Our Teachers

Christine Burke, Liberation Yoga Founder and Director

Christine is the co-owner of Liberation Yoga and author of The Yoga Healer and The Power of Breath and Yoga: Pranayama and Mudras for Health and Wellbeing. At the age of 8 she remembers remember thinking that the "now" was very important. That each moment was a tiny universe and would never happen again. Throughout her life she has been searching, and has always felt most comfortable, when asking the big questions of life while fully immersed in the small moments of existence. Yoga is a practice that allows her to live life as a quest, a magical journey and the gift of sharing that with others is Christine's eternal good fortune.

She stepped into Yoga as an actress and former dancer in New York at Jivamukti Yoga and was enthralled by the practice as taught by David Life and Sharon Gannon.  She studied there as well as Integral Yoga and Om Yoga until moving to Los Angeles in 1994. There, Christine met her husband to be (Gary McCleery) who introduced her to Center For Yoga (pre-Yoga Works) where she became a general manager alongside Gary and began teaching in 1999 and received her certification from CFY in 2000. She is an ERYT with Yoga Alliance at the 500+ hour level with thousands of hours of teaching and training teachers under her waistband.   Christine has been influenced, inspired and challenged by Ana Forrest, Edward Clark (Tripsichore), Marla Apt, Paul Cabanis, Patricia Walden, Jill Miller, Darren Main, Ganga White, Tracey Rich, Jai Dev and all the teachers at Liberation. Her main influences are her husband, daughter Clementine, dog Gingy, her students, friends, mother and father and all of her incredible family. She bows in gratitude for the place of Mother Nature poets, musicians and artists in her life.

Christine's students range in age from womb to 93. Her writing has been featured, among others, in LA Yoga magazine and Yogi Times, her teaching has been featured in the LA Times, LA Weekly, Yogi Times, LA Yoga magazine and on the online program Great Yoga Teachers, and more. Christine was a yoga consultant to Eddie Bauer from 2008 to 2011.

She is the director of Liberation’s 200 Teacher Training program and teaches the yoga curriculum at Marlborough School. She has just completed her 2nd book, The Power Of Breath and Hand Yoga: Pranayama and Mudras For Health and Wellbeing, which is due out in Spring of 2019. She is the founder and teacher of “The Spiritual Mental Health Diet”—an online program for cultivating a healthy joyful lifestyle as the foundation of your best life.

Christine believes that through the healing and transformation that a yoga practice provides, each individual comes to experience the magical and beautiful nature of their true selves, and come to know that it is founded in love and peace. The world cannot help but be positively affected by such a discovery, one person, one breath at a time.

Lokah Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu~

Pia Artesona | Pia Artesona is originally from The Bronx, New York. She was introduced to Yoga 20 years ago and was drawn to the calm and centered space it allowed her to create within. Once she discovered Breathwork, it took her whole life to another level of healing and growth. She has over 1000 certified hrs of training in various modalities including Bhakti, Hatha, Kundalini, Vinyasa flow, Pranayama, and Ecstatic Breathwork She has used yoga and pranayama in her healing practice for over a decade to help clients release trauma, negative thought patterns, and develop a healthy and balanced personal connection with themselves.

Johnny Asuncion | Johnny aspires to be of service and share his love of Yoga with fellow Yogis and athletes. Johnny took his 200 hour Teacher Training at Liberation Yoga, a process that he credits as one of the most instrumental events in informing his spiritual and physical health. In addition, he has studied separate Yin and Restorative training modules. As a lifelong student of the Martial Arts, it was a natural transition into Yoga; however, the sometimes grueling demands of the Martial Arts left him a variety of nagging physical injuries, of which he was able to manage and promote healing through his Yoga practice. It is with Intuitive knowledge that he teaches his classes, a blend of challenging Vinyasa followed by a Yin/Restorative cool down. He is honored to be teaching classes at his home studio Liberation Yoga.

Jenny Eakes | A health coach, former Radio City Rockette, and Certified Stott Pilates instructor, Jenny discovered yoga in 2007 and began offering sequences to her Pilates classes to incorporate more breath and flow. Yoga stole her heart, and in 2010 she made it official and became a RYT through Yogaworks, followed by a certification in prenatal yoga through Juliette Kurth at Silverlake Yoga in 2015. Then, in 2016, Jenny walked into Christine Burke’s morning class at Liberation Yoga and found home. With an emphasis on alignment, Jenny guides students through a meditative flow that strengthens the body, encourages breath, and nurtures a sense of calm.

Steven Espinosa | Steven is a former professional dancer who has performed in theatre, films and music videos for artists such as Prince, Sheila E., and Weird Al Yankovic. The highlight of his 15 year career came when he toured with the legendary Sammy Davis Jr. from 1987 to 1990. Following his dance career, Steven discovered yoga and began teaching in 2000. He has led numerous workshops, retreats and teacher trainings. In 2004, Steven taught in Berlin, Germany and in 2010 helped start up YogaGlo, a successful online yoga company in Los Angeles. With his heart-oriented approach to yoga, combined with a deep understanding of alignment, therapeutics and philosophy, Steven's highest hope is to inspire and empower students to remember the true teacher lives within their own heart. Steven is also a produced playwright, an award winning filmmaker and creator of a hit vaudeville show which ran in Los Angeles for two years. In 2020, he sold his first film script to a major television network. Steven is grateful to all of his mentors and is thrilled to join the wonderful staff of teachers at Liberation Yoga again.

Mark DeWhitt | Mark found yoga in 1998 after many years of work-related repetitive strain injuries. Amazed by it's restorative capabilities, he left the corporate world and got certified through The Center for Yoga in 2003. In 2004, he started BalanceWork Yoga and Massage, helping corporate employees manage job stress and injuries. Drawing inspiration from Iyengar, Anusara, and other forms of movement therapy, he focuses on teaching healthy alignment and biomechanics in his nurturing classes. Mark also teaches anatomy to Liberation teacher trainees, is a Certified Massage Therapist, and is currently working toward his certification in Integrative Craniosacral Unwinding and Somatic Experiencing.

Pagan George | Hatha Yoga-Qi-Gung-Meditaion Teacher, Energy Healer, Co-Founder SoLA food Co-op

Pagan George allows for play to be his guiding principle. Whether exploring the deep realms of the body or opening into a new space of consciousness. It's all a process of remembering. Remembering your innate powers that can be accessed through the open receptive field of play. Having fun with the interconnected energies that are woven through all internal disciplines. Pagan is the co-founder of SoLA an organization dedicated to bringing a natural food co-op to South Los Angeles.

Sarah Hemphill | I discovered yoga in 1995 at Integral Yoga in NYC. I fell in love immediately—the chanting, the incense, the breathing. It was a respite from the city and my high-stress job in publishing. Unexpectedly, it also began to alleviate my chronic lower-back pain. I was hooked.

In 2003, I moved to LA and completed my first teacher training at The Center for Yoga (now Yoga Works) with Diana Beardsley, with whom I apprenticed and studied Anusara yoga. I've been teaching ever since. I’m drawn to the process of alignment-based yoga because of the way that it heals and resets the body, and cultivates sensitivity and awareness in the mind. My classes focus on balancing commitment (tapas) with contentment (santosha), by connecting to self study (svadhyaya). We work deeply to develop a refined internal observance, listening and responding to whatever challenges a pose presents. Sometimes going deeper; other times, pausing and recalibrating. The breath is the key. My typical class might include a theme, mudras, and pranayama as we work toward a peak pose or series of poses.

I continue to take workshops and trainings so that I can learn more ways to share this amazing practice with students. I'm honored to have been at Liberation Yoga since its beginnings.

Lizette Romero | Lizette Romero is a trained practitioner specializing in Sound and Energy healing. She is also qualified as a Reiki Master. As a meditator and student of the quantum field, she contacts it and channels support in the form of harmonic waves. Sound is a powerful tool used to realign human frequencies and to create balance in the body.