Loretta Tharp, E-RYT

Loretta is a graduate of the Integrative Yoga Therapy program (IYT). She has studied extensively with Joseph LePage and has earned her 1,000-hour certification as a Professional Yoga Therapist as well as Yoga teacher. As a therapist, Loretta brings the ancient insights of Yoga into mainstream wellness and educational programs. Her philosophy is that health is a unity of body, mind and spirit. Yoga is the vehicle for deepening this experience of unity. As a mentor, she brings Yoga into the world as a resource for personal growth, healing and awakening. Loretta opens the door of Yoga for others and then helps to guide them to find the way to a compassionate, healthy and joyful life.

Her love of mentoring comes from her early years when she was a public school teacher. Trained as a teacher, Loretta carries that skill into her Yoga classes and teacher training programs. Her compassion for others comes through in her teaching and through Yoga she guides people to listen to and understand their own body.

Her Yoga is of the Iyengar style and she incorporates study of the chakras and Yoga Nidra into her sessions.

Loretta has been teaching Yoga for six years. She teaches mainly in the Central Massachusetts area and has been co-director with other teachers in several teacher training programs as well as her own. She has been certified by the MS Society in teaching Yoga to individuals with this disease, and her credited course at a Worcester college is always full with students placed on waiting lists to take her class.

Learn more about Loretta.

Lauren Jay Toolin, E-RYT

Lauren is a ParaYoga Master Teacher, one of the first to have been granted this title by ParaYoga founder, Yogarupa Rod Stryker. This achievement is the culmination of decades of study, practice and teaching, and a five-year apprenticeship in the ParaYoga tradition, one of the most broad reaching and fastest growing Yoga traditions in the country. She also apprenticed with and was a lead assistant teacher to Rodney Yee for many years.

In her teaching, Lauren draws from her in-depth knowledge of Classical Yoga, Kundalini science and Tantra, and her students are guided through an experience of Yoga in its most sublime, lively and profound manifestation. Always insightful, inspirational, and infused with humor, Lauren's teaching conveys her passionate belief in Yoga's boundless potential for creating a healthy, successful and loving existence.

She has contributed to several national yoga publications and conceptualized and associate produced “The Practical Power of Yoga” a nationally-broadcast PBS special. Lauren teaches public classes and leads teacher trainings throughout the Northeast, and offers workshops and retreats nationwide and in Belize and Puerto Rico.

Learn more about Lauren.

Martha Garlick

Martha has been practicing for 20 years and was certified to teach in 2003 by Barbara Benagh. Around that time, she discovered the teachings of Yogarupa Rod Stryker and has been studying ParaYoga with him ever since. She holds a doctorate in physical therapy and will be teaching the anatomy and physiology portion of the training.

"Loretta has an amazing voice that just transcends you in to a very peaceful place; she also has a wonderful way of easing you into poses and helping you to feel what a correctly aligned pose feels like. I truly feel blessed to have Loretta as an instructor and would follow her just about anywhere she went."

"In the many years that I have known Loretta, she has been a wonderful and caring Yoga teacher. She instills her knowledge to her students with patience and love. "

"Lauren brings an integrity, clarity and wisdom that only years of living what she teaches could allow... She is definitely someone we would all want the next generation of teachers to be informed and influenced by."
-Yogarupa Rod Stryker

"I love the path that I am on and thank you for the guidance you have provided! Your encouragement and teachings continue to help me become a better person on this very spiritual journey of mine. You are truly an inspiration and blessing."