Amy is a seasoned yoga practitioner who began practicing in the late 1970's. A Nashville native, she grew up with a yogini/artist Mom, and a grandmother who practiced to the “ Richard Hittleman” yoga albums and was reading Emerson, Krishnamurti, and Thoreau in the 1930's. Amy's dad, Rev. Bill Barnes, also a Nashville native, is a Methodist minister who was a Civil Rights Activist in the 1960's and is a life long servant and instigator of social justice.
The seeds of yoga took hold early in Amy's life. Yoga is a large part of who she is, not just what she does. Amy's own teachers are many, but the most influential are: Julie Russell (Mom), June LaSalvia, Erich Schiffman , Gayna Uransky, Richard Freeman, Sharon Gannon & David Life, Shiva Rea, and most recently, Saul David Raye. Jai Uttal has been her Bhakti Yoga inspiration for the last several years.
With the blending of asanas (postures), kriyas (intentional action), pranayama (breath awareness/extension), dhyana (meditation), & kirtan (chanting the divine name), Amy's classes and workshops provide a wholistic model for students to experience awakening, a sense of peace and well being within and in their daily lives.
Embodying a playful, passionate, and energetic teaching style, Amy encourages students' inner curiosity, listening, spontaneity, and exploration of one's unique experience…opening to the possibilities of living fully in the dance of our human and divine nature.
Amy teaches from a life richly lived, drawing on her background in the arts, theatre, dance, and music. She facilitated therapeutic body work for 12 years which lead into her 4 year psychotherapy training. She is a certified (body centered) psychotherapist and worked with individuals, couples, & groups in Boulder, Colorado for several years.
Amy discovered the magic of KIRTAN, singing with Dave Stringer at Yoga Source Nashville in 2000, and has been passionately exploring the practice and mystery of Bhakti Yoga ever since. She has been devotedly studying with her teacher Jai Uttal for the past several years, allowing Bhakti Yoga and devotional service to become the center point of her creative and spiritual life. She currently leads a kirtan band called Samavayah.
Ode to June:
My first yoga teacher, June LaSalvia, was and is one of the greatest forces of love I have ever known. I had the great good fortune to meet her when I was a young girl. She was one of my mother's best friends and I reaped some of the gifts of their closeness. She seemed to take me under her wing, to shine the light on me in such a special way, that it made me feel like I could do anything in this world that was in my heart to do. She taught yoga from a place of freedom, creativity, and grace. She filled her guidance and encouragement with so much love; no one could help but open and grow in her presence. She saw clearly into the souls of others, and wanted the most for the people that she loved. She touched many. Our yoga dances were some of the most amazing shakti & joy filled experiences I can remember from that time. She strongly nudged me into teaching yoga way before I would have ever entered on my own and therefore planted a seed of courage and risk taking ability within me. Her way of touching us during savasana has never left me. I have rarely missed teaching a class when I didn't feel her streaming through my hands as I moved around the room in silence, touching blissful bodies, sharing that gift that she gave us all. I am forever grateful to have known her and to feel her still, so present in my heart and life.
