Hsin-ya Chow is a writer and Kundalini Yoga teacher. She has worked for Harper’s Bazaar, Lucky, Money, and Time Out New York. After closing her small storefront SAIBUNG in Western New York, Hsin-ya relocated to Charlotte in late 2021. You can find her on Okra’s stellar yoga line-up or in her shiny new apartment, spinning together sparkly Kundalini-infused foot soaks made with anything-in-the-kitchen and the brightness of mantra. Her Kundalini certifications are in Level 1, Level 2, Prenatal, and Advanced Tantric Numerology. She holds a B.A. in Print Journalism from New York University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College.

Michelle LaGroue Conradt moved from Chicago in 2023 with her husband, 2 boys, 2 cats and their dog. She is absolutely loving the sunny days and new friends in Charlotte while also finding another place that feels like home. Chicago is where Michelle studied yoga for over 20 years and started teaching yoga. She is a classically trained ballet dancer and danced professionally while teaching dance to both children and adults for over 15 years. She loves the way that yoga differs from ballet by exploring movement that works for each individual body instead of fitting into a specific mold. Michelle completed her 200-hour YTT at Bloom Yoga Studio in Chicago, IL. She believes that yoga is for everyone and hopes that her students find both a positive challenge and calming balance in her classes that can carry them throughout each day. She loves making each yoga practice fun, powerful and soothing for her students.

Ashley “Rey” Culler is a dynamic and inspiring queer yoga instructor who has dedicated her life to sharing the transformative power of yoga with others. She has earned her 200-hour YTT and has over 6 years of teaching experience. Rey is a skilled and knowledgeable guide who can help you deepen your practice and find balance, strength, and peace in your body and mind. With a background in trauma-informed yoga practice, Rey has led training at adult and youth rehab facilities and has taught yoga all over the world, including leading retreats globally. In addition to studying various styles of yoga, Rey is also certified in sound healing therapy and trained in anatomy and meditation, making her classes truly holistic and healing experiences.

Rey’s mat has propelled her into a sacred journey of self-inquiry and offers the space to continuously recalibrate to her True North. It serves as a reflection point for her, a mirror to see how she shows up in life. Yoga helps reveal what is going on within her, inspiring her to teach the practice to others. It strips away layers and helps all individuals realign to their highest selves. Rey is dedicated to sharing her experiences to empower others to step into their true identity.

She is passionate about creating a positive shift in society and a capacity in all who participate to live with an open heart, in stronger presence, with heightened self-awareness and greater command of their own mind. Whether you’re a seasoned yogi or a complete beginner, Rey’s classes are inclusive and accessible for all levels. Join her class or workshop and discover the transformative power of yoga you can take with you off your mat.

Tanner moved to Charlotte in 2015. Never doing yoga before she needed an outlet to move and breathe through anxiety. Finding Okra and making it her second home, a space to grow and feel comfortable in finding herself. She took her 200 hr yoga teacher training, graduating in 2019. Yoga has been an opening for her to move and breathe but also challenge her mind and body through life’s journey.

Welcoming all levels of students to her class, you will find yourself being challenged while building heat within your flow. All while making it your own and making it a unique dance for yourself on your mat. Leaving the hour feeling fulfilled, powerful and nourished.

My name is Natalie and I’m here to help guide, flow, fill you with knowledge, and lead you into conversations within yourself on your yoga mat.  I’ve been practicing yoga since 2006 and I’ve been a RYT since 2019.  Life is busy and time is sacred in our daily routine. How can you shift thought pattern and movement into a beautiful rhythmic flow in your everyday life? Yoga has given me the mindfulness I need to gain patience throughout my day. I’ve gained a steadiness for listening, a deeper dive into self-discovery of who I am and what I want to gain in this life. As I pour my story onto my mat in my daily practice, I feel an awakening take place in my heart center. I hear so often in yoga classes to leave the worry at the door or drop what’s playing out in your mind. I find that bringing the challenges, the cycle of our worry, greatness we feel from an achievement, the love we feel from our family and friends should be written into our mats. Work through the journey of each moment that plays as you flow into the next posture. Moving those moments with our breath and body, can give us an insight into something bigger than ourselves. I can help you dive into these crevices and open a part of yourself that is waiting to come alive.

Brook is an Occupational Therapist, 200 hr RYT and trained in prenatal and postnatal yoga. She has a love for empowering the pregnant person and learning how yoga can benefit them throughout pregnancy and postpartum.  She practiced prenatal yoga throughout both of her pregnancies and postpartum in postnatal yoga and baby and me classes.  When she’s not working or teaching, you can find her spending time with her 2 boys and husband outside playing in the dirt, on the greenway or at local coffee shops.

Victoria incorporates all 8 limbs of Yoga into her classes and her practice. She believes this holistic approach offers the most healing, transformation, and opportunity to create a lifelong practice. She can’t wait to flow and chillax with you.

Grace Millsap (she/her) is a 500 ERYT and Ayurvedic Wellness Counselor, whose passions are rooted in science and equality. Former research scientist, and forever a student; she teaches from a long lineage from the Tantra and Himalayan Traditions (Sri Vidya). Her classes, whether restorative or flow, are infused with my passions, and quest for magic and joy. Grace also leads Yoga retreats and trainings locally, and internationally.

Sarah grew up just north of Charlotte, in Salisbury, NC.  She attended NC State where she got her BS in Textile Apparel Management. Soon after her career brought her to Charlotte where she worked in retail for several years for Neiman Marcus.  During that time she met her husband, Sean, whom she married in 2012.  Shortly after her first child was born, Sarah found a true passion and calling from the Yoga world and quickly immersed herself in the Charlotte yoga community.  She was certified as a teacher and has been growing her yoga certifications ever since.

Sarah actively landed on her mat through both her pregnancies and discovered all the benefits yoga has for a pregnant body.  After getting pregnant with their second daughter in 2015 while she was in her 200hr teacher training she felt drawn to do more with the prenatal and postnatal community.  Sarah received her 85 hour prenatal postnatal training with the Prenatal Yoga Center.  She feel in love with the training so much she hosted the PYC training in Charlotte for several years.

Recently, Sarah has become certified as a Postnatal Core Corrective Specialist and looks forward to expanding her offerings in the postnatal community.  In her spare time (what spare time?) Sarah loves to take her kids to the pool, DIY projects, and visit her family in Salisbury.

Julie is passionate about reproductive health & justice and improving maternal mortality & morbidity rates. She is a Certified Professional Midwife, RYT, RPYT (Prenatal Yoga Center Certified), Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator, and a Spinning Babies®Certified Parent Educator.

Claire was introduced to yoga as an infant and found meditation at the age of 12 and both practices have been an important cornerstone throughout her life. She began teaching public classes in 2010 and has completed three 200-hour certifications in Vinyasa and Integrative Yoga as well as three 500-hour certifications in integrative yoga practices including Ayurveda, tantra, and yoga psychology and Himalayan Kriya and Kundalini. She most recently earned Master Teacher Certification in Himalayan Kundalini Yoga with Sattva Yoga, in Rishikesh, India. Her company and yoga school, 12 Sparrows, has been offering private and group classes/coaching, workshops, international retreats, 200 and 300hr YTT programs, and continuing education since 2015 with an emphasis on accessibility, trauma awareness, and resilience. Her specialty is guiding students to a place of personal empowerment and global consciousness through mind, body, spirit integration by offering universal spiritual teachings in an accessible, grounded, modern way that makes them easy to grasp and apply immediately to the business of living the best life possible.

Jenn Shull, RYT-200, is deeply committed to creating transformative spaces for her students to heal, process, and let go. She has been teaching regularly for 6+ years and is often acknowledged for her trauma informed and inclusive approach on and off the mat.

She has taken additional training in “How to Teach Deep Stretch”, Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy Essentials, and is certified in yin yoga.

As an Alignment Coach, Jenn understands that putting our bodies into shapes that foster safety and grounding is great for mindset work, so you may notice her sprinkling in some things to support that.

When Jenn began her journey as a yoga student, she gravitated toward fast-moving power classes because they were in her comfort zone. This threw her out of balance in a big way. Instead, she needed to slow down in a nurturing environment that created intimacy with her breath, physical body, emotional body, energetic body and soul. Because of this, she loves offering regular deep stretch, restorative, and yoga nidra.

When Jenn isn’t at Okra or coaching, she enjoys stepping out on adventures, listening to music that makes her dance, putting her body into shapes while breathing deeply, and reading fantasy novels while sipping tea from her unicorn mug surrounded by her cats. Designing a playful life is a nonnegotiable for her.

Hi! My name is Taylor Stone. Yoga has been an invaluable tool through the ups, downs, twists and turns of my life. I teach Vinyasa at Okra Yoga Studio, and can be occasionally spotted teaching other yoga classes around Charlotte. I am a recent RYT 200 graduate with a strong love for the community and making yoga more accessible for everyone.

Wenny is originally from Indonesia but currently lives here in Charlotte. She was fortunate to travel and perform as a dance teacher and dancer for most of her life. In 2019, while living in Mexico, she started her yoga teaching journey after she certified in Watukaru Vinyasa in Bali, Indonesia and Yin Yoga in Ibiza, Spain. In 2020 she certified in Inside Flow Yoga, adding this style of yoga to her classes, master class and workshop.

Wenny continues to learn by attending Inside Flow teacher training, Inside Flow global Bali summit, Inside Flow European summit, and some Inside Flow concerts in different countries if she has the opportunity to go.

Her motto is: teaching yoga is equal to serving love.

Andrea, RYT 500, earned her 200-hour certification in 2016 through Charlotte Yoga. Since then, she has taught slow flow, powerful flow, yin, and children’s yoga. Andrea completed her 300-hour training at the Asheville Yoga Center in 2023. In addition to yoga, Andrea teaches French at Central Piedmont Community College. Yoga has been such a healthy path for her, and she hopes to share its many physical and emotional benefits with her students.

Danielle received her RYT-200 certification through Okra in 2018, having dedicated over 600 hours of in-person teaching since then. Her teaching style can best be described as practical, inclusive, and approachable to the variety of practices that come through the door. With an understanding that life and the body itself are always changing, Danielle seeks to help build your yoga practice in a way that makes it accessible throughout these changes. The mind and body share a strong connection that influences our health, mood, and energy levels. Her approach is to strengthen this connection, thus strengthening each of their own separate entities to better take on life with clarity, contentment, and purpose.

Offering a range of class styles, from Deep Stretch to sculpt, Danielle maintains the true mechanics of traditional poses while encouraging your own variation of the practice so that your true mechanics are also honored. In 2019, she received her Yin Yoga certification, and is currently working towards becoming a certified Thai Bodywork Practitioner.

Inja (pronounced ee-nya) moved here in 2023, after a cross-country 7 month road trip made her fall in love with Charlotte as her new home. She completed her 200 YTT in Bali in 2022 and loves to share the knowledge she’s picked up there and over the 15 years she’s been practicing yoga.  Inja is also an Argentine Tango teacher, Reiki Master, Violet Flame Healer, Shaman, attorney, and more.

Tai has lived many lives on her yoga mat.

Each day Tai finds sanctuary in her practice as she has the opportunity to live a full life beginning in childs pose and ending in corpse pose.  Tai gets the opportunity to choose what kind of life she’s going to live, who she’s going to be and what thoughts she choose to aid herself in her journey from birth to death.Tai’s ujjayi breath has been witness to both her defeats and her triumphs.  The more she practices life on the mat the stronger she is to step into and live her life off the mat.

What Tai has discovered through yoga is no matter what kind of practice she has, she always walks away with a better sense of herself, a deeper inner stillness and effervescence of peace.  Tai’s passion is to share this experience and hold the space for others to live a life of choice through each practice.

Tai received her 200 hour certification in 2008 and her 500-hour certification in 2013.  Tai received her 300 hour certification in Jivamukti Yoga in 2011 and continued on to receive her 800 hour Jivamukti certification in 2012.

Tai has an eager appetite for finding new ways to connect to the soul through the marriage of breath, movement and high intention.  She seeks to share a deep, intentional and uplifting class and looks forward to seeing you soon on the mat!