Meet Your Ohmmies

Meet the yoga instructors of Om Grown!

Sydney Nowak

After completing her RYT200hr with Yoga with Heart, Sydney taught yoga in central KS for several years before returning to the Baldwin City area. She is currently working towards her RYT500hr and is enjoying diving deeper into Ayurveda and Yoga Nidra. You can find Sydney on Tuesday nights teaching Yoga for Stress Relief and occasionally popping in to help out with other classes such as Yin and Rise and Shine.

Gopi Sandal

Gopi has been practicing yoga for over 45 years and teaching for over 30 years. She has studied the technique of B.K.S Iyengar as well as other eclectic styles of hatha-yoga. Gopi spent ten years studying and practicing Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of devotion, in the ashram of A.C. Bhakivedanta Swami Prabhupada in London and in India and continues to incorporate this practice into her lifestyle and teaching.

Jai Radhika

Jai Radhika journeyed to India in 2015 where she met Radhanath Swami, author of “The Journey Home” and “The Journey Within”, and became his student. Later that same year, she completed her CYT500 yoga teacher training in the Bhakti tradition under the tutelage of Gopi Sandal and her “Yoga with Heart” program. In 2017, she escaped a successful corporate career to become a serious student of Bhakti. A servant of Srimati Radharani, she is a scholar of the ancient wisdom texts of India. Her aim is to more fully implement the teachings and philosophy into the western yoga community to encourage the spiritual revolution started by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. She sees what happens on the mat as preparation for the true yoga adventure. We all come to yoga for our own reasons, but it is yoga’s ability to come off the mat and enhance all areas of our lives that really feeds us. Whether boulder hopping up Pikes Peak, breathing up the Manitou Incline, dodging trees on a mountain bike, flowing in the kayak, or grounding through life's storms; yoga is there. And through it all, on and off the mat, there exists the thrilling dance with the divine.Come for the asana...stay for the dance.

Ananda Baron

Ananda (RYT500) is a practicing yogi of 20+ years. Her yoga journey began like many other Westerners; she practiced to relieve stress and stay active while raising children and working the corporate grind. After her first class she was hooked for life. She spent many years studying the hot yoga 26 & 2 sequence, Ashtanga primary series, and traditional Hatha before she was encouraged to share her practice with others as a guide. She is a student of Gopi Mata Devi Dasi as well as a graduate from the Academy of Vedic Arts in Maharashtra, India.

Ananda offers a variety of classes at Om Grown Studio. She regularly volunteers with the Hospice where she offers spiritual care to the dying and their loved ones. She enjoys traveling to India and other parts of the world, vegetarian cooking, forest preservation, and implementing Bhakti yoga into everyday life.

Lora Rimmer

Lora is a registered teacher with Yoga Alliance who has been living and teaching health and wellness for over 30 years. She began practicing yoga regularly in 2011 as a way to find physical, mental and emotional balance in her life as a mother, wife and career soldier. She completed her first 200-hr yoga teacher training in 2015 and began teaching classes in Baldwin City, Kansas in 2016. Lora completed an additional 500 hours of teacher training in September 2018 with Gopi Sandal and her Yoga with Heart program (rooted in the Bhakti Yoga tradition) in Lawrence, Kansas. Lora's yoga education and training includes a wide variety of asana practices (Astanga, Hatha, Iyengar, Vinyasa, Yoga for Athletes and Yin) as well as practices in mindfulness techniques and breathing practices. Lora retired from the US Army in January 2016 and, through yoga, continues to serve others. “So many of us struggle to find balance in our lives. Between work, family and the never-ending stimulus of technology, we find it increasingly difficult to unplug and recharge ourselves. The process of yoga, which includes asana (poses), philosophy and pranayama (breath) gives us a way to find that balance we so desperately need.” She co-owns Om Grown Yoga Collective with Sandy Chapman and in collaboration with other yoga teachers who are focused on bringing movement, mindfulness and breath into the local community.

Sandy Chapman

Sandy sought yoga as a way to counterbalance the stress of a corporate job and quickly discovered what felt like the missing pieces of life's puzzle. After many years of studying under Gopi Sandal, Sandy completed the Yoga with Heart 500 hour teacher training. She enjoys exploring the many different paths of yoga and has pursued studies in Ayurveda, the sister science of yoga, with Maya Tiwari, BalaRam Chandra Das, and Cate Stillman; is a certified EnergyMedicine Yoga Instructor with Lauren Walker; and a Reiki Level 2 Healer. The practices of Yoga and Ayurveda have provided a framework to meditate the polarities of modern day and be a collaborator with life. She is co-owner of OmGrown Yoga Collective with Lora Rimmer and in collaboration with other yoga teachers who are focused on bringing the many practices of yoga into the local community.

Mary Kirkendoll

Through various work and personal experiences, Mary has seen and experienced the need for quiet time and focus on emotional & physical wellbeing. She completed an 800-hour massage training at the Wellspring School of Allied Health and has been certified to offer Lomi Hanamana from a teacher in Maui, Hawaii. This style of massage combines deep pressure techniques alongside the beautiful flowing style of Lomi Lomi Hawaiian massage. She has recently completed an Ashiastu course to offer other techniques for deeper work as needed although sees the value in offering a gentle restorative touch as much as possible. Mary has a doctorate from the University of Kansas and is a certified yoga instructor.

Class Descriptions