YOGA with SUSAN MERRITT

Susan has been Robbie & Steve’s yoga teacher in Santa Cruz for over 30 years. We are thrilled to have her come to Condor’s Hope annually for our ‘Yoga in the Vineyard’ retreat.

Susan’s classes are accessible & enjoyable whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned yogi. With the wisdom of  40 years experience, intuition, and an eye for proper alignment, Susan excels at individualized instruction and gentle, hands-on guidance. Her innovative use of various props and balls of all sizes helps to open up chronically stiff areas, comfortably easing the body into the proper depth of the yoga poses…the depth that is right for you and your body’s abilities.  She has a gift for making people feel comfortable in the class and in their body.

Susan has a thorough foundation in the Iyengar system of hatha yoga.  Her foremost teacher has been Ramanand Patel, a world-renowned yoga instructor.  She feels indebted to him for such a good grasp of biomechanics.

Over the years she has studied with numerous excellent teachers of yoga and other movement forms.  Feldenkrais, Yamuna Body Rolling Therapy, and The Melt Method also serve to deepen her own innate knowledge of the body’s structure and movement.  Even an occasional Dressage lesson, not even getting on a horse, inspires her understanding and teaching.

In the realm of hatha yoga, Susan is an innovator.  Her creative use of props of all sorts, various size balls, weights, you name it, helps to ease your body into the yoga poses.

Her love of yoga, movement, anatomy, structure, & balance in the ever-changing body, keeps her in constant learning mode.  It is her life’s calling and she loves sharing it in her classes.

Susan had her Santa Cruz studio, Body & Soul for 23 years. Then the pandemic came along. Since then, she’s been teaching on Zoom, and after remodeling the garage, she is also offering in- person, group, & private classes, and occasional one day workshops.