trying times. She completed her YTT 200 hour training at Be Well Community Yoga in 2021 and her Aerial Yoga Teacher Training in 2024.  She is gifted in working with people who struggle with health issues, injuries, or pain. and is working on her 500 hour Yoga Medicine certification. 

 Monica is also SUP yoga certified and you can often find her on her paddle board weather permitting. Monica’s practice includes hatha, vinyasa and restorative. 

 Andrew has been a dedicated scholar and practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism since 2013 when he spent a semester at Rangjung Yeshe Institute (RYI), a monastic university in Kathmandu, Nepal. Having a solid foundation in Buddhist philosophy and meditation, he then met yoga in 2017 and completed 250 hours of Teacher Training in 2018, specializing in Power Vinyasa. He has maintained a regular migration between the US and Nepal as both a student and teacher, ever interested in practices of transformation. Most recently, he completed a Masters Degree in Buddhist Studies at RYI, focusing on ancient scripture preserved in Tibetan and its pertinence to today.

Andrew teaches yoga to honor each and every person’s desire for embodied wellness. For him, teaching yoga is about holding a sacred space for ritual practice, with the intent of waking up to our fullest potential together.

Rebecca dabbled in yoga until life led her to Lansing, Michigan, where she was determined to get the most out of her New Student '30 days for 30 dollars' yoga pass at Hilltop Yoga; it was like finding a treasure without ever having been searching. This experience of daily practice, in community, with others who value the weaving of mind, body, and spirit, set Rebecca on the path of self study through Yoga. She did her 200hr teacher training with Hilaire Lockwood at Hilltop Yoga in 2012. Her classes focus on alignment of the body, fluidity of movement, and moving with the breath. She would like to remind you that if you can breathe, you can do yoga.

Rebecca lives in Falls Village, and feels at home among creatives, in fresh water lakes, in Italy, with her family, and on her yoga mat.