Teachers

Hannah practices and teaches movement for the purpose of finding freedom, comfort, and ease in the body. Her own experience of discomfort and instability in her body while pregnant and postpartum led to a dramatic overhaul in her approach to movement. She has a passion for functional movement, engaged and inspired alignment, and using asana as a gateway to the deeper, more subtle practices of yoga.

Motherhood is one of the primary laboratories for her practice. Every day she is challenged to take her yoga off the mat and put it into action as she strives to parent consciously and gently.

Hannah is a co-owner of Gertrude Street Yoga alongside her husband Jaspah. She offers classes on the weekly timetable, and leads the 200 hour training.

Jaspah teaches from experience. His teaching combines movement, stillness, meditation, and breath with an emphasis on the qualities of softness, compassion, and self-acceptance to identify and release resistance (tension/stress) and relax into the greater sense of calm, stability and wholeness that is inherent and available within our original nature.

Practicing with Jaspah is an invitation to turn inwards, to contemplate and move beyond the thoughts and ideas that we have about ourselves, to consciously use each moment as an opportunity to meet and embrace life as it is and over time develop an inner trust. Ultimately, the goal of his teaching is to provide an opportunity to connect with the inner spring of strength, vitality, and quiet stillness found deep inside each one of us.

Jaspah was introduced to yoga by his family as a teenager. He embraced the practice in his 20’s when yoga became a tool for balancing the demands of a corporate career and healing trauma. The practice sparked something inside of him which lead to greater curiosity towards travel, life, and deeper spiritual practice. While traveling, he embarked on his first yoga teacher training in Mexico where he met Hannah, his now wife and partner in life. Together, Hannah and Jaspah own and run Gertrude Street Yoga Studio in Melbourne where they live with their daughter Neesa, and dog Bhakti.

Jaspah is passionate about using yoga to support others to heal trauma and embrace life. He teaches group classes, runs trainings, and works with groups and individuals. To discuss working with Jaspah, get in touch.

Instagram: @jaspah_

From a very young age, Ana started to ask herself and others questions that turn her into a quest inside her body. Since then, she has spent the last 18 years seeking her own personal healing through yoga, earth base wisdom and human connection. Throughout this time, she has spent traveling the world, learning from other cultures, exploring different tools and ancient techniques to tap into her own personal power and since then she has been in a mission to share these with people. In the last years she has dedicated herself to design and facilitate classes,
programs, and retreats for people of all of sorts of backgrounds,
and she is also part of our Teacher Training Faculty.

Ana believes is everyone’s birthright to access these tools so she is dedicated to sharing them with people specially from Youth justice, youth homelessness and young girls as well as yoga studios and centres nationally and internationally. Whether she is sharing through words, movement or the space in between them, her mission is to meet people exactly where they are, share the power that comes from going inside their bodies, and watch what unravels.

Website: ana-uribe.com
Instagram: ana_uribe_yoga
Facebook: Ana Uribe

Nina characterizes her yoga practice as Tantric Hatha, an orientation which focuses on finding one’s limits, and learning to expand them even while working within them. Her classes are strong, yet playful and healing. Nina is both a yoga teacher and a massage therapist. She brings the two professions together in a yoga practice that emphasizes physical alignment as well as mental and spiritual well-being.

Each of her yoga classes is geared towards addressing the specific needs of the students. There is not a set sequence of poses to be followed, so every class is different. Nina continuously reminds students that it is your practice; you are encouraged to take it where you need to go – provided you work safely and watch your breathing.

Instagram: @ninaalfers
Website: svastha-yoga.com

Indrani Parker was born and raised in the US within an interfaith spiritual community whose focus is compassion towards others and ourselves and being of service to others. This upbringing and exposure to a variety of cultural backgrounds, religions and needs became the foundation for her studies and life path.

She has a degree in Dance and Arts in Education and an MA in Dance/Movement Therapy and Counselling, during which time she began more in-depth study within the Ugandan community as well as at risk children. After working with the African refugee community in Chicago for a time, she came to Australia, where she also has roots, and studied yoga, doula and birthwork more indepthly. After gaining reproductive health research and doula experience in India her passion for working with and supporting women during this process increased exponentially.

She has studied a variety of styles of yoga, including Anusara, Hatha, Vinyasa and restorative styles and completed her training with Power Living Australia in 2014. Now as a yoga teacher and doula, she is excited and grateful to be able to work with the community in such intimate ways, providing support in areas where it’s needed and wanted and where she is continually learning and growing. She is passionate about community and sees her work as an offerings of emotional, physical and potentially spiritual support.

Instagram: @indraniyoga

My classes tend to be slow and strong with a focus on interoception (that is, paying attention to your internal state).

I intend to make classes feel spacious with plenty of room for each person to adapt the class to their own wants and needs.

My classes are largely informed by my studies and work in psychology and are therefore secular and usually draw on psychological tools and techniques that can be soothing, help regulate ones’ thoughts and emotions and/or provide a framework for living with – and making sense of – thoughts, sensations and emotions.

Instagram: @anniebelcher
Website: anniebelcher.com.au

Aleisha is a graduate from the first ever GSY teacher training cohort in 2017, but you might know her from leading the Community Kirtans! Aleisha joined the GSY admin team in early 2021 and now you can put a face to the person responding to some of your emails! During lockdown she ran some online kirtans for GSY, and you can also find a couple of her sound meditations in the GSY online library.

She is a movement facilitator, kirtanist and sound practitioner from Australia, currently based in London, UK. Aleisha comes from an exercise science background and it was during the GSY teacher training that she discovered a love of Nada yoga, the yoga of sound and Aleisha coordinated our GSY kirtans through 2018 to early 2020.

Aleisha studied and assisted on the trauma informed community yoga training program in 2019/2020 with Mei Lai and Jo Buick and all of Aleisha’s teachings take a trauma informed approach, to help you find agency within your own practice, and meet you where you’re at.

A serial training enthusiast, Aleisha has studied various sound and mantra courses with several Melbourne based teachers including Mei Lai Swan and Chakra Williams, and online with Janet Stone, Sheela Bringi, Neesi Gomes, and most recently, Jai Uttal. Aleisha is currently teaching an embodied chanting and kirtan course for beginners online with Satu Tuomela.

Aleisha has worked in the past coordinating one of the largest YMCA gyms in Melbourne, and their community programs. She has taught yoga for vulnerable groups such as Asylum seekers, at risk young people, and the LGBTIQ+ community. Passionate about creating safe/r spaces, Aleisha celebrates inclusion and diversity. In the past she coordinated an array of ground breaking LGBTIQ+ wellness programs at Australia largest leisure facility provider, YMCA. Aleisha co-facilitates a Queer sound and movement project in the UK offering sound, movement and breath practices for LGBTIQ+ people (and their allies).

During the long UK lockdown period, Aleisha studied sound therapy with BAST (the British Academy of Sound Therapy) exploring various sound practices in depth for their therapeutic benefits, and shares regular sound baths, kirtan and mantra chanting sessions online and in person.

Instagram: @homesong.love

Jess’s classes are playful, experiential, rich and empowering designed to anchor us back home into our bodies so we can experience Self in its wholeness.

Whilst yoga began for Jess as simply a way to move gently and feel good within her body, over the years it developed into so much more — a practise which has offered her a sweet way to come back to herself, and meet life with ease.

She uses movement, asana, meditation, visualisation, breath, philosophy and felt sense to inspire awareness and aquire a deep sense of nourishment, strength, ease and connectivity in the human form.

Her classes are strongly influenced by Embodied Flow TM developed by her teachers Tara Judelle and Scott Lyons. She first studied with them in 2016. She has been devoted to yoga since 2008. Her intention as a teacher is to deeply embody everything she if offering, so that what comes from her to you in a class is an honest form of communication. Jess welcomes everyone to her classes, of all diversities, and regardless of their yoga experience. She invites you to contact her directly @jesssandral.yoga if you have any questions.

Instagram: @jesssandral.yoga

Elisa has been a devoted Yoga practitioner for over ten years and sees the practice
as an intimate relationship with the body, spirit and the natural world. Her teaching is deeply influenced by Tantric philosophy and she believes in the power of the breath and its ability to connect you to the deepest, darkest corners of yourself. Elisa has a love for keeping movement slow and spacious, providing the time and stillness to really experience each subtle change in the body. Through building this intimacy with the body and spirit she hopes to give her students the opportunity to ask meaningful questions, cultivate a sense of empowerment and embrace who they are inside and out in the world. Open and honest communication with her students is something she cherishes and
applies this in her teaching as much as she can. Establishing trust and inclusivity is
something she values deeply and it is her priority to offer safe and guided
opportunities to experience the practices in your own body as a way to cultivate a
sense of authority and empowerment.

Lucia has been a Contemporary dancer and Yoga practitioner for 20 years now. She has taught movement, somatics, Yoga and meditation for the last 15 years in South America, and is now teaching in Australia. She has always been passionate about the immense wisdom of the body and its self-healing capacity, believing that a body-full practice gives us the possibility to listen, know and feel into ourselves deeply. In that way we’re able to embody the present moment and make choices from our authentic self, discovering our singularity and therefore share it with the collective, inspiring and being inspired by others in this interwoven connection of life that we are part of.

From a very young age she felt attracted to esoteric practices, such as crystal healing, Tarot and Astrology, as a way of understanding the mystery of this existence, developing her intuition and helping others to tap into their own healing powers.

As a woman that has cultivated a strong sense of resilience by healing various childhood traumas, surviving anorexia, and healing her relationship with the sacred feminine, she feels the call to share with other women some of the tools that have helped her along her journey. She facilitates moon rituals through archetypical language, women gathering circles and one on one sessions.

Before sharing her work world wide, she owned a yoga and healing therapies studio in Argentina for eight years. Among her offerings, she facilitates an International Yoga teacher training with somatic movement approach as well as workshops, Retreats, and regular classes in various Studios around Melbourne.

Teaching and sharing is one of her main passions and purposes in life because she strongly believes that it is not only the knowledge that heals, but the sacredness that emerges from the space co-created by both giver and receiver.

Instagram: @lucydaless
Website: luciadalessandro.com

Ziggy has always loved people and the world.

For as long as he can remember, he has been fascinated by the way we think, the way we act and the apparent mysteries hidden from everyday life.

This, plus a keen interest in philosophy and exercise led him to Yoga.

Having completed extensive study in Yoga and Tantra, Ziggy teaches with the belief that to be purposeful and meaningful in the world, we must first know ourselves.

Using a strong focus on breath and the subtler aspects of the practice, each class is specifically designed to lead you on an inward journey so your outward experience of life can be more calm, joyous and profound.

Instagram: @ziggyrazuki

A student of plant medicine, a teacher of movement & meditation, a lover of nature…Joanna aims to deliver authentic practices and techniques which honour a variety of ancient technologies. That authenticity remains a key focus through her classes, as she encourages gentle self enquiry and fosters deep connection to self utilising movement, breath and meditation.

Through holding space for self- exploration, under the name Lightness of Being, Joanna recognises that every body is unique and requires varying methods to embrace this personal exploration. As such, her offer encompasses many styles of Yoga (Kundalini, Hatha, Yin, Vinyasa, Yoga Nidra) Qi Gong (from Traditional Chinese Medicine) along with Counselling and Western Herbal Medicine.

By shedding light on the body’s inherent self-healing capacity and uncovering methods for the prevention of dis-ease, Joanna works holistically, coupling traditional healing with a science based application in providing a complete system of wellness.

The classes she facilitates are inclusive and open to all, regardless of individual prior experience. She describes her approach as a facilitator to be grounded, effective and intuitive.

Joanna continues to study and accumulate knowledge of the spiritual, emotional, energetic and physiological realms of being human, thereby cultivating a safe and nourishing place for personal growth, vitality and wellbeing.
Instagram: @kindred_being_

• Individual Sessions = $140

• BA Social Work – 2008 (Current member of Australian Association of Social Workers)
• Internal Family Systems Therapy – Level 1 
• Cert 1 Training in Mindfulness Based Interventions (MBSR & MBST)
• Cert Motivational Interviewing 
• Level A – Interpersonal Psychotherapy for adults and adolescents
• Climate Aware Practitioner
• Cert Yoga Therapy 
• Cert Yoga Teaching

• Email: ingrid@openground.org.au
• Phone: 0433 891 775
• Facebook: Ingrid Jolley