IYNAUS Board & Staff

Officers

Members at Large

Board Bios

DAVID CARPENTER has been practicing Iyengar Yoga for more than eleven years. He studies with Chicago’s wonderful certified Iyengar teachers, and he makes regular trips to Champaign to study with Lois Steinberg. David also attends workshops with other teachers, including Manouso Manos and Laurie Blakeney.

In his day job, David is a partner in the law firm of Sidley Austin LLP, where he specializes in appellate litigation and in antitrust and regulatory issues in the telecommunications and electric industries. He is also an opera lover and an avid golfer and paddle tennis player.

KEVIN HAINLEY was working at a start up company in 2000, when a fellow employee proposed that her sister, Elaine (who had just begun her teacher training program with Eddy & Mary) offer a yoga class once a week. Kevin was hooked and soon discovered San Diego was home to an enormous number of qualified teachers. In 2012 he joined his regional association as the secretary and was appointed to the IYNAUS board in October 2012. Kevin is appreciative of the riches he has found with the Iyengar Yoga system and looks forward to giving back with his business and financial skill set.

REBECCCA LERNER is co-director/owner of the BKS Iyengar Yoga Center of Central PA at the Center for Well-Being in Lemont, Pennsylvania The Center is very pleased to have 7 Certified Iyengar instructors. A devoted practitioner since the late ’70s, Rebecca makes regular trips to India to study with the Iyengar, is certified at the Intermediate Senior I level and is an IYNAUS assessor. She conducts workshops nationally and offers teacher training programs with her husband Dean Lerner. Their 3 children (now adults) attended the Quaker Friends School where she has taught and continues to teach yoga since the mid-80's. The US teachers that have been a guiding force to Rebecca are Dean Lerner, Mary Dunn and Patricia Walden.

Outside of yoga, Rebecca's interests include volunteering in community efforts in her local town, working in the family garden, stalking wild edible plants and mushrooms with her 2 dogs, producing herbal products and assisting couples in natural childbirth as a doula. Rebecca has taught Natural Childbirth preparation classes in the Bradley Method since 1985.

JANET LILLY is a former principal dancer and master teacher with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and the new Head of the Department of Dance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro School of Music, Theatre and Dance. Lilly joined UNCG after more than 15 years at the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin, where she was instrumental in creating an Arts General Education Iyengar Yoga course, as well as a low-residence MFA program for returning dance professionals. The recipient of a 2008-09 Fulbright Lecturer Award to teach choreography at the University of Pune, Lilly has choreographed and taught as a guest artist and master teacher on college campuses in the United States and abroad.

Janet began studying Iyengar Yoga with Laurie Blakeney in 1991, while in graduate school at the University of Michigan. In 1993, she participated in the Ann Arbor National Iyengar Yoga convention, as well as serving as the choreographer and director for production of THE WARRIOR AND THE MOON. Lilly also attended the 2004 and 2010 conventions, as well as the 2012 Maitri Southeast Regional Conference.

Currently a Junior Intermediate I instructor, Janet has been a Certified Iyengar Teacher since 2000 and continues her studies with Lois Steinberg. Janet recently completed her sixth course of study at the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune, India in January 2013.

MICHAEL LUCEY discovered Iyengar yoga in 1982 while he was a student living in England. From his very first class, he has been fascinated by the many ways yoga can transform your relation to your body, mind, and breath. A certified Iyengar teacher (Junior Intermediate III), Michael offers classes at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco, and around the Bay Area. He has been fortunate to be able to study with senior teachers from around the world, and he has made six trips to study at the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune. Joan White has been an important mentor for him, and he currently studies regularly with Manouso Manos. Michael is also a professor of Comparative Literature and French at the University of California, Berkeley. Along with his academic life and yoga, Michael enjoys spending time at the piano.

MARY REILLY began her study of Iyengar yoga in 1978 in Ann Arbor, soon after graduating from the University of Michigan with a degree in Biology. Mary started teaching Iyengar yoga in 1982, after moving to Madison, Wisconsin, and continued when she moved to her current home in Harbor Springs, Michigan in 1985. Her studio, North Woods Yoga, the B.K.S. Iyengar Center of Northern Michigan is celebrating its 25th year of operation.

Mary began studying in Pune in 1987, continues to study there regularly and has been assessing in the certification system since 1998. She previously served on the board from 2003-2006.

Mary makes her home in the countryside north of town, adjacent to a huge deep woods, with her husband Greg Putalik. She loves skiing, biking and kayaking for fun and a medicinal dose of nature. Mary and Greg have two grown children, Erin, an architect in Virginia and Kevin, an artist and landscaper in Detroit, Michigan.

A big highlight of Mary's tenure in Iyengar Yoga was sitting next to Guruji watching the stage presentation of a yoga play she wrote titled "The Warrior and the Moon", for the 1993 convention. He loved it and she was very relieved.

PHYLLIS ROLLINS began her study of Iyengar yoga in the late 80's with Light on Yoga. While working as a museum exhibits director she intensified her study with the senior teachers traveling through the south. In 1993 she opened Charlotte’s first yoga studio and left her long time museum career. She has been to India to study twice, once for the 25th anniversary and the second at RIMYI. She is certified at the Introductory II level.

Phyllis has served as a Board member on numerous local and regional arts organizations as well as regional and national museum boards. Phyllis served 5 years on the board of IYASE, including 3 years as President. She has been an advocate for community involvement for many years and has organized and participated in numerous advisory committees. Phyllis lives outside Charlotte with 5 cats, 2 dogs and 1 husband, in a cottage with a garden.

NANCY WATSON first studied Iyengar Yoga in 1990 in Miami, FL with Suzie Muchnick Spencer and could travel “about” attending yoga workshops with many teachers---Manouso Manos, Ramanand Patel, George Purvis and many others. The desire to become an Iyengar teacher led her study at RIMYI in 1993 and to pass the Introductory II certification in 1994. She taught Iyengar yoga in Miami and helped with the formation of IYASE and served on the board of that organization in its early years.

Then, Nancy met Tom Ehrman and moved in 1999 to own and run an inn in Castine, Maine, where she has a yoga studio. She is the first to introduce Iyengar yoga to the local community. Many times, her class is the hotel guests’ first exposure to yoga. Since 2006, she has taught yoga as a credited course at Maine Maritime Academy, a local college for maritime studies. Running an inn which specializes in events—weddings, conferences and retreats, curtailed her travelling “about” like before. However, Nancy has attended the Silver Jubilee at RIMYI in 2000, the 2004 convention, 2009 regional conference and the 2010 convention. And, she studies with Patricia Walden at a retreat in Covington, LA each year.

DENISE WEEKS lives in Bellingham, Wash. with her husband, Paul, her son, Wilson, and her Corgi, Longshanks. She is certified at the Introductory II level and teaches four levels of classes at Yoga Northwest: Gentle, Beginning, Intermediate, and Somewhat Advanced. She is the current copy editor of Yoga Samachar and just recently completed a four-year term for her regional Iyengar Yoga association, IYANW, as Communications Chair.

When not conducting business related to yoga, she might be providing care for her mother, walking the dog, practicing the cello, or volunteering for WAHA, a local organization whose goal is to get every resident of the county to prepare and share an advanced directive for end-of-life health care choices. Without much effort, she can link nearly everything back to the blessings and rewards of her Iyengar Yoga practice.