Instructors
Melanie St. Georges
Owner/Instructor
Melanie began her Yoga practice in her mid-forties and became a Yoga teacher 13 years ago. She took her first four trainings with Jimmy Barkan and received her 500-hour ERYT in Barkan Method of Hot Yoga. Over the years she has also followed Kelly Green with the Empower Movement Shift Series and has taken 4 of her trainings, plus many of her workshops. Although, like many Americans, she was mainly interested in Vinyasa, when she discovered Yin Yoga in 2012, she realized that she absolutely needed the balance it provided her. She took two additional Yin Trainings, and that has become her main focus while teaching.
She now teaches Yin and Yin Yang classes but continues to honor her lineage once a week by teaching the Barkan Method at her Albuquerque studio. She has taught over 5,000 classes at Blissful Spirits since she opened the Albuquerque Studio in 2009. In 2012 She also opened her Rio Rancho Studio and enjoys teaching there as well. In 2017 she partnered with Denise Gonzales and began Blissful Spirits Teacher Training, and together they have trained many of Blissful Spirits, and Albuquerque’s Yoga teachers. As she enters into her sixties Melanie has slowed down her teaching style and tries to make classes that work for everyBODY and every age. When Melanie opened Blissful Spirits, she simply wanted to help change other people's lives the way hers was changed when she discovered Yoga. The strength of the community created by the beautiful Blissful teachers and students inspires her gratitude and commitment every day
Denise Gonzales
Owner/Instructor
Denise was able to heal many aspects of her life through her yoga practice. During her 200hr Hot Yoga training in 2011, she decided to take a leap of faith and leave the career path she had been on to pursue her teaching, in hopes of spreading the positive message yoga carries. Because she had begun her yoga journey at Blissful Spirits she was pleased to receive a position teaching for Melanie St. Georges. Since then she has been trained in Level II/III asana by both The Barkan Method and The Yoga Joints Empowermovement Advanced Yoga teacher trainings.
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Denise values the ability to give back to her community through yoga. Through her relationship with Blissful Spirits she has been able to partner with many teachers and studios in the Albuquerque area coordinating yoga festivals and yogathons to help raise awareness and funds for many organizations aiding both children and adults in need.
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Recently Denise was named Abq the Magazines 2017’s “Best Yoga Instructor”. Although Denise is still just as much a student today as she was the moment she began her journey as an instructor she is eager to share the knowledge she does have with her students at Blissful Spirits both in her group classes and Teacher Trainings. While she enjoys many styles of yoga, you can catch her practicing and teaching hot vinyasa any given day of the week. Feel free to join her for a fun filled flow.
Elena Saint-Lot
Instructor, RYT 200hr
Elena believes that true health and joy is achieved through comprehensive care of the body, mind, and spirit. Elena leads her yoga classes with an open heart and welcomes students from all walks of life, in all stages of their practice, to join her in a mutual pursuit of balance and love. She particularly enjoys guiding fellow yogis in Yin, Yin Yang, and Vinyasa practices. Elena is a 200-hour Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT-200) with Yoga Alliance.
Talal Saint-Lot
Instructor, RYT 200hr
Talal has been an active athlete his entire life participating in organized competitive basketball, soccer, volleyball, Shotokan karate, water polo, and triathlon racing. He grew an interest in the benefits of meditation, breathing, and stretching while training and was introduced to yoga by his wife, Elena. Yoga has become the centerpiece and foundation of Talal’s active lifestyle ever since he checked into his first yoga class. Talal believes that yoga is more than a personal journey through which one grows awareness of the connection existing between the mind, body, and breath it is also a process of transforming the self-identity and way of interacting with the world. Talal understands that humanity faces the threat of growing socioeconomic inequality, a deteriorating natural environment, and a disjointed society. He feels that he can help counteract this by sharing yoga with others and contributing toward growing the universal human connection to one another, nature, and the world.
Jade King
Instructor, RYT 200hr
Jade has been practicing yoga for nearly 10 years now. She is a childhood cancer survivor and began her yoga journey after struggling with scoliosis and chronic back pain for years. She took her first 200-hour yoga teacher training in 2015, and her second training at Blissful Spirits in 2019.
Jade loves not only the physical benefits but also the mental and spiritual benefits as well and loves having the opportunity to share the healing of yoga with others.
She understands from experience that everybody is different and her main goal as an instructor is to provide a safe space for people with all body types and abilities to practice.
Outside of yoga Jade works as a veterinary receptionist/technician and in her spare time enjoys knitting, baking, and playing piano.
Stephanie Candelaria
Instructor, RYT 200hr
Coming Soon!
Brianna Tapia
Instructor, RYT 200hr
Brianna Tapia has always been passionate about physicality and self-healing. Brianna grew up dancing folklorico, ballet, and hip-hop. After high school, she danced semi-pro and completed her degree in physical therapy. Although she loved the creative and intuitive aspects of dance as well as the therapeutic techniques she was learning through physical therapy she still felt a sense of lack in personal and professional life. Brianna began practicing hot yoga on a whim for the first time in 2015 and realized this was the mental connection she was unknowingly craving. It took Brianna 3 years after that to find Blissful Spirits Hot Yoga. Blissful amplified her love for yoga, and she started to feel a strong desire to share what she had learned through yoga with others.
Completing her RYT 200 in 2020, Brianna proclaims herself to be a forever student. Particularly passionate about the mental health benefits that yoga has to offer and linking mindfulness/meditative techniques taught in yoga to everyday life. Her goal is to guide each student into a headspace where they can connect with their inner world and discover that they truly are their best teachers and healers on and off the mat.
Daniel Friedlander
Instructor, RYT 500
Daniel found his way to yoga back in 2009. A lifelong athlete competing in wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, boxing, and kickboxing he was drawn to the physical asanas of a yoga practice. Six years in and only viewing it as a physical practice a way to become more “flexible” but after a life-altering tragedy, it was the many other gifts yoga offers you that had Daniel wondering what else he could learn from YOGA.
Yoga has provided Daniel peace and calm in a hectic world. Meditation and daily practice have helped him to cope with depression, anxiety, and grief and now he is passionate to help others see the many gifts a yoga practice can provide someone’s life. His goal is for his students to find a place of calm and presence in the NOW by being mindful of their breath and body! Pausing the external stimulus for the practice and allowing a moment to just BE. Breaking a sweat with a smile on your face. When he’s not in yoga he’s running a small business with his family and always searching in ways he can help his community or grow as an individual. Come check out a class with Daniel!
Pam Hong
Instructor, RYT 200
Pam Hong has been studying and practicing various styles of yoga, including Iyengar and Ashtanga since 1993, and teaching since 2003. Her flow-based, qigong inspired classes are infused with imaginative sequencing, blending fluid movement with spacious breathing and enhanced by skilled, hands-on adjustments. Students are encouraged to journey through their practice with compassion, attention, enthusiasm and grace. Pam has completed Levels I–III Teacher Training with Tias Little of Prajna Yoga in Santa Fe and has additional trainings with Manju Jois, Richard Freeman, James Cardinale (Ashtanga Primary Series), Linda Spackman (Prenatal Yoga), Zubin Schroff (Spiritual Justice, Yoga for People of Color), Joe Barnett (Functional Anatomy) and Marisol Brito (Anusara). She teaches Ashtanga, Vinyasa Flow & Qi Flow Yoga to groups of all levels at studios, health clubs and community centers in the Albuquerque area, and also offers private/semi-private instruction. Pam has presented at the Albu querque Yoga Gathering, Nomadic Yoga Festival and Santa Fe Yoga Festival, co-leads semi-annual yoga retreats at Bodhi Manda Zen Center in Jemez Springs, co-leads an annual yoga retreat in Kauai, Hawaii, offers specialty workshops and teacher trainings, and was involved in the organizing committee for the Yoga for People of Color Sangha in Albuquerque.