Dew Yoga is a supportive yoga and meditation center with classes and programs designed to serve anyone wanting to explore the body / mind connection.
Our foundation was built on Kripalu Yoga, the Yoga of Compassion. We embrace and offer teaching from a wide variety of lineages and have evolved to the diversity of the student community. Our teachers besides being highly trained, certified and insured are each loving, sensitive and inspiring individuals.
The collection of Dew Yoga instructors have experience with specialties such as; therapeutic yoga for cancer, for heart disease, athletics, healing from injuries, arts, children, prenatal Yoga, stress reduction and more.
Dew Yoga is empowered by it’s community and every student is treated with honor, respect and love. We recognize that each Yogi that enters our shared space is as unique, integral and vital as the whole of our community. Every drop in the ocean matters and so do you.
Outreach
Our service continues beyond the mat at the studio. We offer classes, lessons and demonstrations throughout Fairfield County.
Our favorite kind of Yoga outreach reaches those who need Yoga the most. We have participated in events as well as raised funds for non-profit organizations such as, DVCC, Domus Kids, Girl Scouts of America, State of Connecticut Mental Health and Addiction Services, The Center, Childcare Learning Centers and more.
We also offer free and donation classes for CT Challenge, Om For Life (Yoga for Cancer survivors) and Y12SR meetings and classes (a complement to 12 step recovery programs)
Why the name, Dew Yoga?
Through the practice of Yoga we can embody transformations as vast and varying as water. From a drop of dew, a rushing river to a vast ocean we are all as powerful and gentle in our transformations as each drop in the ocean.
teachers & staff
Connie Adamcio
yoga instructor
Connie Adamcio began practicing yoga in 2001. Her formal training began at Kripalu in 2003 with a 200-hr certification. She received another 200-hr certification in 2007 from Saraswati‘s Yoga Joint under the teaching of Mitchell Bleier. Over the years she has and continues to study and practice various styles of yoga including; Anusara, Jivamukti, Asthanga, Kripalu, and Vinyasa. Connie’s classes are uplifting and challenging because she believes it is through and in challenge we find peace, empowerment and wisdom. Students often leave her class knowing the beauty and love they possess.
Allison Benzaken
yoga instructor
Allison came to yoga as a continuation of her exploration into eastern arts and philosophy. Training in the martial arts for over sixteen years and earning two black belts from The Dojo, Stamford, her desire to delve deeper in pranayama and begin an asana practice brought her to the mat. She feels most fortunate to have found the gift of yoga and wants to share the joy and mindfulness yoga has brought to her with others. Allison is a (RYT) 500-hour certified yoga instructor, having completed her teacher trainings through Be Shri Yoga/Dew Yoga.
Allison’s teaching style combines her love of yoga with her martial arts and t’ai chi training, making each class fun and unique. She believes it is never too late to try something new and invites you to step out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself by just being present.
Jeff Gallin
yoga instructor
Jeff Gallin received his 500-hr Professional Teaching certification from Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. His personal experience with Parkinson’s Disease led him to delve deeper and deeper into the many layers and benefits of yoga. Yoga is the best part of his day, every day. He believes each of us can use the healing powers of yoga to improve the quality of his/her life. He teaches in alignment with the idea that the individual does not have to adjust to yoga but that yoga has to adjust to the individual, meaning that each person should practice the postures that bring balance to his/her system. He prefers a vinyasa class that includes meditation and breath work, all to focus on the mind. He has taught various class sizes as well as one on one private practices.
Lisa Gifford
yoga instructor
As a former dancer when Lisa hung up her point shoes, she was drawn to the movement practice of yoga (asana), but soon felt the profound shifts of her being with the practice and realized there was so much more.
Lisa has been practicing yoga for 22 years. She is a seasoned practitioner in the yoga disciplines of Astanga, Baptiste, Bikram, Gentle, Iyengar, Restorative and Vinyasa yoga. She completed Baptiste Level 1 teacher training lead by Baron Baptiste, a 200 hour YTT with Yogaview in Chicago, and a 500 hour Advanced YTT with Jason Crandell. Other influential teachers of hers are Erich Schiffmann, Alie McManus and Jen Irwin. She has been teaching yoga for 12 years. She enjoys teaching strong flow Vinyasa classes, but also loves teaching gentle or restorative classes. She loves the duality of yoga..ground to enlighten, energize to soften, center to expand.
Yoga is a practice which facilitates more ease in our existence in this world. Lisa aspires to share the physical asana practice with other yogis in hope that they step off their mats and embody the breath, meditation and movement practice to create more harmony and peace in their daily life and harmony and peace for other living beings.
Jen Irwin
founder & yoga instructor
Jen Irwin is founder of Dew Yoga and Instructor of Yoga, mindfulness and Yoga Teacher Training programs. She discovered Yoga as a complement to healing during a period of physical, mental and emotional collapse.
She received her RYT-200hr certification from Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health and has over 500 additional training hours and ten years of full time teaching experience. She embraces the Kripalu tradition of flowing gently with the rhythms of life from a compassionate perspective that allows us to be unique each and every day.
She has studied Yoga with Kofi Busia, Todd Norian, Nikki Myers and holds the certification for leading Y12SR (Yoga and 12 Step Recovery), Ila and Dinabandu Sarley. Her teachings are influenced by Erich Schiffman, Tias Little, Paul Grilley and BKS Iyengar.
Her meditation teachings are influenced by Jack Kornfield in the Vipassana tradition as well as Zen meditation and Yoga Nidra by Amrit Desai and Integrative Restoration meditation teachings of Richard Miller
She completed her professional 500-hr Yoga Teaching certification with Karen Rider of Be Shri Yoga. She has guided Yoga and Meditation with adults, teenagers, children, adults in recovery, corporate groups, and private clients with specific therapeutic concerns.
Gilly Lusby
yoga instructor
Gilly found yoga during an exercise rut. She started a home practice for fear of looking ‘out of place’ in a public group class. Before long, she realized she had stumbled on something that did more than fulfill her fitness needs but went much deeper. There is no better way to let yoga become part of you than to embark on a teacher training program. In 2018 she went through the truly life-changing experience of 200-hour Yoga teacher training at Dew Yoga led by Jen Irwin and Karen Rider. She longs to share the gifts and energy of yoga with her students, to make her classes fun and creative as well welcoming to anyone fearful of feeling ‘out of place’. She hopes that you leave your mat feeling lighter, cheerful, inspired and ready to tackle whatever life happens to throw at you.
Gilly is proud to be sober. Recovery brings a second chance to find yourself. To use what is inside you to bring you peace, joy and comfort. Yoga is a new way of life.
Gilly’s passionate curiosity about anatomy and movement inspire her to continue her training and complete the Detour-Informed Instructor (Yoga Detour Method) with Cecily Milne, Anatomy & Physiology for Movement Educators with Drew Hume and Anatomy Bites Membership with Libby Hinsley.
Robert Ortner
yoga instructor
Robert‘s approach to the art and science of yoga begins with the phrase "We are our own best teachers." One does not just do yoga, one becomes yoga; it is a lifelong journey that anyone can make. Offering classes and programs that work with the whole person. Placing a strong emphasis on maintenance, promoting health and harmony within the myriad functions of the body for the whole of ones life. Balancing the need for strength and flexibility, stress reduction (aka surviving modern life) and meditation, along with breath work and inner quiet. Drawing from an interdisciplinary yoga background that blends different styles and techniques which allow the body to open and expand throughout its entire range of motion. Offering a strong foundation in yogic essentials, as well as an encouraging and up-beat learning environment that allows each student to practice safely and at their own pace.
*E-RYT-500 Yoga teacher training with Don and Amba Stapleton
*Certified Yoga of the Heart Therapist, with Nischala Joy Devi
*IYT-Integrative Yoga Therapy training with Joesph LePage
*Certified Thai Yoga practitioner and teacher with Jonas Westring.
*Certified Pilate’s mat instructor with Physical Mind.
*Integrated Positional Therapy training with Lee Albert
Ann Russell
yoga instructor
Ann “discovered” yoga as a teen in the ‘70’s. TV gurus Richard Hittleman and Lilias Folan planted the seeds of a life-long exploration. Hatha yoga was included in the curriculum at AADA West and after graduation in 1980, Ann was led to Hari Singh Khalsa in Pasadena to continue her study of yoga in the Kundalini style of Yogi Bhajan. The late ‘90’s brought an exploration of the Ashtanga and Vinyasa styles of practice in San Francisco at “It’s Yoga” with Larry Schultz and Hatha Flow with Darren Main at “Castro Yoga”. Moving to Norwalk, CT in 2000, “Yoga Source” owner Roberta Fortune Dale urged Ann to begin teacher training and invited her to teach at “Yoga Source” in Darien, under Roberta’s knowledgeable guidance in the Sivananda style. Longing to deepen her personal experience and garner more tools as a teacher, Ann was led to the “Kripalu Center for Yoga” in the Berkshires to continue her on-going education. With deep gratitude to the many senior Kripalu teachers who have guided her — Yoganand Michael Carroll, Sudhir Jonathan Foust, PremShakti Mary Stout, Sudha Carolyn Lundeen, Stephen Cope, Bhavani Lorraine Nelson, to name a few — Ann has earned her 500-hour certification. Ann offers on-going group classes, series, workshops and private instruction in Fairfield County, CT.
Jackie Tepper
yoga instructor
Jackie Tepper is a Registered Yoga Teacher certified in Kundalini Yoga and has been teaching Kundalini Yoga, Neshama Yoga TM and meditation since 2006. Jackie studied under the internationally-renowned Kundalini Yoga masters Ravi Singh and Ana Brett. She is also a certified Radiant Child Yoga instructor, having completed her training with Shakta Kaur Khalsa. Jackie, a former lawyer, began practicing Kundalini Yoga at a time when her physical, emotional and spiritual health were severely compromised. She quickly experienced many significant healing benefits of Kundalini Yoga and credits it with being a major factor in her transformation to a much healthier and happier being.
Rita Trieger
yoga instructor
Rita Trieger is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Fit Yoga magazine (2003-2010), and is the author of Yoga Heals Your Back (Fairwinds, 2005) and Tranquil Mind, a meditation and yoga CD. She incorporates a variety of traditions into her inspiring teaching style, and has cultivated an enthusiastic following in both vigorous Vinyasa flow, and healing/restorative/therapeutic classes.
For well over a decade, Rita has been teaching yoga for various departments of Stamford Hospital, in Stamford, Connecticut. At the hospital’s Bennett Cancer Center, she has built a strong yoga community for cancer patients and survivors; at The Sarner Health and Fitness Institute, her twice weekly Vinyasa flow classes continue to thrive, and she has worked closely with both the chief of cardiology and the senior exercise physiologist as the case manager/stress-management facilitator for the Dr. Dean Ornish Program for the Reversal of Heart Disease, and Intensive Cardiac Rehab. More recently, Rita provided resources and services for Stamford Hospital’s Psychiatric Department, helping to implement weekly meditation classes. Rita has also developed yoga for cancer video sequences on You Tube for the Connecticut Challenge, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting healthy lifestyle choices for cancer survivors, where she also serves as a teacher-trainer, and senior teacher.
Rita has presented yoga therapy to medical students at Yale University, St. Vincent’s Nursing College, and Northern Westchester Medical School as well as several national yoga conferences, including the International Yoga Therapy Conference (IYTC), and the Montreal International Symposium for Therapy and Yoga (MISTY 2011). Her abstract and article, Open Heart Yoga was published in the Spring of 2011, for the medical journal, Topics in Geriatric Rehabilitation (TGR). She is currently offering Yoga for Chronic Disease Teacher Training and Restorative TT as part of several studio teacher trainings, and as a stand-alone immersion.
In July 2011 she was initiated into the sacred Kalachakra Tantra by H.H. the XIV Dalai Lama in Washington, DC and continues her in-depth studies of Buddhist philosophy and meditation.
Rita is Reiki certified, and is a member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists.
She offers workshops in therapeutics and restorative yoga to many studios in Connecticut, New York City, and Long Island along with a flourishing private clientele.
Laura Jeffries
yoga instructor
My passion for Yoga began over 25 years ago when I first started practicing. I love to share my passion with others so they too can reap the many benefits of Yoga. The essence of my teaching is Kripalu style, the Yoga of compassion. Classic Yoga combines the power of breath/pranayama with postures/asana to create inner strength and body enlightenment. The practice of Yoga further helps to unfold the mind-body connection, and encourages us to remain in the present. I hope to inspire students to carry these tenets of Yoga into their daily lives, opening up possibilities for peace and happiness.
Classes are structured to the level of students in the room. Space is always held in the room for gentle modifications or vigorous challenge. Formal training, 200 hour YTT in Kripalu. Additional studies include Ayurveda, Sanskrit, and Japa Meditation.
Lisa Killion
yoga instructor
Lisa is a yoga instructor (E-RYT200, RYT500) and holistic health coach, certified through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. She completed her 300-hour TT program with ISHTA Yoga out of New York City in 2021. In addition, she has over 300 specialty training hours in Restorative Yoga under Jillian Pransky, Functional Anatomy with Jason Crandell & Judith Hanson Lasater and Yoga Nidra studying with Jennifer Reis and Mona Anand of ISHTA Yoga.
She spent many years as a corporate finance executive leading large teams and complex projects, and grew up as a competitive gymnast and long-distance runner so she is grateful and deeply committed to yoga and practices of self-care. Lisa’s ultra-smooth flow style of yoga calms the mind, tones the body and elevates the spirit. She teaches students how to use yoga as a tool for creating health and happiness in an environment that is safe, supportive and enjoyable.
Fernanda Guerra
yoga instructor
Fernanda (Fern) Guerra LMT began her exploration of healing arts in her late teens when she was introduced to the ancient Japanese healing method, Reiki. Craving more knowledge of the body, mind, and spirit’s healing capabilities, she was led to enroll in the Connecticut Center for Massage Therapy. There she studied massage techniques as well as coursework in Human Anatomy, Acupressure, Energetic Foundations, and more. She graduated from CCMT’s 720-hr program in 2015 and earned her Connecticut state massage license. Throughout several years of working at Dew Yoga, checking yogis into class, Fern had the opportunity to deepen her own yoga practice. Every class taught her the power of presence, of self-love and the joy of community. She discovered how deeply restorative and healing Yoga is- not only the postures, but also the breath work, meditation, ethics and more. So she took the leap to immerse in these teachings by enrolling in Yoga Teacher Training. In October 2019, Fern completed 200-hr Yoga Teacher Training at Dew Yoga with senior instructors Jen Irwin, Ann Russell, Rita Trieger and Robert Ortner. She now feels honored to hold space for others to experience the many benefits of Yoga, meditation and mindfulness. Her classes focus on finding freedom and spaciousness in the body and mind, and relaxing into our most authentic, peaceful self.
Maria Tabaschek
yoga instructor
International Yoga Teacher Maria has taught in Europe, USA & Mexico, leading several Yoga workshops, virtual or in person classes, teaching. diverse community from beginners to more experienced yogis, including regular classes,
Adaptive-Yoga, prenatal, to corporate, sports teams and professional athletes.
In 1977, she traded her graduate studies in International Business for a YOGA MAT... and has loved the journey ever since. Her continuing education led her to India where she studied with some of the world’s best Gurus from different Yoga traditions. In addition to her 26 years of experience, she has formal training in Holistic Nutrition, Herbalism, Yin Yoga & Chinese Medicine. Plus, several certifications as an intuitive healer including Theta-Healing, Reiki, Shamanism Numerology and Astrology.
Avid sailor and Humanitarian by heart, she has been deeply involved in the following institutions: High-security prisons in Mexico, NPH-orphanage, Women’s center for addiction recovery, and her latest passion, fostering dogs here in Fairfield County. Sometimes playful & light, sometimes thoughtful & firm, each class is unique, created with the intention of fulfilling your needs at the time. Filling you with the seeds of insight, so your practice (wherever it takes you), can be grounded in strength & flexibility through basic movements (no contortions!), developing a perfect balance between body & mind through the art of words, the love of laughter, and the discipline of "let’s try again." She is famous for dedication to her students, her healing abilities, and her commitment to the practice. Her best teachers are her husband, 2 kids (26 & 18) and 2 dogs.
