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Yoga
Parkside
Foundation
Meet Our Family
The Yoga Parkside Foundation is extremely lucky to have an amazing, skilled, and diverse team of teachers that we are proud to call our family! You can read below to learn more about our teachers' different styles of teaching, as well as other cool info that they wanted to shared as you get to know them. Click here to check out their class offerings.
Jes Durham
Instructor
Jessica found yoga in 2011 and immediately felt aligned and connected with the practice. In 2019, she received her 200-hour training in Bali, Indonesia with a focus on vinyasa and hatha, and later received her 500-hour training in 2022 to include yin, yoga nidra, and other advanced practices.
Her teaching style includes the fundamentals of connecting movement, alignment, and breath, through a vinyasa flow with a balance of challenge and accessibility.
You can expect to be challenged in a safe way to recognize your strength and resiliency both on and off the mat, and leave feeling rewarded, empowered, and focused. Some experience recommended for class.
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Ying-Fen Swagler
Instuctor
My name is Ying-Fen Swagler. I grew up in Taiwan and then grew up again in the US, that means I am a YES to good food and diversity.
Yoga has helped me build the mental and physical strengths that carried me through the toughest times in my life, and enabled me to live life to its fullest and overcome challenges in other physical activities.
Aside from vinyasa power yoga, I also love martial art training and Tai Chi practice. I found a balanced combination of these practices to be very enjoyable.
Although I am a pharmacist who believes medications can do wonders to treat illnesses, I also firmly believe that healing starts when one’s mind and body work together, that is what yoga offers. Sharing with my students what I received from yoga fills my heart with joy.
Jamie Monte
Instuctor
Yoga has influenced Jamie's life for over two decades. She received her teacher training from 8 Limbs Yoga Centers in Seattle in 2010. Her classes are filled with light-hearted energy, creative sequences, and breath awareness. Jamie encourages curiosity and playfulness to discover and
nurture connections within the physical and energetic bodies. She weaves Ayurvedic principles, pranayama, mantra, mudra, and Vedic stories through the movement practice to create a rich experience. The intention of her yin yoga classes is to explore mindfulness and support the
nervous system in quiet, passive poses. When you practice yin yoga, you create more harmony within your physical and energetic bodies, increasing your overall well-being. Her's is a devotional practice, and you will also be challenged to practice with intention and devotion to
your heart, body, and energy.
Nabil Alfahal
Instructor
Nabil has been practicing yoga for years. He received his 200-hour training in Bali, Indonesia with a focus on vinyasa in 2022.
Nabil loves to teach in a creative, fun, and challenging way, providing a welcoming space to experiment and explore your edges.
Sorren Cooke
Instructor
My name is Sorren Cooke and I love teaching at YPF!
I’m an adventure seeker who loves climbing mountains, camping and hiking. If I’m not doing those things I’m curled up at home with a book and my dogs.
Yoga is one of three things that have helped me feel safe in my body. It’s provided me with a basis of confidence, understanding and perspective during times of upheaval. I love teaching classes to help facilitate those things for others.
My classes focus on breath work and energy work. I’m an occupational therapist by trade and believe yoga can be for everyone, my classes are highly adaptable to provide a safe , inclusive environment for all.
Jenni Pynch
Instuctor
A student first, Jenn began teaching yoga in 2005 and has remained a dedicated student in the traditions of Ashtanga and Iyengar yoga. Completing 500 hours of study under Maty Ezraty (Yoga Works) & Annie Carpenter (Smart Flow), Jenn teaches an alignment based & anatomically focused practice. Specializing in yoga for athletes, her classes are specifically for injury prevention and restoring the body post game and after travel. Her workshops have been featured at studios and festivals across the country and she's honored to have worked with a variety of both college and professional teams. Her classes are open to all levels and abilities.
Barbara Haney
Instuctor
Barb became a RYT after attending a 200-hr teacher training with Felicitas Kusch-Lango. She continues to study yoga philosophy with Swami Sadasivananda, a direct disciple of Swami Vishnudevananda, in the Sivananda tradition, where she was given the spiritual name Saraswati.
Her introduction to yoga began in the late eigthies as a way to alleviate the physical issues of wildland firefighting. She studied alignment-based yoga with a number of instructors in Northern Virginia. She has taught at Healing Waters in East Aurora for many years.
She aspires to hold space for yoga to work its magic on the individual. She believes there is nobody/no body that cannot benefit from yoga. All postures can be accommodated to meet the practitioner’s needs. Everyone is welcome in her class.
Sherika Caliste
Instuctor
I’ve always been interested in movement and healing. I danced professionally in my youth and became trained in trauma-informed psychotherapy as an adult.
With yoga, I’ve found the ability to bring both interests together. I received my 200-hour training through Breathe for Change, an amazing organization that emphasized the connection between yoga and social-emotional learning and that provided instruction on how to use those tools to positively impact communities.
My goals are to serve the community and to create positive and inclusive spaces!
Aileen Bown
Instuctor
Aileen believes that practicing yoga is one of the best things she does for herself. This led her to complete her yoga teacher training at the Ashville Yoga Center in Ashville, NC.
She teaches the importance of connecting with the breath, connecting breath with motion and letting the breath guide the practice.
Her slow flow vinyasa is like a moving meditation leading to a sense of ease, peace and freedom, both on the mat and off the mat.
Jessie Mancuso
Instructor
Jessie started her yoga journey over 15 years ago, and began teaching in 2020. She believes in creating space for her students to go inward and listen to the mind and body through yoga poses, breath, and relaxation.
As she continues on this journey, she has learned you don’t do yoga, you live it. She is always looking for ways to embody that in her practice and in her teaching. Her passion is finding ways to calm the nervous system and release chronic stress in the body as well as making yoga available to everyone both financially and physically.
Liz Vetrano
Kids Instructor
Liz is a lifelong yoga practitioner and mother who shares the benefits of yoga with her own child, as well as through the kids classes she teaches. She completed her 95-hour Children’s Yoga & Mindfulness training at the Omega Institute through Little Flower Yoga in 2017 and teaches Yoga For The Young Child and Yoga Adventures here at Parkside. Liz also completed an additional training through Kidding Around Yoga and is pursuing studies to become a certified KAY teacher-trainer. She completed her 200-hour training through Yogis In Service in 2019.
Kayla McEvoy
Instructor
I am a mom to a very cool little girl, two very wild German Shorthaired Pointers, and a US Army Veteran.
Yoga has given me the gift of personal growth and self-acceptance, and becoming a teacher has given me the ability to offer a welcoming and joyful practice to others.
I enjoy incorporating mindfulness practices and meditation into vinyasa-style classes for a holistic and grounding experience. I look forward to being your guide on the mat.
Megan McClain-Kwacz
Instuctor
Megan is committed to teaching practices that help us reclaim and remember our common humanity...breathing, moving, gardening, meditation and yoga asana practice.
A devoted home practitioner who built her practice through 15 years of study with Buffalo teachers, she teaches to help empower others to learn how to apply yoga to their daily lives. Megan is a Buffalo native, works in the non-for-profit sector with kids and theater and loves Buffalo sports teams fiercely.
Annabelle Ludwick
Instuctor
Annabelle Ludwick is an Ayurvedic Specialist and Yoga Instructor trained in the art of Asian pulse and tongue reading and herbalism. Her life purpose is to spread joy and be present in each moment with everyone she meets. Her yoga teaching specialties are Hatha and Prenatal. She enjoys working with first time students as well as seasoned yoginis.
She graduated Rising Sun Yoga 200 hr training in 2017 and went on to apprentice with K. Sonam Targee in the Ayurvedic clinic at Ancient Universal Medicine in Rochester until his passing in 2022. In 2021 she trained in the body treatments of Ayurvedic Bliss Therapy at CCA. A Quantum Living Coach and a Safe Serve Certified Cook keep an eye out for one of Annabelle’s diverse workshop offerings.
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Nikki Ball
Instuctor
Nicole specializes in trauma-informed teaching and leads beginner-friendly classes with a responsive approach, providing a warm and welcoming space for students looking to find peace. Students attending Nicole's classes will increase physical strength while gaining mental clarity and emotional stability. If you are new to yoga and looking to explore the foundational poses of yoga, using breath and movement to tap into the energy source within, we invite you to practice with Nicole.
Nicole's philosophy on life, both on and off the mat, includes developing flexibility and strength, reducing stress, and finding softness in the mind.
Her classes are focused on building self-awareness and confidence, respect for self and others, and improved focus and concentration--an overall path to wellness in the body, mind, and soul.
Nicole is passionate about working with children and women specifically-- with decades of experience in the classroom and throughout the Buffalo community. She is a lifelong learner and is currently studying to become a doula and lactation specialist.
Ash Lorich
Instuctor
Ash started her personal yoga journey back in 2017, and got her 200 hour RYT in Phoenix, AZ in 2022.
Her classes are a mixture of Vinyasa Yoga infused with focused Hatha stillness. She started yoga as a form of exercise, but soon came to realize the benefits were far beyond physical.
She aims to create an environment for people to connect with themselves, community, and the practice of yoga.
Liz Link
Instuctor
My name is Liz and I was fortunate to be introduced to yoga and meditation as a child. It was a pillar of life in my grandma’s home and her sharing her practice and values brought me great peace through a rather tumultuous and difficult childhood.
After a yoga-less high school and college experience, I was humbly reintroduced in my early 20’s when I found myself in very poor health; emotionally, physically and spiritually. I returned to yoga to alleviate the physical ailments caused by late stage Lyme-disease and the benefits extended beyond what I could have ever imagined. I have found that yoga and a spiritual connection to something bigger than myself has been the single most healing influence in my life. It has healed an eating disorder, more than one manifestation of addiction, emotional overwhelm and reactivity, my imbalanced relationships and so much more.
I am truly honored and humbled to partake and share this ancient knowledge and wisdom that has brought so much healing and divine wellness to so many humans across time.
Interested in teaching with us?
Send us an email for more information and an application.
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