teachers – FORM yoga

We are honored to share our incredible array of teachers, from many schools of yoga. Each teacher is encouraged to bring their own unique style and personality to the studio and to teach from an authentic place.

"I had a wonderful experience! The space is cozy. The teacher’s voice was great, very comforting and a beautiful tone! My body felt great after the recharge and restore class!"

"I came to yoga hoping to learn how to illuminate areas for personal expansion both on and off the mat. Your studio allows me to do that in a myriad of ways and I discover what I need through the thoughtful teachings of your instructors. I’ve become more self aware in my roles of daughter, wife, mother, friend."

"This place is AMAZING. Recommend to anyone. I am a beginner and it’s really challenging me but I am also very comfortable being a newbie. "

Mandy Roberts

FORM Yoga & Soul Nourish Retreats
Owner/Creative Director/Senior Retreat Leader

Heartfelt and devotional, Mandy's sincerity and zest for life are always at the forefront of her offerings. Mandy's classes are a sweet {and often sweaty} celebration of life expressed through embodiment, music, and storytelling. She loves to invite her students to embody sacred playfulness on the mat, while weaving alignment cues that help them to feel strong and centered. Infused with inspiration from the world around her, Mandy is a natural and nurturing teacher and has been known to lovingly guide her students through major breakthroughs both on the mat and in their life. More than just another yoga class, Mandy offers her students a yoga experience.

Finding yoga, Mandy had no idea she was embarking on a life-long journey of self-reflection and personal growth. Her divorce just a few years later was the catalyst for a complete dissolution of her former life and the beginning of what is now FORM yoga. A stay-at-home mom for many years, the end of her marriage, which felt like the end of her life, was actually the threshold of a beautiful new beginning. As she leaned on her yoga practice heavily, it became very clear that she was being nudged toward teaching yoga and in just a few short months, to owning a yoga studio {yep, it really did happen that way!}. During the challenging times surrounding her divorce, Mandy found that the teachings of yoga were one of the only things that could help her keep her focus on moving forward and choosing life.

Mandy deeply trusts that life always moves through cycles of beginnings and endings. As a retreat leader, Mandy has thousands of hours of experience safely and tenderly guiding her students through processes of growth and transformation. Mandy has studied Pranic Healing with Master Stephen Co, Enneagram with Russ Hudson and Intuitive Development with Janet Raftis. She has studied, lived, and in 2017, completed her certification with the transformational Urban Priestess movement. In addition, Mandy has studied yoga with numerous accomplished national and international teachers from various traditions. Mandy is twice a Lululemon Athletica ambassador in Atlanta and represented Atlanta at the 2015 Lululemon Ambassador Summit in Whistler. In addition, Mandy is a presenter in the 2014, 2016, and 2018 Dirty South Yoga Fest, the 2015 and the 2016 Atlanta Women’s Foundation Yogathon, the 2015 Wigwam Health and Wellness Festival, and a co-chair of the first annual Atlanta Yoga Rave. A lover of expression through writing, she has contributed articles about the benefits of yoga and mindfulness to numerous publications over the years. However, Mandy believes her greatest accomplishment is the supportive and connected community she has created at FORM yoga.

When she is not at the front of the room teaching, you can find Mandy hanging out around Decatur with her new husband Ruan, with friends on a patio, or in-studio as a student, moving and breathing with you.

Amanda Burtch

Studio Manager & Teacher

In 2012 Amanda was led to yoga out of her curiosity while in the midst of some big life changes. She was experiencing a great deal of anxiety from these changes and heard that yoga was good for reducing stress. After a year of wobbling around in her living room to beginners DVDs and VHS tapes (remember those?), she landed a job for a wellness-based company that led her down a path to learn more about yoga and to connect with teachers and practitioners...

around the globe. As a job perk, Amanda was fortunate to deepen her practice and learn more about yoga in the workplace through yoga classes and “work trips” that consisted of getting to be a participant on a few international yoga retreats. Through these healing experiences, she knew that yoga was the path for her. She began teaching yoga in the summer of 2017 and has continued to learn and grow through yoga, including her current project, becoming a certified Yoga Therapist.

Curiosity is what led Amanda to the practice of yoga and it is what keeps her invested to learn more. It is a value that is embedded in her practice and in her teachings as she encourages her students to discover the uniqueness of their bodies, breath, and spirit. Amanda is deeply passionate about the mindfulness and gratitude practices that the natural world offers. This sentiment is also woven into Amanda’s individual style of teaching. She believes that the practice of yoga on the mat blends strengthening of body, mind, and spirit that aids in standing strong in life off the mat. Amanda is lighthearted, compassionate, and is always trying to bring a smile to everyone around her, including in her classes. In her own time, she loves making playlists, reading, bike rides, neighborhood walks, and all things outdoors.

Shonali Banerjee

Teacher

Since 1995 Shonali has found solace, strength & expansion through yoga. Shonali was 500 hour certified in 2002 (right after a bicycle accident!) in NYC with Alan Finger's ISHTA yoga program. After moving to Paris, France in 2004, Shonali did further study in India & Europe focusing on therapeutics & women's health with TKV Desikachar and taught yoga full time.

Shonali relocated to Atlanta in 2010 and completed another 500 hour training with the Pranakriya Yoga school and is now a certified Yoga Therapist. Shonali currently teaches privately and at local yoga studios.

Shonali encourages students to listen, to receive, and to nourish from within. Her classes are particularly safe and grounded in breath and alignment allowing steady & safe exploration of postures. You will flow through and hold within unique sequences that encourage you to drop deeply inside. You’ll strengthen, challenge & expand. You soften, play, and nurture. You’ll honor the seasonal changes and what’s happening culturally, as well as the moon cycles. You’ll encounter chanting, pranayama (breath work), mudras (positions of the hands), visualization, chakras awareness, a wide range of music (Bjork, Al Green, Juana Molina, Krishna Das) paired with mindful silence, sacred poetry, and then Shonali will sing you into a blissfully opening final rest to create an impactful experience each time you practice. Shonali loves teaching restorative yoga and meditation, making the most quiet practices accessible to the busiest of folks. With reverence for the unique process of each individual, Shonali encourages students to make the practice their own. Listen, Receive, and Nourish From Within.

DeKeely Atkins

Teacher

DeKeely’s yoga practice began when her sister-in-law invited her to come along to a hot yoga class to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Once she stepped foot on her mat, she was hooked! With degrees in health and exercise science and public health, she was always engaged in fitness. But DeKeely knew yoga was different.

She enjoyed all the physical aspects of asana but found the true gift of yoga to be the practice’s invitation to PAUSE and tune in, not only to your body but into your breath and your heart.

Over the past decade, DeKeely’s love of yoga has taken her to studios across the country and abroad and has led her to explore various lineages including Hatha, Vinyasa, Iyengar, Bikram, and Ashtanga. Each experience building upon the other and providing another glimpse into the beauty and depth of the practice. After successfully encouraging many to give yoga a try, she knew it was time for her to share the gift of yoga from the seat of the teacher. DeKeely completed a 100-hour YTT in Costa Rica in 2019 and the Soul Nourish & FORM yoga 200-hour YTT in 2020. These trainings allowed her to deepen her practice and prepare to share the rich tradition of yoga with others.

With that spirit, DeKeely offers fun alignment-based flows that build energy and empower each student to tune in a find their own practice. She challenges her students to confidently take up space on their mats, channel their strength, play, breathe, laugh, and find the joy in their yoga. She believes these are the tenets of the yoga the world needs us to practice both on and off our mats.

Marck Maroun

Teacher

Marck has always been a yogi and a geologist at heart. He uses his connection to the Earth to ground down before every practice. Adopting yoga as a way of life, not just the physical practice, is key to his happiness.

Twelve years ago, Marck began his yogic path. His initial gravitation towards yoga was strictly physical wellness. Shortly after, he discovered the bond between mind-body and breath.

Today, his practice consists of meditation coupled with breathing and body flow.

His dedication to the lifestyle of yoga came shortly after his wife was diagnosed with cancer. In a flash, both their lives changed. Using meditation and body flow, he stood by his wife as she recovered from the physical and mental turmoil that comes with treatments, surgery, and diagnosis. Yoga literally saved them both.

Marck’s classes are designed to allow students a sense of unity, wholeness, and a brief yet strong mind-body connection. His meditation coupled with breathing opens the mind and body for a welcoming, challenging, and well-deserved practice. Marck completed his 200 hr. Yoga Teacher Training in early 2018 in the jungles and the beaches of Costa Rica. He has been teaching ever since.

Alisa Lewis

Teacher

When Alisa found yoga, she discovered a spark that quickly lit her up. At the age of forty-two she was astonished that at yoga class, people her own age were busting out backbends and headstands like it was no big deal.

They were moving and flowing with the simple beauty of dancers. But they did not seem to be there just for the cool poses.

They seemed to KNOW things.

There seemed to be something beyond the physical rigors of the practice which drew them there. Alisa wanted to know things too. So, she kept going and practicing. It was a turning point when she discovered that yoga poses are merely a means of understanding yourself and your connection in the universe. Fast-forward eight years and she is still going and practicing and still discovering. In 2020 Alisa put discovery into warp speed and completed a 200-hour alignment-based yoga teacher training course with Mandy Roberts and Shari L Fox at FORM {yoga}.

Alisa comes from years of experience designing interiors for Fortune 500 companies, designing and rolling out retail banking establishments, and various hospitality and workplace venues. As much as art and design are a part of her life, so now is yoga. It is the creativity, personal connection, and fulfillment of offering her unique gifts in teaching that feeds her soul. As an Enneagram 9 (AKA The Peacemaker), she is constantly seeking harmony. This carries over into her teaching style just as it does in her design work. She is receptive to what her students may need and safely and gently guides them. She is known to create balanced classes that integrate heart, mind, body, and breath.

Alisa helps her students breathe, build strength, play, hone balance, discover, stretch, hope, and find ease in their bodies, which translates to more ease in life. In her classes you can be yourself, whether that means beginner or expert, messy or neat, Type A or go-with-the-flow, calm or anxious, feeling “meh” or feeling amazing.

Misty McClain

Teacher

Misty found yoga shortly after recovering from an Anterior Cervical Spinal Fusion. After suffering from chronic pain for more than 3 years that left her feeling weak both mentally and physically, she came to yoga for the physical benefits hoping to relieve pain and gain back strength. As her body became healthier and stronger, she soon discovered that her yoga mat was where she found a mind body connection and self-awareness. Inspired to take her practice further...

and share this experience with people of every age, she enrolled in a 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training and additionally a 95-hour Kids Yoga Teacher Training as well.

Misty has a strong interest in the movement arts. Growing up she was a dancer and has been practicing acroyoga for the past five years. She adds a creative and playful quality to her classes.

She feels that yoga, in many ways, changes lives, and believes that her first time on her mat was her beginning to becoming her most authentic self. She wants her students to experience something new each and every time they are on their mat. Whether that is their first downward dog or their first hand balance. She loves when students find something within themselves that empowers them.

Kate Smith

Teacher

Kate’s classes are thoughtful, balanced, playful, and nurturing. She grew up in Macon, GA, home to Otis Redding, James Brown, Little Richard, and the Allman Brothers Band, and her mom (a genealogy wiz) says she’s distantly related to Johnny Cash. How cool is that? With ‘The Man In Black’ literally in her blood, music plays an important role in the tone of Kate’s classes.

Kate’s love of exercise and group fitness definitely did not start when she tried playing softball at age 10. She never got past 1st base. But, track and cross country really clicked in high school. Kate found yoga and pilates in college, which was somehow almost 20 years ago. Long-distance running continued to be a passion, and Kate completed the Savannah Marathon and Iron Girl Triathlon in 2012. She kept practicing yoga, and especially relied on prenatal yoga during her pregnancies. A barre3 studio opened amazingly close to her home, and in 2014 she got hooked on the high intensity/low impact workout to regain her strength after delivering her children, and never stopped. Kate became a barre3 instructor in 2018 and has since taught around 200 classes at studios in the Atlanta area.

As Kate expanded her teaching she decided to pursue her love of Yoga as well by obtaining a 200 hour certification. During this time she fell in love with the idea of bringing yoga to not just adults but to kids as well. Kate is currently pursuing a teaching certificate in Children’s Yoga. She thinks yoga gives us tools to live a calmer, more enjoyable life, and knows there are lots of kids living through a pandemic who could benefit from the peace that yoga brings.

Kate worked in publishing, marketing, and digital communications for 11 years in New York City and Atlanta for organizations such as People Magazine and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Her most challenging and rewarding role has been ‘Mom’ to Jack and Louise. She lives in Decatur, GA with her husband, kids, cats, and many unfinished knitting projects.

Katie May

Teacher

Although she had taken yoga classes in the past, Katie did not truly discover her passion for yoga until 2014 when her husband suffered a spinal cord injury and they started taking classes together as a part of his recovery. She quickly fell in love with the physical benefits of strength and flexibility that came with the practice.

But she soon began to understand and appreciate the deeper mental and emotional benefits yoga offered and this is when her yoga journey truly started.

Eager to learn more and deepen her practice, Katie completed her 200 hour Yoga Teaching Training at FORM Yoga in 2019.

Katie’s approach to teaching is alignment based and precise, with a healthy dose of play and fun. In addition to playing with inversions and arm balances, she loves the moving meditation aspect of vinyasa flow classes and will offer plenty of opportunity to move, breathe and challenge yourself on the mat.

When she is not at the studio, Katie loves to read, visit new breweries with her husband and snuggle with her 2 dogs.

Madison Best

Teacher

Madison Best is an E-RYT 500 who first started yoga after graduating college when she was feeling a bit lost. After that first class, she knew she would continue with it for the rest of her life. For Madison, yoga was more than just physical exercise. It was a means of empowerment through outward expression and inner awareness. It helped her reconnect to herself through honesty, self-reflection, sometimes struggle, but above all, love.

She dedicated herself to her practice and received her 200 Hour Certification in 2014 with Gina Minyard.

Madison shares her passion for alignment and anatomy in her classes, creating a safe space for connecting with your mind/body/spirit, moving from a place of strength, and pushing past boundaries with a bit of playfulness. She will always be a student first and foremost. She continued her studies with Noah Mazé and Rocky Heron, completing her 500 Hour Certification in 2017. She hopes to help her students find the empowerment within themselves that yoga has provided for her.

Rebecca Moulton

Teacher

Rebecca wandered into her first yoga class in Midtown. What she didn’t know, the studio was just downwind from Krispy Kreme. Coincidentally, the red light came on every morning during savasana, and the room filled with the warm aroma of freshly glazed donuts. She knew it was meant to be.

Fast forward, and her practice led her to the FORM family. Since then, it has changed, ebbed and flowed, on and off the mat, many times over through all her seasons of life.

It was her own experience of receiving an Autoimmune diagnosis while going through a divorce, that profoundly changed things. She knew her practice had served her, but she couldn’t practice the same way anymore. Ever the curious scientist, she found a yoga teacher curriculum with a trauma-informed, therapeutic approach that combined a rigorous physical foundation *and* the emotional, spiritual connection between the mind & body.

She dove in headfirst and found the transformation she’d been looking for, in the last place she expected: stillness.

She went from being a serial savasana skipper, and power yoga student to spending an entire practice in Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep), or in the corner finding new ways to use props to soothe her nervous system, usually with her legs up the wall.

Rebecca is a certified Yoga Nidra teacher through Scott Moore. She is also a C.Ht Certified Hypnotist, and Magnified Healing L1 energy practitioner. These qualifications, in addition to her RYT 200 hour certification, offer to enrich the student experience of deeply relaxing.

Rebecca has lived in Atlanta long enough to say “Bless Your Heart”, but not long enough to enjoy boiled peanuts. She’s a full-time meteorologist, mom of two, and will encourage your curiosity to explore the idea of “less is more”. Except when it comes to props and blankets in class. That’s: “take however many you think you’ll need, and add at least one more.”

Jenn Cook

Teacher

Jenn started teaching yoga in 2012 after taking her 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training under Neda Draupadi Honarvar at Tough Love Yoga. She soon added a certification in Thai Yoga Bodywork & Stretching, a 300 hour YTT with Gina Minyard, Reiki, and prenatal yoga training with Amani Murray & Oh Baby! Fitness. A perpetual student, Jenn is also a certified Breath Coach. Her numerous trainings in the Tarot, the chakra system, as well as exposure to Ayurveda and Craniosacral Therapy gives dynamic inspiration for her offerings and classes. Jenn has a zest for life that drives her to keep learning and growing.

Jenn also owns Drea James Jewelry featuring one of a kind and limited edition designs, you’ll often see her rocking some of her stunning pieces in class (and if you love those pieces just offer to buy them off of her, she’s cool like that). With a interest in jewelry and yoga it’s no surprise that Jenn loves creating mala necklaces and leading mala making classes too!

From Jenn you can expect smiles and sweat – or at least that is what her husband Michael says. Jenn loves to help her students build strength so he got the sweat part right! With a focus on alignment and playfulness, Jenn will offer ample space to explore and reflect. . . while she has you doing core work.

Jenn is obsessed with her dogs, loves to travel, and to spend time with family and friends.

Desirée Nathanson

Teacher

Desirée comes to the world of yoga by way of dance. She began her formal dance training at the age of four at Florida Ballet Arts in Sarasota and continued through her discovery of dance teams in high school. From there, she went on to dance for the University of Florida Gators Dazzlers dance team where she performed all over the country, including the 2000 Men's Basketball Final Four. (She may or may not still be bitter about losing to Michigan State.) Following her four years at UF, Desirée broke into the professional world of dance as an 'A-Town' dancer for the NBA's Atlanta Hawks. Desirée currently serves as an official trainer for the ATL Hawks Dancers.

Desirée earned her Masters of Science (M.S.) in Health Sciences with a specialization in Nutrition from Georgia State University and has since earned the title dietetic technician, registered (DTR). She is a certified personal trainer, group exercise instructor, and registered yoga teacher having completed her yoga teacher training at Yoga Collective in Atlanta, GA. Desiree is also a certified prenatal and postpartum fitness coach and became her own client in 2020, giving birth to her first child at the age of 40 and then here second child at the age of 41.

Desirée calls herself the compassionate personal trainer and hopes to show people that fitness and movement should not be used as a punishment, rather something that is enjoyable!

In Desiree’s classes you can expect a light-hearted approach to practice, offered at a mindfully slower pace. Her attention to alignment, as well as her passion for maintaining a body positive space will keep you encouraged and engaged. Oh, and her students should always be prepared for a nerdy joke or two.

Amy Anderson

Teacher

Amy first discovered the physical benefits of yoga in 2004. But it was in 2010, when she found herself closing a difficult chapter of her life, that she discovered yoga for emotional healing. That was when she knew yoga would be a part of her life forever.

Amy dedicated herself to take a year to go inward, dig deep, and find restoration. She was determined to attract the love and life she knew existed for her. Step one was learning to love herself. She committed to take herself on a weekly date night every Friday. It always started with a Hatha yoga class at a local yoga studio in Carrboro NC, led by instructor/owner Ti Harmony.

He had a warm style that both soothed and strengthened her. Next came sushi and a movie at home with her beloved orange tabby cat, Jimmy (a tuna sashimi guy).

In Aug 2011, Amy took a three month sabbatical from her job with a Fortune 500 healthcare company. She fulfilled a long time dream come true, and went to Spain, where she blogged about her travels. She hiked 100 miles of the Camino de Santiago, attended language school, and made new friends from all over the world.

The freedom she enjoyed in Spain inspired her to pursue her passions. In 2012, Amy left her nearly 10 year corporate career and completed a 200 hour yoga teacher training immersion at Asheville Yoga Center. After obtaining her 200 hour YTT, Amy taught Vinyasa, all levels, and restorative yoga.

In 2015, Amy returned to the healthcare industry in marketing. Due to long days in the office, Amy’s yoga practice sometimes took place between meetings, in an empty cubicle across the aisle. When COVID led to an overwhelming workload, she turned to mindfulness and yoga to reduce stress. When there was no time to step on the mat, yoga had a way of meeting Amy right where she was.

By 2021, Amy left her position in healthcare marketing to reconnect with her family and pursue freelance writing. But the years of long hours and job stress left Amy with persistent TMJ, neck, and shoulder issues. Amy worked with a Physical Therapist for exercises to relieve her pain. At home, Amy adapted these exercises for her yoga practice. The notable improvements in her neck and shoulder pain inspired Amy to return to teaching yoga.

Amy weaves into her unassuming teaching style, the essence of her life experiences:

If you fall or mess up – get up and start again
Show up – even if that means doing what you can, when you can
Listen to your body – Make your practice your own

Now a wife and late-in-life mom of two young children, Amy relies on her yoga practice for strength, energy, and centeredness. She can be found most days vacuuming crumbs out of her backseat and dwelling in gratitude for the family and love she believed in all those years ago. Besides yoga, she also loves seeing live music with her husband, writing, reading, and visiting the NC High Country and the Forgotten Coast beaches of northwest FL.

We are honored to share our incredible array of teachers, from many schools of yoga. Each teacher is encouraged to bring their own unique style and personality to the studio and to teach from an authentic place.

What people are saying

Meet Our Teachers

Mandy Roberts

Amanda Burtch

Shonali Banerjee

DeKeely Atkins

Marck Maroun

Alisa Lewis

Misty McClain

Kate Smith

Katie May

Madison Best

Rebecca Moulton

Jenn Cook

Desirée Nathanson

Amy Anderson

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