Our Teachers

Suzanne Harrell

Suzanne has been practicing yoga since 1995. She got her start with Bikram yoga in Clearwater Florida and was bitten by the yoga bug! A few years later she started practicing Ashtanga yoga and has practiced Iyengar, Kundalini, Vinyasa, Yin, Power….. really Suzanne loves to attend yoga classes from any discipline: there is always something to learn, something to be gained from every teacher. Through her exposure to the many different styles of yoga offered in the US, Suzanne has recognized and embraced that there are so many paths to healing; that in yoga there really is something for everyone!

Suzanne’s non-yoga background is in social work: she is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and has spent all of her professional life working in the mental health field. The blend of social work and yoga was a natural one for her. Not only are both about healing, but both are about service. Both professions have also brought to her scores of courageous people who have touched her life in so many different ways, and who continue to remind her every day to find her own courage.

Suzanne got her start teaching when her Bikram yoga teacher, Cecily, allowed her to train and teach under her in 1997. To share with others what had been shared with her was so appealing! She took some time off from this brief teaching experience to move to and settle in the Tallahassee area. The desire to teach still with her, she began teaching again in earnest in 2003 with Kelly Dugger at Bodies In Balance in Wakulla county. Suzanne continued to teach in Wakulla until opening Journeys in Yoga in 2007. She was also fortunate to teach at Prana Power Yoga in Tallahassee from 2005 to 2007.

In 2005, Suzanne became a registered yoga teacher (RYT) when she completed the Yoga Alliance 200 hour teacher training at Stillpoint Studios in Tampa. She completed the 500 hour Yoga Alliance teacher training with Stillpoint in 2007. Suzanne is also registered with the Yoga Alliance as an Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RYT) at the 500 hour level, with well over 2,000 teaching hours under her belt since 2005. In 2009, Suzanne completed 80 hours of The Barkan Method advanced hot yoga teacher training with Jimmy Barkan.

Suzanne was born and raised in the military and spent her childhood living in many places, including Germany. She and most of her family have migrated to the warmer climates of Florida. She resides in Wakulla county with her husband and their many pets.

Genevieve Brakins

coming soon

Jen Kennedy

coming soon

Jennifer Ohlsen (Jenn)

Jennifer Ohlsen, called Jenn around the studio, began exploring yoga when she was pregnant with her son in 1999. Up until her 4th month of pregnancy she was a competitive dancer. But soon the size of her belly became a challenge for dancing, and yoga seemed to be a great way to stay active and in shape. Practicing postures in her living room with library books and videos, Jenn enjoyed the exercise and felt healthy and strong. Soon after the birth of her son, however, she was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis and found herself with limited movement and in lots of pain. She was unable to return to dancing, and found any kind of exercise difficult.

Jenn found Journeys in Yoga in 2008 and it truly changed her life. Through yoga and the influence of the amazing teachers at Journeys, Jenn began to open up to her body, explore deeper mind-body connections, and eventually improve her overall health. In 2010 Jenn enrolled in the Radiant Transitions Yoga Teacher Training program to deepen her own practice. To her surprise she found that she was drawn to sharing the gift of yoga with others. Jenn teaches from a place of respect for what each individual brings to their mat and offers yoga as a path to healing, empowerment and self-love. Her experiences with physical challenges and limited range of motion bring depth to her personal practice and to her teaching.

In the time off her yoga mat, Jenn is a proud soccer mom of two and married to an amazing guy. By profession she is an early childhood educator and has been a teacher, administrator, and teacher-educator. Jenn brings her knowledge of child and family development to her prenatal yoga workshops at Journeys.

John Hazleton

If ever the phrase “real men do yoga” applied to anyone, it would be John Hazleton. John has spent his life tackling challenging endeavors: from riding rodeo to scuba diving to being a Golden Gloves boxer in college, John hasn’t met a challenge he didn’t like. Some years ago, he started running to counterbalance the stress he experienced with his profession in the stock market. He ran regularly and participated in many races. While running suited his long frame and stride, it wasn’t doing the trick for his stress relief. A friend told him about Journeys in Yoga and suggested that he come to a class. From that point on John was hooked. Yoga was not only the best stress reliever he had ever experienced, it also strengthened his joints and improved his flexibility to a point he had not experienced in years. John enjoyed the practice so much that he became certified and has been teaching ever sense. His motto is “give it everything you’ve got”. His class is challenging and incorporates muscle strength and balance, served with a dose of his quirky humor. John’s philosophy is “the best health insurance is staying healthy”.

Liz Saluke

Liz found Journeys in the fall of 2010 as an injured dancer in need of a change in approach. She had two chronic foot injuries that physical therapy and rest had not been able to alleviate. As a graduate student in Dance at FSU, these injuries were making it increasingly difficult to excel in most of her coursework. She had practiced Bikram Yoga a few years prior when living in Atlanta, and unable to find a studio in Tallahassee (not to mention being an overwhelmed first year graduate student) she had let her yoga practice go.

About one month after practicing regularly, Liz began to notice many changes in her body and overall demeanor. She’s convinced that yoga as a physical and mental practice was the single most important factor in helping her recover from her foot injuries. Months later, her feet remain pain free, not only from the physical strength that yoga provides but also from the mind/body awareness that yoga cultivates. For Liz, the clarity of mind and ability to listen to one’s body that yoga encourages have proven to be its most valuable benefits. As someone who craves the intense physicality and muscular effort found in running and weight training, coupled with the bodily precision and awareness found in dancing, yoga has become Liz’s go-to cross-training activity. She finds that no matter what her body needs on any particular day, there’s always a yoga practice that fits.

Marlee McCleary

Marlee graduated our 200 hr teacher training certification course in April. She has since taught a variety of classes including, Introductory Flow, heated and non-heated Vinyasa Flow, Hot yoga, and Yin. Although she has only been practicing yoga for a little over 3 years, the fruits of a devoted practice are evident in her daily life. The biggest indicators of change in her life since beginning to follow the path of yoga have been a sense of peace and contentment as well as mental and physical flexibility. Besides teaching yoga she is pursuing a Master’s degree at Florida State University. Her personal credence as a yoga teacher is to provide a safe, relaxed atmosphere for people to explore breath and movement in order to become more in touch with the bodies and to foster peace of mind. It is her desire to help others find their inner strength and grace on their mats so that they can develop these attributes into their daily lives.

Robin Dunn Bryant

Robin Dunn Bryant became interested in yoga started long before she ever stepped foot on a mat. When her husband, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner was preparing for a competition she read an article about the benefits of yoga – specifically hot yoga – and thought it might be a good compliment to his practice. So she sent him off to the hot yoga studio and he was instantly hooked. He brought a couple of mats for their house and Robin’s practice began in the family’s home gym, complete with as many space heaters as they could plug in at one time.

She started practicing yoga in earnest in 2007 after a bout with breast cancer. The treatments left Robin in a body that she hardly recognized and with a high level of physical and emotional disconnection. She found her connection while practicing yoga and knew that she wanted to share that feeling with others. Robin has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Virginia Commonwealth University and almost immediately as she deepened her practice she started integrating writing into her personal practice. She finds the combination of yoga, writing and meditation to be extremely successful.

Sheila Griffin

After a lifetime of high impact workouts; 5K’s; 10K’s; Biathlons and Triathlons, Sheila found herself with chronic and debilitating hip problems. Her massage therapist recommended yoga as an alternative exercise option and for the first year Sheila muscled her way through the asana practice, determined to contort her body into every pose. By the second year, yoga took over and she found herself being mindful of how her body felt and responded in different poses. Her yoga practice was transformed and she now bases her practice on what her body needs on any particular day. Sheila believes that yoga will heal the body, mind and spirit and hopes that as students follow their yoga journey they will learn to be more gentle and compassionate with themselves. Sheila completed the Radiant Transitions Yoga Alliance 200 hour teacher training program at Journeys in Yoga in the summer of 2010. She enjoys various yoga disciplines including Ashtanga, Kundalini, Flow, Yin and Hot.

Sonia Nalon

Sonia Nalon (MA, RYT) has been on the trail of yoga for decades, through postures, breath, meditation and study. She is a graduate of the yoga teacher training program at Discovery Yoga in St. Augustine. Sonia has been teaching classes and leading workshops in the Tallahassee area for five years. Her practice has been therapy for injuries, illnesses and life’s other little surprises.
She has also worked as a Spanish teacher, journalist, editor, copywriter and website designer.

Stacey Abbott

Stacey grew up as a dancer and an athlete, so when she first discovered yoga in 1998, it was love at first down-dog—at last, something that combined the grace and beauty of dance with the strength and endurance of athletics! Her playful yet skillful approach encourages self-exploration with a light heart in order to remind students of the amazing space and strength their bodies and minds already possess. Stacey strives to offer yoga as a means of transformation and growth from the inside out, showing students how to translate the gifts of yoga for use during the physical practice as well as out in the wide world. She honors her students with her own consistent practice and teaches from that place of experience. She is a certified Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga instructor through the San Francisco-based school system It’s Yoga, www.itsyoga.com.

Stacey and her husband, Adam relocated to Tallahassee from Las Vegas in 2007. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and also taught English courses there. Currently she teaches English at Tallahassee Community College. Stacey is thankful for the opportunity to share in the vibrant spirit of the Journeys In Yoga community.