Robin Gucker (PYRC Founder) has worked in Outdoor Education since 1984, and has a deep relationship to the Adirondacks and the beauty of the natural world. For nearly 20 years she worked as a Waldorf Kindergarten teacher, much of the time incorporating the forest and farm life into the essential early childhood experience. Robin’s passion for movement lead her to study Spacial Dynamics and teach Movement and Games. Throughout this career as an educator, part of her selfcare and development was a steady yoga practice, which she later came to teach. This love of yoga blossomed into a desire to teach with more depth and time with students.

Offering people from all walks of life an opportunity to take a pause and truly reflect, renew and restore.  Robin herself had a time of pause before she could realize this goal, when in 2017 she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Through this journey she renewed her commitment to offer yoga as recovery by training to teach Yoga for Cancer. It is a lifelong dream to bring together all of these passions and interests to provide a retreat from daily life to learn about ones self and GROW together, through a Pinnacle Experience!

Since 2005 I have studied and taught Yoga with the intention of strengthening my own foundation and to share these teachings with others in a way that is most meaningful for the greater good. My personal studies are focused on the science of breathing, Ayurveda, ashtanga and hatha yoga, meditation, and the daily practices that bring the many layers of self into balance. Currently I am attending school at Sai Ayurvedic Institute and will be completing my degree for Practitioner of Ayurvedic Medicine this year. I currently work as an Ayurvedic Counselor, a Breathing Consultant for Clinical Studies and Disease Prevention, and always, a teacher of Yoga.

​

I have had the gift of learning from so many incredible and inspiring teachers including Indra and A.G. Mohan, David Swenson, David Garrigues, Dharma Mittra, and Edwin Bryant. The teachings have most importantly led me to learn from within, through attention, listening, teaching, living, and simply being.

Yoga is the teacher of simplicity, honesty, strength, and connection. It is the study of humanity and the relationship with all things, big and small. I am honored to practice and offer these teachings in my life daily and cannot possibly put into words the appreciation I have for this process. I look forward to connecting with you whether it be through breathing, stretching, meditation, philosophy, or any thought or curiosity that makes us who we are; human.

Alysa Romano began her yoga journey as a teenager. Realizing at a young age the importance of the practice. In 2018 she went on her first Yoga retreat abroad in Sarti Greece where she met yoga teacher Chrissy Lefavour who taught Ashtanga yoga. That is where Alysa realized how much she connected to the Ashtanga practice. In 2019 she began her journey to become a teacher herself wanting to be able to connect with others, provide tools to self healing and share a practice that she found to be invaluable. That year April 2019 she set out to Cabarete in Dominican Republic for her intensive 200 hour Ashtanga YTT with Chrissy Lefavour of Grateful Yoga VT. Where she learned and taught at the Yoga Loft on Kite Beach. Coming back to the states she taught at events and private session until the world was put on pause in 2020. In February 2022 she returned to the Dominican Republic to continue her intensive Yoga Teacher Training to complete 300 more hours making her a 500RYT!

 

Something her younger self would be so proud of. Her goal is to give anyone open to learning the practice of yoga the tools to connect with self in a safe and welcoming environment. Yoga is truly for everyone and every body. We tend to give so much energy to external forces but giving yourself time on your mat to reconnect with self allows us to move along in life with so much strength; not only physically but mentally. The connection of mind and body. Knowing that we are all worthy of loving kindness and gratitude but that it starts from within then illuminates the path forward. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti

Kim’s journey into the healing benefits of yoga began with a simple gesture at the end of a yoga class led by Libby Yokum; a soft lavender pillow placed on her forehead. It was the beginning of learning how to relax, be gentle, be present, and harness the unique ability to love ourselves completely.

Kim began studying and building an understanding of yoga after graduating from Plattsburgh State University with a BA in photography and ceramics. For the last 10 years she has studied alongside teachers and students at Funky Door Yoga, Laughing Lotus, ADK Yoga, Dharma Door Retreat Center, Trinity Yoga, Laughing River Yoga, Empower Fitness and Yoga, and Ashaya Yoga with Todd Norian.

In April of 2015 she completed her Hatha Yoga Teacher Training at Laughing River Yoga, where she studied alongside Emily Garrett and Sofi Dillof. Kim feels that this training left no stone unturned and has given her the tools to help people connect and reconnect, emotionally, spiritually, and physically to life.

In 2017, Kim attended a 300 hour Raviana Kundalini Yoga training that depended on her understanding of the chakra body and the power of breathing techniques.

In 2020, Kim graduated with a 500 hr certificate in Ashaya Yoga method, a practice that uniquely integrates alignment-based therapeutic yoga techniques with heart-opening Tantric philosophy and meditation practices to awaken your inner and outer strength. 

Kim brings a wide variety of experience to the practice of yoga. She has studied dance for 23 years at Langlois Racine Dance School and has a diverse background in dance including tap, jazz, and ballet. Alongside her love and study of movement, she also has a musical background including proficiency in piano, song, drum and percussion. Through the discipline of music and movement of the body, she has found confidence, experienced less physical pain, and discovered how to express herself fully in the world.

In addition, Kim owns and operates Quarry Gardens Garlic and Vegetable Farm, established in 2003.  Her connection with nature and growing plants help her create meaningful themes in her yoga teaching.

Kim continually trusts yoga’s ability to heal as it has helped her work through many situations in her own life. She is grateful to have the opportunity to share her knowledge, talents, and personal life experience with others through the practice of yoga.  It also a joy for her to combine all of these modalities in the hot room for a full body experience.

She looks forward to seeing you on the mat!

Marci Wenn is a 200+ hour yoga teacher. She has a 200 hour training in both Bhakti Yoga and Hot Vinyasa Yoga and is currently enrolled in a year long mentorship in Qigong, which is a longevity and movement practice rooted in Taoist philosophy. Marci brings her love of movement to each and every class and hopes to inspire in others a way to find their own personal joy in movement.

Marci is a lifelong learner in all things beautiful such as flowers, Poetry Therapy, psychotherapy, creativity, animals, NIa dance and other expressive therapies, such as writing and collage art making. Her classes are filled with humor and gratefulness as she works to create sequences that are creative, dynamic and full of meaning.

After working in fundraising, marketing and sales for over 15 years Michelle stepped out of the business world to follow her passion and stepped on the mat to become a Yoga teacher. Michelle began her Yoga journey 25 years ago when she stumbled into a Yoga class in Indianapolis, Indiana. Since then her love of Yoga has taken her across the globe studying with some of the finest teachers at the world renowned Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health and beyond. She received her 200 Hour RKYT certification in 2008 and then began to teach Yoga in community spaces in the Champlain Valley of New York, where she lives. She founded and opened Lake Champlain Yoga Arts on her property in 2008 and then moved the practice to a beautiful studio in Essex, New York and renamed Lake Champlain Yoga & Wellness in 2011 offering Yoga, Yoga Therapy, Massage, Physical Therapy and Organic Facials. Michelle taught a variety of weekly yoga classes and has supervised as many as eight talented teachers from the area, along with teaching meditation classes, wellness workshops for the community until its sale in 2019.

She created and hosted three Up North Yoga Conferences, along with two Weekend Workshops with Todd Norian and two Yoga Teacher Trainings. She is the author of Rest Stop Yoga which was featured in Subaru Drive Magazine. In 2017 she had the honor of modeling for the Kripalu Summer catalog. 

"As we move through our lives, we need the physical and mental strength, balance, and inner peace to find our way." Yoga provides all that within a community of people who are positive and inquisitive.  I have always marveled at the changes in students faces before and after class---before class there is the challenge of everyday life and after there is relaxation, rejuvenation, and happiness."

Yoga has been a part of my life for about 10 years, ebbing and flowing and evolving into a practice of various styles to meet my needs.  As a Registered Nurse of 30 plus years, working in Home Health Care and Social Services, my experience as a holistic provider served as a guide leading me on my yoga journey.

I began my practice at a time when I was very stressed and anxious in my personal life.  Yoga brought me peace, balance, and love for My Self. It taught me how to be mindful, forgiving, and harmonious.  Yoga helped me process grief from my past that I was not aware I was holding within.  I then knew I needed to share my practice to help others heal emotionally, physically and spiritually.

I received my 200 RYT training certificate through High Peaks Yoga in Lake Placid and Saratoga in 2017/2018.  I also received training in Yin Yoga at Laughing River Yoga in Vermont in 2018.  I have taken several workshops consisting of trainings in Mindfulness, Yoga and Alignment, Partner Yoga and Massage, as well as Health and Wellness Coaching with Ayurveda.  I also have enjoyed much self study and practice to include SUP (Stand Up Paddleboard) Yoga, a favorite of mine, connecting with nature while improving muscle strength, balance, overall body tone and feelings of pure serenity.

I have been teaching at various studios as well as “floating” studios over the past 4 years, teaching a combination class of movement and stillness, “Yin and Yang” to incorporate more balance in our lives, as well as SUP classes on our beautiful local rivers and lakes.  I have enjoyed volunteering to teach classes as well for people with mental health and addiction issues, as well as chair yoga for Seniors.

Alongside my love for yoga, my love of life involves spending time with my family and friends, outdoor activities such as hiking, paddle boarding, cross country skiing, listening to music, and dancing to name a few. 

“Yoga is the dance of every cell with the music of every breath that creates inner serenity and harmony”.  ~Seattle Yoga News.  I believe yoga is for ALL, and I look forward to sharing my practice with you. 

Dana Taussig began practicing yoga in college, and completed a 200hr training with the White Lotus Foundation in Santa Barbara, CA in 2009. Though she initially attended Yoga Teacher Training as a way to insure safety in and deepen her personal practice, this exposure to the art of teaching movement actually moved Dana in the direction of returning to graduate school to receive her Doctorate in Physical Therapy. Dana now owns Artemis Physical Therapy, based in Westport. She works with patients with orthopedic issues and specializes in pelvic health, working with those who are pregnant and postpartum, as well as people with pelvic pain and incontinence.

Dana’s clinical experience as a PT has only strengthened her belief in the power of a regular movement practice and yoga’s particular ability to build mind-body connection. Her yoga practice takes the shape of vinyasa flow, which allows for moments of moving meditation, as well as the incorporation of less traditional, and sometimes more functional, poses and movements. 

Wynde Kate Reese holds a BS in Holistic Nutrition from the Clayton College of Natural Health. She’s been a Holistic Health Practitioner for over 20 years. She is also a graduate of The Rouxbe Cooking School with two Plant-based Professional Culinary certificates and has been a Permaculture landscape designer for over two decades. Most recently, she was co-owner of Green Goddess Natural Market in Lake Placid, where she guided people privately and collectively on improving their health through personal nutrition counseling, group wellness education and whole foods cooking classes. 

She combines her passion for creating delicious recipes with her knowledge of nutrition to produce meals made with seasonally local and organic ingredients. Wynde Kate believes that the positive energy she puts into a meal is absorbed by those who consume it. She actively uses loving-kindness meditation and her own intentional practice to infuse the highest vibrations into her food.

When not in the kitchen, you will find Wynde Kate hiking barefoot in the summer and backcountry skiing in winter, paddling her SUP, cultivating a permaculture landscape around her tiny home and managing the gardens at The Barkeater Inn in Keene, camping and rock climbing with her son, Bladen, practicing yoga EVERYWHERE, and feeding her nomadic spirit with world travel.

Having grown up in an environment where personal health was taught to be a priority, Linnae has developed a great motivation for paying those lessons forward. She has been practicing yoga since middle school and in 2020 decided that she wanted to gain the skills to teach others this invaluable tool for nourishing the body, mind and soul. By June of that year she gained her 200 hour Yoga Alliance certification with an emphasis on Hatha and Kundalini (with Donna Amrita Davidge at Sewall House Yoga Retreat). Linnae is entering her senior year at College of the Atlantic in Maine, where she is working towards an interdisciplinary bachelor of arts degree in human ecology, interweaving her passions for contemplative practice, holistic education, writing, and visual arts. Linnae hopes to use the lessons she has gained to guide people of all ages into a knowing of their worth and their personal relationship with their environment by embodying practices of collective and self care. 

Linnae has also spent a great deal of time engaging in dance and has taken many improvisational and contemporary classes starting in elementary school and continuing right through college. She is excited to explore the interconnection between dance and yoga with her Hatha and dance fusion class and to begin her journey at Pinnacle Yoga, building connections with her students and the beautiful yoga community in the Adirondacks.

Martha’s beautiful work (= love made visible) in the world includes 40+ years as a professional musician, touring internationally but also well-known affectionately in our region as The Adirondack Harper.

During the time of Covid isolation, Martha took time to reassess her gifts, talents and dreams and decided to re-envision and transform her life going forward. Still very much in love and involved in music, she has added new dimensions to her work as a mentor, supporting people who desire to reconnect with their joy in life. This grew out of new work as The Blessing Woman, helping people deepen their life’s connections through the joyful art of Blessing.

Her TranscenDance journey began in 2021, at the same time she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She discovered that this form of authentic dance so enlivened her - enriching her body, mind and spirit-connection awareness - that she decided to become a certified facilitator, so she could share this wondrous healing art with others. The facilitator training was to happen only a few days after her surgery, but she knew it was the right time to live into this dream.

A core element of TranscenDance is listening to one’s own body wisdom and moving as our own body invites us to. Martha feels that this in-depth time of dancing was key in her rapid recovery, not only from surgery but also from the challenges that having cancer can present, in one’s physical body, state of mind and self-image.

Since I was a young child, my mother guided me through the rituals honoring Quan Âm (Goddess of Mercy and Compassion, also known as the Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva) at the altar we kept for her in our house. As I struggled to cope with the global pandemic and the earlier death of my mother, I was drawn back to those teachings and inspired by the Buddhist prayer beads known as malas.

By reestablish-ing my connection with Quan Âm, I also connected with my mother's spirit and to the divine feminine within myself.  And soon after, I started stringing beads. Eventually, I began creating talismans as a way to connect to my friends while we all frantically searched for ways to soothe the psychic and spiritual stressors that plagued us.

Yin energy guides us to delve deeper within ourselves to uncover that which may hold us back from experiencing wholeness. Quan Âm and my mother, are the guiding stars by which I navigate the universe in which I exist. Her energy allows us to move through those wounds, to experience transformation and deep connection with truth .Every talisman I create is intentionally designed to assist in your journey down the path of mindfulness and compassion.  Namaste.

Living a nomadic life for the past decade, yoga quickly became my way of grounding down, and staying connected with myself. I received my yoga teacher certification to extend my own practice never thinking that I would one day be teaching others. However, I soon realized that this is far too beautiful of a practice to keep to myself. The world needs yoga, and I am here to share.

When I was attending classes in Bali, I stumbled into the doors of my first breathwork session. I had no idea what I was getting into, all I knew was that I needed to understand what I had just experienced; the sensations, the emotions, the connection. I began attending every breathwork class I could find in various parts of the world and reading all the books I could get my hands on to understand how something as simple as breath could be so shockingly powerful and transformative. Powered by passion and fascination in the jungles of Mexico, I took the next step and became a certified Breathwork Facilitator myself. I am so excited to hold space and share the journey of breath with you all!

My particular interests lie in combining the practice of breathwork and yoga with unlocking the inner creator that we all have inside of us, because life is too short to not be having fun.

Michael was drawn to yoga after reading the book “Be Here Now," and noticing that yogis appeared bright and alive. He was hungry for spirituality and increasingly attracted to a healthier lifestyle. He began to study and practice yoga and meditation techniques and soon discovered Kundalini Yoga, which had a spiritual element that he resonated with. He began a dedicated practice in 2012. From 2016-2017 he attended Ravi Singh & Ana Brett’s Teacher Training program and upon completion immediately began teaching.

Joann tried her first TRE® group class as a participant to bring more ease to her own experiences living with complex PTSD. Joann credits TRE® for bringing more balance and healing to her organism. Since tremoring regularly her incidences of chronic pain (back & neck), irritable bowel, sleep disturbances, tmj and anxiety, that interfered with her ability to work and thrive, have all reduced significantly.

Joann studied and assisted advanced trainings with Jay Gleason MS, LCMHC, LADC of Burlington, VT. Joann is committed to offering TRE® to people as an affordable and accessible strategy for healing pain, stress, and the symptoms of stress and trauma. 

​

Joann teaches Hatha Yoga and Yin yoga in Vermont. She holds a Personal Training certification through the American Council on Exercise and is a Balanced Body pilates instructor. Joann is a certified TREⓇ provider (Tension & Trauma release exercise). She is a 500 E-RYT Certified Yoga teacher.

Tess grew up studying Advaita Vedanta with her dad and has been a dedicated yoga practitioner since her teens. In 2015, she completed a 500-hour Advanced Hatha Yoga Teacher Training through the Sivananda Yoga organization. She also trained at the Kripalu Institute in Massachusetts and continued her study of Vedanta with Swami Dayananda Saraswati at the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam in Pennsylvania. Tess has taught yoga in the Bahamas, Ireland, Oregon, Maine, and New York. She currently teaches a weekly yoga class for rock climbers at the Crux Climbing Gym in Willsboro.

​

Tess is a farmer, gardener, and farm educator. She lives at Camp Poko-Macready in Willsboro with her partner Dave and their dog and cat.

Sasha Fisher is an RYT who completed her training in July of 2022 with Trimurti Yoga in Bali, Indonesia. She teaches traditional Hatha as well as Hatha and Vinyasa flow. She also teaches at the YMCA in Plattsburgh.

Nora's vision is to guide others to awaken their hearts through yoga. Yoga is the key that unlocks the secret of life: we already have everything we seek inside of us. By listening to the inner voice calling out for more, we discover our capacity for love, freedom, and deep peace. Nora has been practicing yoga for more than fifteen years and became a certified instructor after feeling inspired to share her love for yoga through teaching. She completed 500 hours of training with Todd Norian, founder of Ashaya Yoga ®, an alignment-based, heart-centered approach to the practice. Each class with Nora weaves a theme into a sequence that uses precise alignment to enable body, mind, and heart to open and expand naturally. As a classically-trained singer, Nora finds joy in sharing her love of music, and ends each class with a Sanskrit chant. Nora lives in the Adirondacks and enjoys farming, gardening, hiking, cooking, beading, and playing music.

Michael found Kung Fu in 2015, while working as a cheesemonger in Queens, NY. Long days on his feet and the stress of city living had begun to manifest in bodily tension. He explored yoga and read up on Alexander Technique, then found a local Kung Fu school. It was in his second class when his teacher said, “we are simply learning how to use our bodies correctly,” that he knew he had found his practice.

Under Master Wang Rengang, Michael trained in Dachengquan (also known as Yiquan), Plum Blossom Praying Mantis Kung Fu and Yang Tai Chi, competing in tournaments and acting as an assistant instructor. He was so fascinated by the healing aspects of his training, particularly the standing meditation (zhan zhuang) and subtle movements (“shi li” or training energy), that he decided to enroll at New York College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in their Acupuncture program. During his education, he mentored under Master Yu Shoubin, his Kung Fu Uncle (Shishu) and a renowned 17th generation acupuncturist and Xinyi master. Michael earned his MS in Acupuncture in 2022, before relocating to Plattsburgh with his wife. He is currently in the process of opening his clinic, Gong Sun Family Acupuncture.

Nathan is the co-owner of Reber Rock Farm, a pasture raised certified organic meat and maple farm in Essex, NY established in 2013.  Nathan has a background as a geologist, tennis pro, outdoor educator, and seismic buoy technician.  He is a musician, business owner, farmer, father and partner.  He loves meetings, mentoring and coaching, and is a certified sensation based motivation coach.