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Melanie Green


Melanie Green (she/her)

If you are looking for a yoga teacher who will meet you where you are, help you figure out how to honor your body, and allow space for you to be yourself on the mat, come try a class with Melanie. She strives to make yoga accessible to all students. While encouraging students to focus on their breath and sensations she teaches her students to deepen their practice as they understand their bodies. Yoga, at its roots, is a means for liberation. We must always remember it is a gift from India. Melanie values the spiritual aspects of yoga integrated with the asanas as a way to become better humans and to create a more just world. The physicality of the poses are just as necessary as profound inner lessons of yoga: attention to the breath, letting go of thoughts and ego, perseverance through practice, and radical acceptance. In each class, the student is invited to let go and have fun.

Melanie Green is a cis gender queer woman dedicated to social equity in her teaching and life. She continues to learn and grow as a yoga teacher and yoga studio owner and how to best support all peoples. She has been practicing yoga for almost 30 years and teaching since 2000. Her yoga background includes extensive study in Ashtanga. She has also trained in Iyengar, Pre/Postnatal and Vipassna Meditation.

Melanie always finds ways to integrate lessons from her own yoga practice into her daily life with her teenage children and wife. Melanie has also been volunteering her time in recent months to Yoga for Freedom - teaching yoga to previously incarcerated men and women at The Berkeley Yoga Center. For nearly two decades Melanie has volunteered her time teaching yoga to children, teens, and young adults. Melanie also offers wellness/nutritional support, private instruction, and workshops.

Read about Melanie's practice

contact info

melyoga@hotmail.com

The Berkeley Yoga Center
2121 Bonar Street, Studio C
Berkeley, CA 94702

www.berkeleyyoga.com

Melanie's blog

Private Lessons

These appointments are available to any student who is interested in receiving one on one instruction in yoga, nutrition, wellness or cleansing. Private yoga instruction is quite helpful in assisting students who want to deepen their existing yoga practice or for beginning students who want to jump start their yoga practice. Read more.

Testimonials

Melanie is a wise, compassionate, and traditional teacher of Ashtanga yoga.

For years, I searched for a yoga teacher at many studios around town. When I attended my first class with Melanie, I knew immediately that I was in the right place. Many of her students have been practicing with Melanie for decades and there is also a warm welcome for every new student in her classes. I appreciate her modeling of the practice through her own depth of practice and dedication to cultivating a community of yogis. Over the years, Melanie has become much more than a yoga teacher and has also been a powerful mentor as a mother, ally, and human being.

Kayoko Yokoyama

She can look at bodies and know what it is that they need.

I have studied yoga for several years with many different teachers. No person that I have studied with comes close to the authenticity, knowledge, or highly-individualized attention that Melanie provides. She was the first person to introduce me to Ashtanga, and over several years has helped me safely progress into the Intermediate Series. She can look at bodies and know what it is that they need: specifically, she knew what adjustments and postural corrections would help me heal from a spinal injury. Melanie has also been my guide through the practices of meditation and the study of yoga philosophy. Even though I live in another part of the country now, I still make a point to come back and study with her in the Bay Area. I can't recommend her enough.

Rev. Lucas Hergert

Melanie brings all 8 limbs of Yoga into her teaching

Having practiced with Melanie for the past 5 years, I have come to see what an exceptional teacher she truly is. Melanie embodies Mindful living and presence, not just on the mat and in her classes, but also in her life. The Ashtanga Practice is the container for her teaching and our learning and through her guidance and skillful adjustments, we experience our own strength, awareness and limitations. Her teachings go beyond the basic poses or asanas - Melanie brings all 8 limbs of Yoga into her teaching- and our minds and spirits benefit as well as our bodies. What stands out most about Melanie is not just that she is a truly gifted yoga teacher, but her deep and sincere love for her students and the sense of community she creates where everyone is welcome and accepted as they are and through this supportive environment, we learn to do the same for ourselves and others.

Susan Ono Mochizuki

Melanie is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of teacher.

She has a warm and open teaching style, a deep and authentic understanding of yoga, and a genuine love for teaching that shines through every moment of class with her. I've recommended Melanie's classes to friends and family with varying levels of experience with yoga, from new beginner to those with an established practice, and each time people are so grateful to have found her class and immediately recognize how uniquely gifted she is as a teacher. Yoga can be life changing physically and mentally but it can also feel intimidating -- one of Melanie's many gifts is her ability to translate the vigorous Ashtanga practice for all levels of students, making it accessible to all. Melanie has been my most treasured teacher for over 16 years, but whether you are a long time yogi or brand new to this practice, she will make you feel like you are exactly where you belong.

Chaghig Minassian Walker

Yoga with Melanie has been one of the most solid and dependable things in my life.

I’ve been practicing yoga with Melanie Green for almost 15 years. I started with her prenatal yoga, then postnatal yoga and continued to do so with my second pregnancy. For years I attended just her Tuesday beginning Ashtanga class. I continued with that basic class, learning to listen to my body and my breath. When asked to have a beginner’s mind, I didn’t resist. It felt good to go back to the beginning again and again and as Melanie says “return to the breath.” After about 10 or 12 years, I decided to push myself a little further, adding a second, a third and eventually a fourth class each week. I have attended two of her retreats. Yoga with Melanie has been one of the most solid and dependable things in my life, a commitment to the spirit and the physical body….and a commitment to Melanie. She is a teacher in the deepest sense of the word, guiding us on a path as individual students and as a yoga community.

Jessie Williams

Melanie holds space for all willing to practice yoga in community.

She teaches in the best kind of way; she is a warm demander, constantly asking you to reflect upon your practice, your choices, and ultimately to accept yourself as you continue striving to stretch and know yourself a little better. In this space both comfort and discomfort reside together.

Allison Wren

She is able to work with people’s individual bodies and injuries with care.

Melanie Green is an excellent Ashtanga teacher for all levels, from the newest beginner to students working on the second and third Ashtanga series. I began studying with her in 2007 when she was teaching pre-natal and post-natal yoga, and I continued on into her half- and full-primary classes, and eventually participated in her year-long Immersion program to deepen my practice. Melanie teaches the standard Ashtanga sequences, as taught to her by her teachers and by K. Phattabi Jois, but she is able to work with people’s individual bodies and injuries with care that includes modifications where necessary. This is a rare gift in a tradition where following the proscribed sequence is the path toward deepening one’s yoga practice, and it speaks to Melanie’s compassion and her understanding of the tradition.

Ellen M. Rigsby

It is a privilege practicing with Melanie

After practicing ashatanga yoga in the Bay Area for 10-years and never finding a teacher with whom I clicked, I finally found a home with Melanie Green. I have practiced ashtanga and pre- & postanatal yoga with Melanie over the past year and a half, and can't speak highly enough of her approach to all three styles. I appreciate Melanie's traditional presentation of ashtanga and her clear, direct, and soothing instruction. It is refreshing too, that Melanie does not introduce unnecessary distractions into the studio, such as music or incense, providing instead a minimalist environment that allows one to fully concentrate on the body and breath. Melanie was one part teacher and one part birthing partner during the 6-months of prenatal yoga classes that I attended, and it's true that she followed me in spirit into the delivery room. As a seasoned mother of two, she imparted a certain wisdom about the transition to motherhood that was to me unrivaled by any other source. Her customized stretches and strengthening exercises eased the aches and pains of pregnancy, and helped clear my mind as well. And after my son was born, Melanie's postnatal program worked wonders to smooth the kinks of a body yearning to return to normal. Her reverence for yoga is contagious, but comes with a light touch; for me, it is a privilege practicing with Melanie.

Kerstin Fischer

A yoga teacher for everyone

My Ashtanga journey began with Melanie about 8 years ago and thanks to her has evolved from a merely physical practice to embrace more spiritual elements as more of the Eight Limbs approach. She teaches with such immeasurable grace and equanimity that all things are possible and "all things are coming." Melanie is a truly marvelous teacher - accessible, kind and wonderfully insightful.

Lynn Yamashita

True teacher

I have practiced Ashtanga with Melanie for over two years now. She has been my guide. Truly caring, warm, funny, honest and knowledgeable. Melanie is really a teacher and perfect for all levels of practitioners.

Tom Leaver

My favorite yoga teacher

Melanie's classes are a unique and transformative physical and spiritual journey every time. She offers a consistently fluid and challenging class for all levels of yoga practitioners, creating an open, non-judgmental environment for all to explore their limits. She pays close attention to each student, respecting the limits of each individual body while using safe and accurate adjustments to encourage each to approach his or her edge.

Dzovag Minassian

Travel Blog

February 2019

Melanie is in Mysore, India. Here are her travel blogs:

November - December 2012

Melanie is in Australia, practicing and studying Ashtanga with Dena Kingsburg. Here are her travel blogs:

December 2009 - January 2010

From December 13 thru January 7, 2010, Melanie practiced and studied Ashtanga in Australia with Dena Kingsburg and in New Zealand with Peter Sanson. Here are her travel blogs:

Photos

Photo gallery on Flickr