About Us
Embrace Yoga is committed to preserving the essence of traditional yoga by offering a unique variety of classes you won’t find anywhere else. Located in downtown San Rafael, our studio provides in-person and livestream options for all ages and levels, making authentic yoga accessible to everyone.
Discover the timeless practice of yoga in a supportive and welcoming space!
Fun Fact! Our historic building was Marin's first movie theater, the Lyric. Today, we're neighbors with the Rafael Theater, San Rafael's beloved independent cinema.
Our Instructors
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Beth Toomey
Owner & Yoga Instructor teaching teen classes including Hatha, Vinyassa and yin/restorative yoga. She integrates music and harmony, and balance and flow. She feels that if you challenge yourself just beyond your limits, your dreams are within your reach, that much more attainable. She likes to share her learnings with teens and young adults as an alternative way to deal with the pressure of being a young person in this challenging society. Beth also teaches chair yoga for the City of San Rafael.
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Karen Kukula
Iyengar Yoga Instructor – Karen is known for precise and detailed instruction. Her classes are designed so that all students feel comfortable moving into any posture. She brings years of Iyengar Yoga training, Zen meditation and yoga sutra study to create a unique, engaging experience. Karen has been teaching in Marin for over 30 years.
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Heather Piper
Core Fusion & Yin Fusion Instructor – Heather grew up a professional figure skater on the east coast. She has been practicing and teaching Hatha, Vinyasa, Pilates, Meditation and Therapeutic Yoga for over 25 years after discovering their healing benefits. Heather leads a heart felt, anatomy driven practice, sprinkled with humor and joy. She has advanced degrees in Kinesiology and Special Education. As a physical therapist, she focuses on teaching therapeutic yoga and recovery therapy (Roll Model Method) to professional athletes, the Zen community at Green Gulch, as well as those going through detox/recovery
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Susan Cohen
Heart Flow Alignment Instructor - Susan Cohen, a certified yoga instructor and yoga therapist, has been teaching since 2000 and practicing for over 25 years. She completed her initial yoga teacher training at the Sivananda Vedanta Centre in India, followed by advanced Anusara Yoga teacher training in New York City, with continued studies in Kripalu, Ashtanga, Chakra Yoga, Vinyasa, and Restorative styles. Her heart-centered, alignment-based classes blend strength, nourishment, and mindful presence.
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Suraya Keating
Gentle Yoga & Meditation Instructor - Suraya Susana Keating, RYT, has been teaching yoga since 2004, and practicing yoga for over 25 years. Suraya’s classes are heart-centered and eclectic, emphasize deep listening to the body and breath as key sources of healing and well-being, and draw from her studies in Anusura, Bhakti Nova Yoga School, and other yoga schools. Suraya weaves into each class a core theme or inquiry that aims to gently open doors of exploration, self-love and wisdom
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Adriana Cerundolo
Adriana is a sound healer, kundalini yoga teacher, and 7Directions Dance Ceremony facilitator. She believes that embodied alignment to self and spirit is integral to the future of humanity and the Earth, and creates experiences with sound, breath, and movement to regulate the nervous system and expand awareness.
Adriana is certified in sound healing from the Globe Institute of Sound and Consciousness, holds a teaching certificate from the Kundalini Research Institute. -
Clara Gray
Functional Strength Training and Hatha Yoga Instructor – Clara loves to embrace Yoga as therapy for the mind and body, integrating mindfulness into her practice and teachings, while offering Yoga as a tool to help balance life’s daily challenges. Her classes are strengthening and challenging yet fun and witty. You will leave with a new sense of awareness.
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Patricia Sullivan
Patricia’s teaching expresses a depth and breadth that arise from over 45 years of teaching and practice and draws from a broad study of yoga traditions, Zen Buddhist practice, and her artwork. Her exploration of yoga began in 1971 and she studied on three occasions in India with the Iyengar’s in the 1980’s. Before embarking on her own independent studies, she taught Advanced Studies (teachers-in-training) at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco throughout the 1990’s. She leads many local retreats
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Susan Quigley
Susan Quigley teaches Mindful Movement Hatha on Monday mornings. Susan's class will incorporate mindful movement with alignment principles set to soulful music to support you in building strength, flexibility, and presence. This Hatha class will start with a few minutes of quiet meditation and end with a longer period to allow any new openness and awareness to anchor within you.
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Erika Belanger
Alignment Based Vinyasa Instructor and Yin/Restorative teacher- Erika’s classes uses breath and alignment to bring you somewhere new each time. Through mind-body connection, she encourages you to find a little extra self-love. Her Yin/Restorative classes lead you into the deep muscle tissue stretching and leave you feeling restored and rejuvenated. She frequently offers Therapy Ball workshops for deep self-massage therapy.