Our Teachers

Leah Nichols, CIYT, CIAYT

I started yoga at age 26, because sitting quietly was never going to be in my wheelhouse. I flunked seated meditation class. The benefits of meditation (reduce stress, relieve anxiety, center myself, find a little serenity…) were inaccessible to me. Then someone suggested yoga. It worked. Yoga has led to all of these benefits and many more.

But I had little intelligence or knowledge about my body. My first yoga class intrigued me. My second one, an Iyengar Yoga class, moved me. I left that class feeling clearer, calmer. It may sound cheesy to say it but I felt more like myself. Not the “self” I show to the world through performing or daily interactions with others. But my real self — the deepest part of me. The feeling made me want to come to the next class, so I did. And kept going for the next 24 years. Before long, I started practicing on my own. I’m 50 now – more serene (on most days), stronger, sharper, and a nicer person than I was 24 years ago. All because of yoga.

This journey has been the most adventurous and exciting of my life. In 2006, I started Evergreen Yoga Center because I wanted to create a welcoming environment that challenges each person according to her/his capacity. Yoga begins with the body, but it also speaks to your mind, your emotions & your soul.

After 10 years of teaching yoga, I achieved my certification as an Iyengar Yoga Teacher. This method is taught systematically — and everyone is accepted as they are. From the beginning, each class forms the building blocks for the future challenges. You are taught in a way that enables you to integrate yoga into your life – no matter what your body is like. Everyone is welcome.

I am also a Certified Yoga Therapist. The International Association of Yoga Therapists is establishing yoga as a healing art and science — and is leading the way in integrating yoga as a respected healing modality among the medical community.

Lou Hoyt of Eastern Sun Yoga, has been my weekly teacher and mentor since 1999. She has encouraged me to embrace the questions and develop ways of experimenting in my practice. She has also taught me nuances of teaching yoga. I strive to emulate her qualities of integrity, friendliness, joy, compassion, clarity, consistency and courage.

Randy Just, of BKS Iyengar Yoga Center of Dallas, is another of my teacher-mentors whom I have come to respect. So much so, that I travel regularly to Dallas, New Orleans, Jackson and beyond to study with him. The methodology behind his teaching is grounded in what he has learned from his regular trips in India from the Iyengars themselves. He is a master at teaching teachers. Randy’s grounded technique, his good humor, and his tenacity are among the many reasons why I continue to study with him.

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Tedrah Smothers, CIYT, CYT

Tedrah began her yoga practice in 1987 at Eastern Sun Yoga Studio with Lou Hoyt. She started teaching Iyengar yoga in 1993 to share with others the  journey  of transformation and self knowledge.

She has been a certified Iyengar yoga instructor (according to the standards set out by the Iyengar Yoga National Association of the US & B.K.S. Iyengar) since 2000 — and  earned her Intermediate-Junior 2 certification in 2016.  She also holds a bachelors degree in communications from the University of Memphis. Her community service includes serving as teacher training committee chair for 4 years on the board of the Iyengar Yoga Association of the Southeast.

Tedrah has attended 5 Iyengar national conventions, where she had the great honor to study with B.K.S. Iyengar and his daughter Geeta Iyengar. She has also made the journey to Pune, India to study with the Iyengar family.

Over the years Tedrah has attended workshops and teacher trainings with numerous senior Iyengar certified teachers. Some of these include Manouso Manos, Patricia Walden, Mary Dunn, John Schumacher, Kristin Chirhart, Lee Sverkerson and Karin O’Bannon. Most recently, she attended a week-long, 40-hour intensive with senior Iyengar teacher Lois Steinberg in Champagne-Urbana, Illinois.

Since 2010. she has completed four 50-hour teacher training programs in New Orleans with Karin O’Bannon and Randy Just. Since 2012, Tedrah has been invited to teach in Taipei, Taiwan each summer.. She spends a month there each trip and taught multiple public classes, as well as two 30-hour immersions. Tedrah considers herself a student of yoga, a yoga practitioner as well as a yoga teacher. She lives in midtown with her husband, Kirk and their dog, Cooper.

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Courtney Oliver

A life-long theatre performer and dancer, Courtney began practicing yoga with Leah shortly before the doors opened to Evergreen Yoga Center in 2006.  It soon became evident that yoga was a necessary tool for calmness and mindfulness in her fast-paced life in live theatre. In under two years of practice with Leah, she began teacher training.  In 2009 she started teaching at EYC. She has been teaching at the University Club since 2014.

Yoga not only changed Courtney as a performer, but as a person.  Wound tight emotionally, wild socially, and loose spiritually, her yoga practice opened a door to a safe space that allowed her to ask new or better questions, learn new or deeper truths, and find celebration in her self and her own body.  In every body.

Courtney’s full-time life is as Director of Special Events and Resident Company Member, working as an actor, director, choreographer and fight choreographer (recognized as an actor/combatant through the Society of American Fight Directors). She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Theatre & English from University of Alabama. Courtney operates the photography website, FindMemphis, along with photographer Carla McDonald.

Courtney is beyond honored to return to her first yoga home and encourages people of all ages, sizes, genders, races, and spiritual leanings to come on in unapologetically and uncover the wealth of possibilities available to you in your own skin and heart through the practice of yoga.

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Karla Ingram, CIYT

At the age of 51, in January of 2012 I took my first Iyengar yoga class and I fell in love with the beauty, art and science of the Iyengar yoga method. Iyengar Yoga is based on the teachings of the yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar and is one of the world’s most widely practiced forms, emphasizes correct alignment of all parts of the body within each yoga pose. This precision builds strength and stamina, balance and flexibility, and a new sense of well-being.  His invention of yoga props (now ubiquitous in yoga studios of all styles) revolutionized the art. Instructors modify yoga postures to the needs of specific students using blocks, blankets, belts and other props to allow for a deeper penetration into the postures, as well as a longer stay and a more profound experience.  Achieving meditation in action utilizing the time-tested methods of Iyengar Yoga, students learn to exist fully and vibrantly in the present moment.

In 2013 I was diagnosed with cervical spondylosis and discovered that two of my lumbar disks were fused together with my sacrum. The constant pain had me living on pills and heating pads. Long car rides were out of the question. Doctors suggested a frightening surgery that might not even get rid of all the pain. I am proud to say that it has been years since I took a pain pill, long car rides don’t bother me at all, and I can now do a five-minute headstand! All thanks to Iyengar Yoga!

Lou Hoyt (of Eastern Sun Yoga), along with my other mentor, Tedrah Smothers (of Evergreen Yoga!), helped me pass my Iyengar Teacher assessment, a two year long in-depth study of yoga poses, yoga philosophy, anatomy, and structured teaching, and as of November 10, 2019, I am now a CIYT (Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher) at the Intro 1/2 level. I am continuously updating my teaching skills and study of Iyengar yoga and complete all my required continuing education every year.  Additionally, I have discovered the benefits of “trauma informed yoga” and offer those classes to bring ease and comfort back into the body for anyone recovering from any type of trauma or just wanting a gentle stretching class.

It is my sincerest hope that I can pass along to my students the health benefits of a peaceful mind and fit body through the moving meditation of yoga.

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