Stevi Self
(co-owner)

Stevi Self is a certified yoga instructor and yoga therapist. She has been practicing yoga for 17 years and has been teaching since 1998. She has completed numerous trainings and workshops with extraordinary teachers across the globe including David Swenson, Amy Weintraub, Gary Kraftsow and Vasant Lad. She is co-owner of Southern Star and the co-director of Southern Star's 200 Hour Teacher Training as well as the 300 Hour Inner Peace Yoga Therapy Training.

Stevi brings years of teaching experience and a genuine love for her students to her gentle, prenatal and vinyasa flow yoga classes. Her experience gives her the ability to offer a wide variety of alternatives for the poses making her classes accessible to everyone who is willing to participate. She believes that the breath is the most important aspect of the practice, and for that reason anyone can do yoga even if they can't touch their toes or balance on their hands.

Stevi offers private instruction in yoga asanas, pranayama, meditation, yogic philosophy, and personal yoga therapy (for more information on yoga therapy, see the class schedule and fees page). Stevi is a member of the Yoga Alliance and the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

Betsy Banner

Practice, not perfection, is one of the primary threads woven into Betsy’s two decades of yoga experience. Practicing yoga and present moment mindfulness has enabled her to embrace life’s challenges.

Yoga is an intense of-the-moment experience for Betsy. As a graduate of Southern Star Yoga Center’s Teacher Training based in the Hatha yoga tradition, she focuses on the present moment, in the union of breath and practice, not past experience or future desires. She believes that developing a present minded practice deepens our immediate experience and prepares us for our futures.

Present minded practice is individually unique and self-focused and the studio community provides a supportive body of energy for exploration. Enriching our lives by enjoying our yoga moments together is Betsy’s guiding intention as a member of the SSYC family.

Ann Fisher-Wirth

Ann Fisher-Wirth has practiced yoga for over thirty years, since her children were babies, and has taught yoga for about ten years. For her, yoga has become a source of lasting tranquility and joy, despite experiences of aging or illness, and to offer this path of physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being is why she loves to teach. Her classes in Gentle Yoga and Sundown Yoga combine elements of Hatha, Iyengar, and Yin Yoga. Ann is also a widely published poet, and will be developing workshops in yoga and creative writing. She is honored to be teaching at Southern Star, and was thrilled to complete her 200-hour Teacher Training in May 2011, as part of the first group of students to be certified through Southern Star.

Jennie Lee

Jennie Lee began practicing yoga shortly after the birth of her second child. Amidst the unpredictability and stress of early motherhood, it took exactly one class to completely hook her. Since then, regular practice has been a source of balance and stability and great happiness for her. She recently completed a 200 hour teacher training course with Southern Star Yoga Center and is thrilled to be able to share her love of yoga with others.

Don Mutchler

Don Mutchler has been practicing yoga for many years and just completed Southern Star Yoga Center's 200 Hour Teacher Training. He leads the early morning meditation and yoga classes for donations only and occasionally subs other classes.

Kate Read

Kate began her personal practice of yoga in 2005. She began practicing yoga for the physical benefits while training for the New York Marathon. She soon realized yoga was an integrated system of holistic health, in which the physical and stress reduction benefits of yoga poses are only a part of a much more encompassing quest for self discovery.

She believes yoga is primarily about "the breath", therefore making it accessible to everyone. Through the breath we are increasing and balancing our life force energy, the prana. The five points of yoga, which are proper exercise (asanas), proper breathing (pranyama), proper relaxation (savasana), proper diet (vegetarian) and positive thinking (vedanta or other spiritual paths, buddhism, christianity, etc.) and meditation (dhyana), have been instrumental in helping her find balance and harmony in her life and with the universe. She hopes to share her journey and her knowledge of yoga with others.

In 2009 she received 200 hours of teacher's training (200 RYT) in Vinyasa and Hatha yoga and in 2010 she received 100 hours of teacher's training in "Yoga of Recovery", a program combining yoga and the science of Ayruveda to benefit those working the 12 step program.

Lydia Siniard

Lydia Siniard has been an Oxford resident since 2005. She moved to Mississippi from her hometown Cartersville, Georgia to attend the University of Mississippi where she received a Bachelor of Arts in English. Lydia is a classically trained ballet and modern dancer and has taught ballet, modern, and jazz to students of all ages throughout the North Mississippi area. She is also the founder and co-owner of Hinge Dance Company, LLC where she serves as Artistic Director.

Lydia began practicing yoga in 2008 and found a sense of innate peace from her practice that she had yet to discover. In 2011 she completed her 200-hour yoga teacher training at Etowah Valley Yoga in Cartersville. Lydia is excited for the opportunity to teach at Southern Star and integrate her passions of dance and yoga.