Healing Arts Yoga
at LHAA

Our skilled yoga instructors have years of experience in their practice and teaching, emphasizing safe, intelligent and intentional healing movement through yoga. Beyond their passion for yoga, our instructors are always willing to help people whether they are beginners or experienced practitioners.

Connie Payne, RYT 500

Connie has been teaching yoga classes since 2013. Her classes ranged from all levels, intermediate levels, yoga with weights, yoga for strength/flexibility and yoga for the pelvic floor. She has assisted the LHAA Yoga Teacher Training program since 2018. Connie has been a firm believer in the therapeutic benefits of yoga since the 90’s when she was seeking relief from chronic back and hip pain. She found that yoga helped strengthen and heal her body, and it offered a calming, centering experience. Connie completed her 200 RYT at Lexington Healing Arts and her 300 RYT in Rishikesh, India.

Beth Connors-Manke, E-RYT 200

Beth has been practicing yoga since 2000 and graduated from LHAA’s first 200-hour yoga teacher training in 2009. An Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RYT) with Yoga Alliance, Beth began teaching studio classes in January 2010 and has taught continuously since then. Beth’s teaching specialties include back health, the subtle body, yoga philosophy, ethics, and Ayurveda.

Beth joined the LHAA teaching team for the yoga teacher training in 2017, taking on the role of co-lead trainer. Since that time, Beth has helped update the curriculum to make it more integrated and learner-focused. During the Covid pandemic, she was responsible for adapting the curriculum when the program had to shift temporarily to instruction over Zoom.

Beth’s pedagogical experience extends beyond the studio. She has a doctorate in English and has taught college-level writing, rhetoric, public speaking, and literature since 2001. In that capacity, she has trained and mentored new teachers for more than 15 years.

Rebecca Elliott

Rebecca Elliott, a native of Lexington, KY, relocated to Georgetown six years ago with her husband, Dave. They share their home with two children, Kaitlyn and Chase, both residing in Lexington. Kaitlyn recently blessed Rebecca with the title of GiGi upon the arrival of sweet Ryleigh Kate, while Chase pursued a finance degree in the UK as a senior. Married for nearly eight years, Rebecca and Dave also share their lives with two dogs, Bailey and Lady, four cats – Boopie, Fred, Little Miss, and Ittles – and a 60-gallon fish tank.

With over 25 years in the home mortgage industry, Rebecca acknowledges the stress in her career, seeking solace and balance through yoga. She finds respite on her deck and patio, enjoys family time, indulges in music, and relishes bourbon distillery tours.

Rebecca’s journey toward becoming a yoga instructor commenced in early 2022. Despite sporadic yoga practice in her 30s and 40s, she had yet to fully appreciate its transformative potential. Motivated by a health journey initiated in 2020, resulting in a significant weight loss, Rebecca still felt physically and mentally unfulfilled. Encouraged by the positive impact of yoga and meditation classes at The Studio, especially in improving her sleep quality and alleviating aches and pains, Rebecca embraced yoga wholeheartedly. Recognizing the opportunity to become an instructor as a chance to deepen her practice and share its benefits, she embarked on an enlightening journey. Now equipped with a profound understanding of yoga’s history, its diverse forms, and its holistic benefits, Rebecca is eager to impart the gift of yoga to her students, aspiring to foster wellness in both body and mind.

Jen Patterson, BS, LMT, RYT200

As an athlete from a young age, Jen developed a love and passion for exercise and movement. After earning a bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology – Exercise Science from the University of Kentucky, she completed a massage therapy training program and has been a practicing massage therapist since 2002. Her first experience with yoga was a prenatal yoga class when she was expecting her first child and she fell in love with the calmness and balance that yoga offered for the body and mind. In the fall of 2020, she decided to further her study of the body and attended a YTT-200 with Amanda McMaine at the Essence of Yoga. Jen is passionate about teaching body alignment and mindful movement through yoga and breathwork. She developed a specialized, one-of-a-kind class at the YMCA of Central Kentucky teaching Yoga for Osteoporosis, patterning the class after the work and research of Dr. Loren Fishman’s on yoga vs osteoporosis.

Jen previously taught on faculty at LHAA in the massage therapy program for 10 years prior to the covid pandemic and left to focus on homeschooling her boys. She is very excited to come back home to LHAA as a yoga instructor. When she is not teaching yoga and seeing clients in her private massage practice, you can find her out on hiking trails around KY, SUP boarding and kayaking in the summers, spending time with her family, and pursuing learning of all kinds related to health, nutrition and movement. Her goal is to be teaching and practicing yoga until 100!

Dindy Yokel

A yoga practitioner for more than 25 years, Dindy Yokel deepened her practice by studying at the Azul Yoga Institute of Boca Raton – 200-hour RYT training, graduating in May 2016 and at Yoga Journey, completing 500 hours in September 2019. She specializes in Yin, Hatha, Vinyasa, Gentle and Restorative styles incorporating mindful meditation, Reiki, chakra balancing, and yoga philosophy into her teaching. Ms. Yokel has received trauma-sensitive yoga and mindfulness certification from Connected Warriors and is certified in Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness by David Treleaven. She recently received her CMT-100 in meditation from the World Meditation Alliance.