Butterfly Yoga

Pattie Stafford

Owner, Butterfly Yoga

Vinyasa Flow Yoga, Hatha Yoga, Prenatal Yoga, Restorative & Yin Yoga, Pilates, Ballet, Hot Hula Fitness(R), Butterfly Kids Dance & Yoga
Co-creator & Trainer of Gain Fitness-Butterfly Yoga iphone Fitness App

Pattie feels wonderfully blessed to have been able to share her love for dance and yoga for a total of over twelve years.  Her innate affinity for grace and expression through movement led her to excel in ballet at a young age.  By 16, she became a dancer and later a soloist for the Utah Ballet company, and also began teaching all levels of ballet from toddlers through advanced students. Pattie also received many scholarships to the University of Utah as a ballet major of fine arts where she studied ballet technique, performance  repertoire,  jazz,  modern dance, Pilates, teaching technique, and kinesiology.  She continues to dance and perform professionally in the bay area.

Curiosity for yoga began in 2003,  after which she was immediately drawn to the discipline and philosophy of yoga.  Many years of dedicated practice brought her to a realization of peace and purpose.  Her classes and teaching method integrate a spirit of acceptance and openness, while cultivating peace, gratitude, and awareness helping you to find your foundation and your bliss.  She emphasizes the connection of movement with breath within versatile and challenging asanas to energize, renew, and rejuvenate the mind and body, while enhancing your focus, strength, flexibility, and balance.

Cultural dance has also become a joy to teach.   Pattie enjoys the rich tradition of telling stories, exploring emotions, and expressing nature and wonder through dance.  She loves sharing and celebrating the energy and freedom of music and dancing.

“In the dance of yoga and flow of life, you experience inspiration, love, truth, beauty, wisdom, and contentment as natural aspects of being. Transformation and expansion of the mind, body, heart, and spirit occurs. You know and feel gratitude, acceptance, and a connection to all that is. When you are doing your practice and ground yourself in healing presence and awareness each day, you become free as you let go of fear, judgement, and worry. You then open yourself to receive abundance, allowing great love and compassion to flow in. In this state of being, we feel one with this wonderful flow of life, receiving and giving freely, generously, and with our whole heart.”
~Pattie

Gain Fitness Q & A with Pattie Stafford

Deborah Durbin

Vinyasa Flow Yoga, Hatha Yoga, Pilates, Prenatal & Restorative Yoga

Exploration of art and movement awareness arose early in Deborah’s life. A gymnast, runner, diver, dancer, musician, and fine artist, Deborah found somatic and kinetic forms of movement very healing especially after an intense and successful career in fashion. She has embraced a career teaching Yoga and Pilates for over a decade, and she now thrives sharing the beauty and grace of healing and compassionate awareness that yoga has brought to her life and to her heart.

Deborah follows an eclectic combination of hatha yoga, pilates, and movement sequenced to the rhythm of nature as an art form. Her studies have varied from the East to West. E. Indian and Asian teachers for their inherit wisdom of the ages, through yoga, meditation, ayurvedic principles, and W. Indian leaders for their patiance and mystical appreciation of the earth and nature. Intensive studies include Kundalini, Anusara, B.S.K. and Geeta Iyengar, the
works of Paramahansa Yogananda, Amrit and Kamini Desai, June Khan, Martha Graham, Shiva Rea, Kali Ray, and most recently Les Mills flavor her classes with international validation that meditative martial arts, yoga, meditation, and Pilates are incredible forms of body-mind activities that heal the body, calm the mind, and soothe the spirit.

Her warm and compassionate nature will nourish your heart, while her vibrant Flow Yoga and Pilates classes will invigorate your body and mind!

Annie Moore, M.A.

Gentle Hatha Yoga, Restorative & Yin Yoga

Annie was introduced to yoga in 2002 and has made it a part of her life since. A recent transplant to the Bay area, Annie pursued her passion to teach yoga by obtainingher certification through Purusha Yoga and is now a 200-hour RYT with Yoga Alliance. She has studied a number of yoga traditions including Hatha, Vinyasa, Yin Yoga, Restorative and more, from her time living in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC.

Being a health communications professional for more than 10 years, she draws on her knowledge in the health, wellness and science fields to build and communicate her sequences in a thoughtful way to bring forth the physical and mental benefits of yoga. Her classes focus on the breath and movement together to build strength, flexibility and cultivate the mind-body awareness.

Annie holds a Master’s in organizational sciences from The George Washington University in Washington, DC and a Bachelor’s in mass communications from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a strong proponent of continuous learning and growth on and off the mat.

Tracey Keith

Kids & Family Yoga

Tracey has been working with children for over ten years. She also teaches at Glenn Oaks Montessori in Millbrae, and has completed her Yoga Certification at Its Yoga, Kids in San Francisco.

Tracey loves working with children and has been teaching yoga to children of all ages yoga for over a year. She believes that Yoga is a healthy and fun activity for the child’s mind and body development. Tracey engages young ones through interactive yoga poses, as well as yoga inspired books, music, and games. Children will also practice meditation and relaxation through fun breathing techniques and positive affirmations, which encourage and reinforce peacefulness, confidence, and compassion. Most importantly they will have fun while they learn this ancient practice that becomes a valuable tool for overall health and well-being that they can develop and practice throughout their entire life.

Cassie Schindler

MBSR Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Instructor, Wellness Coach

MBSR (Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction) Instructor and Wellness Coach, Cassie Schindler practices and teaches a mindful lifestyle process for cultivating work and life balance.

Wife, mom, career woman and writer, Cassie took a wake-up call fourteen years ago from MS (multiple sclerosis), and has turned it into a new plan for a life of vibrant wellness.

Cassie invites you to join her on an alternate path to wholeness and well being, made up of mindful steps you take each day to connect mind and body and live fully in the NOW.

Give yourself a break and a breath today. Take the first step on The Alternate Path.

“My mission is to invite you to the well, to have you experience a variety of modalities for finding peace and wellness in your life. Whether you are living with a chronic condition or simply seek more moments of silence and peace, I’m here to help.”
 
 
 
 
 

Natalie Safra

Vinyasa Flow Yoga, Hatha Yoga

Natalie practices and believes in heart-centered yoga and uses this art as a way as to heal, strengthen, and unify body, mind, and spirit. She believes that the benefits from practicing yoga can be seen in all aspects of life.

Natalie encourages students to listen to their breath in every pose as a way to check in with their body and understand their edge in yoga and life. She believes in building poses from the ground up and inspires students to calm the mind by finding their foundation, both on and off their mats.

Natalie’s guidance offers an empathetic and supportive space, allowing her students to grow spiritually as yogis, radiating from Hatha practice to the outside world. Her Vinyasa flow instruction enables students of all levels to discover their own practice and love of yoga.