Lona Kovacs, certified yoga instructor, registered yoga teacher with Yoga Alliance RYS-200, ERYT-500, dietary consultant and clinical herbalist, has been practicing and teaching in her community for over twenty years. Lona maintains a daily yoga practice in the Ashtanga tradition. Her yoga practice and training began with Yogi Amrit Desai and holds Certification in Integrated, Kripalu and Amrit Yoga Teaching. Since 2001 Lona has been devoted to Ashtanga Yoga both as a daily practice and as a teacher. She was given the gift of Ashtanga at the beginning of her studies with Shri K. Pattabi Jois, Nancy Gilgoff and Kimberly Dahlmann of the Yoga East community in Portsmouth, NH. Over the last ten years, Lona has studied annually with Nancy Gilgoff, Nicki Doane and Eddie Modestini, Bhavani Maki, David Swenson and this year began annual studies with Sharath Jois, Guruji's grandson and Ashtanga Yoga Lineage holder, with trips to NYC and India. Lona's meditation practice is guided by Buddhist traditions, both in Shambala and her close relationship with local ordained Triratna Buddhist Order members. She devotes her life to the practice of compassion, the study of yoga philosophy, herbal medicine, nutrition and healing.

For eight years, Lona was a primary teacher  at Dover Yoga and teacher/practitioner at Yoga East Studios in New Hampshire. For five consecutive years, Lona also taught at the annual Star Island Yoga Retreat offering a variety of yoga classes and workshops on nutrition, Ayurveda and herbal medicine.

Lona has a four-year certification in Health Education as a dietary consultant and macrobiotic cooking instructor. She apprenticed with a Kushi Institute councilor for ten years, beginning when she was an early teen. She is a Certified Herbalist, having studied with Rosemary Gladstar and with as many herbalists as possible over the last ten years. Lona enjoys spending time learning and exploring clinical and botanical medicine and is working toward professional membership in the American Herbalist Guild. Lona's undergraduate studies resided at Naropa University in Boulder, CO focusing on Traditional Eastern Arts (Yoga, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.) and Environmental Science. Lona also studied for 4 years in the field of nursing including anatomy and physiology, microbiology and pharmacology.  Every aspect of her education over the years contributes to her teaching skills, understanding the body and enhancing her clinical skills in western and eastern medicine. Lona founded Green Lotus Yoga Studio Ashtanga Shala in 2009.

Lona is happily married to her sweetheart, Suddhayu.

Michaela Phaneuf began the Ashtanga practice in 2001 in Berlin Germany. She continued with Yoga East in 2002, trained with O2 Yoga of Portsmouth, Sivanada Yoga Farm of Grass Valley California, where she worked for the teacher training in 2007. She has been teaching since 2005. She believes Ashtanga is a practice that changes lives; she is excited to build a strong community in the Dover area, and encourages new students to practice at home, at the studio and everywhere they can!

Suddhayu developed an interest in Eastern philosophy and meditation as a teenager. In 1992 he attended his first meditation retreat at Aryaloka Buddhist Retreat Center in Newmarket, NH. Soon after, he moved in to the residential community there, where he lived for the next eight years. During this time, he also lived in England for six months where he worked for a Buddhist Right Livelihood project, and attended a four month retreat in the mountains of Spain where he was ordained into the Western Buddhist Order (now the Triratna Buddhist Order). While at Aryaloka, he introduced hundreds of people to the practice of meditation and the teachings of the Buddha. In the new century, Suddhayu married Lona Kovacs and began work as the greenhouse manager for the Flower Company in Kittery, ME. In 2009 he helped expand that business by cultivating the surrounding fields to grow vegetables, thus founding Touching Earth Farm, a CSA responsible for feeding up to seventy households.  Suddhayu is the author of many unpublished poems and a handful of published ones, as well as two unfinished novels. He is very pleased to be a part of Green Lotus Yoga Studio. In 2011, Suddhayu and fellow Triratna Buddhist Order Members opened the Portsmouth Buddhist and Meditation Center - a non-profit organization offering classes on a by-donation basis in Portsmouth, NH.