Meet Our Team
At Yoga Haven SD, we pride ourselves on having a knowledgeable and educated team of instructors who are dedicated to helping you achieve your yoga goals. Get to know our team by exploring their unique backgrounds and approaches.
Troy has been practicing Yoga for 13 years. As a traditionalist in most things he prefers to practice and teach traditional Hatha. He likes the fundamental poses and core strength building. Troy is a certified Massage Therapist with multiple modalities and Holistic Health Practitioner (HHP). When not teaching, you can find him riding his motorcycle, which is his favorite form of moving meditation. His main focus in life is being in the here & now. The past is gone and the future can wait…
Troy Hopcroft
Zach firmly believes that the Yogic path is accessible to everyone. He is sincerely committed to living more skillfully and finding peace with the world, and he is passionate about helping his students discover their own paths of self-discovery.Having recently survived cancer, Zach's connection to the yogic path has become even stronger. He encourages each of us to delve deeper, uncover common threads, slow down, and embrace life through mindful breathing and movement.
Zach's yoga journey includes a 200-Hr Budokon Yoga Certificate in 2015 in Miami, and in 2022, he completed his 200-Hr Hatha Yoga Certificate and Yin training from Pilgrimage of the Heart in San Diego. Additionally, he holds a Budokon Red Belt. His teaching approach is centered around recognizing each person as a unique individual, viewing their journey as a creation of their own. Zach understands that yoga is not a one-size-fits-all practice. While you'll learn various well-known postures in his classes, he also encourages you to explore your own sensations and thoughts, which may vary from day to day. Zach firmly believes in continuous learning and encourages viewing life with a beginner's mindset.
Zach Brown
Elyssa Swann
Elyssa Swann has been a dedicated personal fitness & lifestyle coach and health activist since 2002. While she has practiced yoga for 25 years, she attained her Yoga Teacher Certification in 2013 and has been working as an enthusiastic yoga instructor ever since. She has taught at high-end gyms, The Yoga Expo in Los Angles, corporate businesses, music festivals, popular yoga studios and worked with personal clients. Elyssa has worked hard to offer knowledgeable, balanced and challenging classes that are accessible to her diverse practitioners. She strives to stay educated and up to date with the health and yoga industries to continually keep classes fresh and fun. She has always been drawn to building community and was inspired to create her own yoga lifestyle brand called Wolf & Lion.
She has been committed to offering the San Diego yoga community unique classes and experiences that encourage students to be healthy, authentic and to embrace what makes them unique.
If she's not hanging at the studio, you can find her spending time with her husband and their daughter, dancing under disco ball sparkles or hitting the road for an adventure.
Hi, I’m Sean Cahill. For over a decade, I have developed positive learning environments that promote personal growth for students and athletes of all ages. My passion for diversity and inclusion in education has led me to work with individuals with different backgrounds, cultures, religions and socio-economic statuses. I specialize in team building, while emphasizing individual development. My journey as an educator has taken me to big cities and rural communities all over the United States. Wherever I am, I look forward to building strong relationships with those that I work with, teaching life lessons on and off the mat.
Sean Cahill
Hailey has always loved living an active healthy lifestyle. She loved to run, box, weightlift, and any activity that got her heart pumping and yoga seemed too gentle and quiet for her. I wasn’t until the pandemic and enduring personal traumas that she began to slow down and search for something that not only fulfilled her physically but emotionally and spiritually as well. Yoga taught her to be more present, to find stillness, to be more centered and to her surprise also break a sweat. Elated to have found yoga, she knew she wanted to become a teacher so she could share with others the joy this practice continues to bring her every day.
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Hailey loves all styles of yoga and was especially drawn to Yoga Wall for its therapeutic qualities, the way it assisted her yoga postures and how it brought out her inner child. Yoga Wall is a truly unique way to practice yoga and she believes that everyone should give it a try!
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Hailey completed her 200-hr Yoga Teacher Training in July 2023 and has since continued her education as a certified Yoga Wall teacher. She also loves Yin yoga and plans on pursuing a certificate in this practice.
Hailey Daluzeau
Kim Derr
Maryann has been practicing various styles of martial arts since the age of 11. Her passion ignited after seeing the karate kid movie. As a child, Maryann was shy and had difficulty making friends. Since practicing martial arts her confidence and skills grew. She eventually earned her black belts in the styles Kung fu and Tai Chi, has won first place in several tournaments and made life long friendships along the way. Maryann is excited to be sharing her passion for Tai Chi at Yoga Haven, hoping to grow a community bonded by the shared interest of martial arts. Outside of practicing martial arts Maryann enjoys taking yoga classes, going on hikes and traveling.
Maryann Cason
As a runner, mountain biker, and spin instructor, she began practicing yoga in 1998 for its physical benefits, but soon realized the mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits it offered.
Ten years later, Karen felt inspired to share her love of yoga and became a certified instructor. She now has nearly 1,000 hours of Yoga Alliance certified trainings in Hatha, Vinyasa, Yin, Yoga for Cancer Therapy, Yoga for a Happy Back, and Yoga Wall (Levels I & II).
Karen’s classes are influenced by her many renowned and influential teachers including Gerhard Gessner, Paul Grilley, Robert Birnberg, Rachel Krentzman, Ingrid Yang, and Jason Cull, with an emphasis on promoting spinal health and relieving back, neck and shoulder pain through yoga.
Continuously dedicated to learning, Karen is currently pursuing an 800-Hour Yoga Therapy certification.
Karen's passion is helping others, of all ages and discover the transformative and healing power of yoga, feel comfortable in their practice, and have fun in the process.
Karen J Terra
I began my yoga practice at the Chula Vista yoga center at the beginning of 2011 and obtained my RYT-200 that summer. In search of a new perspective in life and self-love, I challenged my self to 30 days of yoga. I acknowledged that the shift of energy, mind, body, soul, and the feeling of fulfillment that I felt after every class saved my life. Inspired by my teachers and the very space my practice evolved in, yoga became something I wanted to keep in my life forever. As a Yogi, I am thankful for my practice and it’s ever-evolving nature, which parallels with my personal lifestyle. I hopes to inspire students and peers to find a practice that works for them and fills them with happiness. I am also an advocate for other healthy lifestyles such as sports, yoga, dance, cross fit, and a supporter of the art, music, culinary, and film scene. My favorite style of practice is Vinyasa Yoga because it is a form of freedom of expression, like an improvisational dance which is in a constant flux. My aspiration in life is to continue to grow within my self, as a student and teacher in yoga and to continue to apply the practice to my everyday life…Always remembering to just breathe.
Saira Estrada
Danielle Macgregor
Amanda Joy Spitzfaden
Sydney is a Licensed Mental Health Therapist (LPCC), intuitive healer, psychic medium, dancer, and more!
Sydney has been dancing since they were very little and is trained in many different styles of dance and currently works part-time as a country line-dancer!
Sydney was drawn to yoga many years ago and found its medicine to be healing and magical, especially through the darkest period of Sydney’s life.
Sydney knew that becoming a yoga teacher was something they eventually wanted to do to deepen their own practice and finds immense fulfillment sharing their love of yoga with others!
Sydney’s classes are centered around deepening the connection we have to our bodies and fully feeling any emotions that arise before, during, and after practice and transmuting, alchemizing, and moving them through the physical practice.
Sydney Tafuri
Markandeya Rsi: Born in Argentina, he’s been practicing Yoga since he was very young, thanks to the influence of his grandmother (his first yoga teacher). He trained as a monk in India and other countries for more than 4 years, certifying himself in different styles of yoga, meditation, philosophy and leadership. Now, based in San Diego, CA. Teaching in the most renowned gyms and studios in San Diego and traveling to many cities and countries, giving classes and seminars at universities, TV shows, radio and schools.
Markandeya Rsi
Allison Srour
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Alli Audley
"Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self."
The Bhagavad Gita