Bio | Freret Street Yoga

Geoffrey Roniger of Freret Street Yoga, Revolved Half Lotus Pose

“Geoffrey Roniger is a rare yogi. There are very few that practice with his level of mindfulness and with his level of integrity. This is only possible because of the depth of who he is as a person. His willingness and courage to dive deep into the fabric of his very nature defines him as a torch bearer for the art of yoga. This is the well that he draws from as he skillfully communicates his knowledge for the transformation of his students. We are all inspired.”

- Rodney Yee
Internationally Acclaimed Teacher
Author of Yoga: The Poetry of the Body and Moving Toward Balance

Geoffrey Roniger

Over the last decade, New Orleans native Geoffrey Roniger has become well known in the San Francisco Bay Area for his unique approach to yoga that emphasizes sound biomechanical alignment principles, intuitive movement, and eloquent use of metaphor to translate this ancient tradition into our contemporary cultural vernacular. In a yoga world filled with faux spirituality and frenetic pose choreography, his teaching stands out for its characteristic clarity, sincerity, and gourmet quality sequencing.

After graduating from Vanderbilt University with a degree in European Studies in 1998, Geoffrey moved to Edinburgh, Scotland where he helped renovate a 19th century church into Europe’s largest yoga studio. Shortly after his return to the United States, he graduated from Piedmont Yoga Studio’s 18-month Advanced Studies Program, where he formally apprenticed with Richard Rosen and Rodney Yee.

From 2005 to 2010, Geoffrey was the on-site yoga teacher for Salesforce.com, Amyris Biotechnologies, Beverly Prior Architects, Juice Design, and Urban Revision. Through this experience he created Workplace Wellness, an effective and accessible program that uses modified yoga techniques to counteract the negative effects of sitting all day at a desk. Geoffrey’s private clientele has included several CEOs dealing with high levels of stress, amateur athletes aiming to improve their overall efficiency, and health care professionals searching for a reliable method of self-care.

Geoffrey has served on the teacher training staff at The Yoga Loft in San Francisco since 2006, and he leads regular workshops and retreats. After volunteering for Urban Zen at both V Day and the Special Olympics, which successfully implemented therapeutic yoga techniques for evacuees of Hurricane Katrina and athletes with disabilities, he was appointed to their faculty for the Integrative Therapy Program in New York. Geoffrey has been featured in the Awakened Athletes, Masterclass, and Basics columns for Yoga Journal as well as in the Gaiam video, Yoga Now. He recently moved back to his hometown of New Orleans where he lives with his wife, two sons and two dogs. Geoffrey is the founder of and primary teacher at Freret Street Yoga, which he opened as a community resource for the promotion of the practice that he so passionately loves to participate in and share.

Freret Street Yoga Teachers

Laura Jarrait Flora

Laura Jarrait Flora, RYT – 500 and Certified BodyTalk® Practitioner. I teach yoga and do healing work to help people live more skillful, purposeful, and enjoyable lives. I started practicing Iyengar yoga in 1996 when I moved to New Orleans and immediately found that yoga practice and this city provided me a welcome reprieve from my perfectionist tendencies. On the mat, I became much less concerned with what I could and couldn’t do and instead simply enjoyed the process of being a present, curious explorer of the terrain first of my body and ultimately of my mind and spirit. During my evacuation from New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, I took my first Anusara® yoga class and was immediately turned on to the interweaving of uplifting, practical philosophy and skillful, accessible alignment instructions that helped me change the way I relate to myself, others, and life in key ways. I dedicated the next years of my study to becoming certified as an Anusara teacher. I continue to use much of this elegant system as well as further studies in Tantric philosophy, BodyTalk, and effective alignment techniques from various disciplines to guide students into a fun exploration of the intelligent liveliness housed in body, mind, and spirit. In my classes, you will receive sound and effective alignment instructions that help you build self-awareness, inspiration that challenges you to safely explore your edges, and practical and occasionally humorous, insights into living your life as a purposeful, joyful adventure. Read more about me and my offerings at www.alamkarayoga.com.

Claiborne, Teacher at Freret Street Yoga

Claiborne Davis

Claiborne Davis is a Registered Yoga Teacher and a Certified Instructor of Yoga Tune Up®, a wellness format that merges yoga with physical therapy, self massage, corrective exercise, mobility training and meditation. He’s completed four YTU trainings: Level One, Core Integration, Integrated Embodied Anatomy and Hips & Yoga Nidra. Yoga Tune Up® is a member school of the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

After practicing yoga for several years to reconcile the inherent imbalances brought on by racquet sports and a lifetime of unconscious postural habits, Claiborne earned his first yoga teaching certification through Wild Lotus Yoga’s 200-hour Soul School. He imbues his YTU and Hatha yoga classes with biomechanics to help people move better not just as yoga practitioners, but as humans. He is grateful for the lessons and support of his own teachers, including Jill Miller, Sean Johnson, Maura Barclay and Lillee Chandra.

Claiborne is a New Orleans native, but grew up primarily in Chicago and Southeastern Virginia. He eventually returned, graduating from Tulane University with a French degree before working in the television news industry for nearly seven years in several states. For information on Claiborne and his teaching schedule, visit www.claibornedavis.com.

Daisy Dodge

Daisy Dodge is a native New Orleanian who moved away for many years but now once again happily calls her hometown "home." She attended the Yoga Works Teacher Training (yogaworks.com) in Orange County in 2004 and later received her Interdisciplinary Yoga Teacher certification from Nosara Yoga Institute (nosarayoga.com) on Costa Rica's Pacific coast. Daisy writes, teaches, makes things, travels, and gets outside and into nature often as she can. She taught Creative Writing, Composition, and English at the university and K-12 levels for many years and is currently pursuing a Master of Architecture at Tulane.

Veronique Day

First introduced to yoga in my youth, I turned to the practice of yoga whenever stress in my life urged me to do so. With time, yoga became more than just a way to cope with life hurdles, and a year ago, I obtained my Yoga Teacher Certification (RYS200), from the Discovery Yoga Center -- a branch of the Kripalu Yoga Teachers Association lead by Deva Parnell in St. Augustine, FL. The Kripalu approach (Sanskrit word for “compassionate”) is one of compassion and tenderness towards others as oneself. It helps the practitioner to establish an intimate and nurturing relationship with his/her body, noticing and welcoming challenges and vulnerabilities, and deciding accordingly on the level of his/her practice. I have also practiced different styles of Yoga, including Iyengar, Ashtanga, and Bikram, and in my teaching I like to integrate elements of these different styles such as the energy of Ashtanga or the thoroughness of alignment from the Iyengar style.

Bard "Yogi" Barra, Teacher at Feret Street Yoga

Brad “Yogi” Barra

Yogi is a nationally certified massage and bodywork therapist and comes to us after spending the last two years in Austin, TX working for a sports chiropractor. He has extensive training in Deep Tissue/Sports/Neuromuscular Massage, Myofascial Release, Active Release Therapy and Craniosacral Therapy. Yogi also recently finished his 200 hour Hatha Yoga teacher training at Yoga Yoga in Austin. Before entering his new career, Yogi worked in Mental Health for the Department of Veterans Affairs in San Francisco and Monterey California. He has a bachelor's degree in Psychology and a master's degree in Health Psychology from Texas State University. Yogi is also proud to have served in the Peace Corps from 2002 - 2004 doing natural resource management work in Niger, West Africa.

Nicola Wolf

Since 2006, Nicola Wolf has been a student of Iyengar Yoga, which emphasizes optimal body alignment in classic yoga asanas. Props such as blocks, belts, and blankets are used to allow deeper access to the benefits of a pose. Nicola is currently pursuing her teacher’s certification with Senior Iyengar teacher Karin O’Bannon and with Becky Lloyd, here in New Orleans. Originally from England, she is a long-term resident of New Orleans and also a charter member of the Krewe of Muses.