OUR DIRECTOR: Lian Reed is an Integral Yoga Teacher, a Licensed Massage Therapist, a Registered Massage Therapy Instructor and Ordained Minister. She has been a student of yoga at this very Center since 1995 and a yoga teacher since 1999.

• To create a mutually respectful, self- responsible, positive yoga educational environment where all paths are honored.
• To build a strong sense of community through cooperation, networking and referrals within the yoga community.
• To serve as a resource for the local community, alternative and traditional medicine, the wholistic health field and public education.
• To increase personal and global awareness, while assisting individuals in physical, mental and spiritual development.

We support our mission by offering many yoga classes per week that are open to all levels of yoga experience.  Our teachers teach to whomever attends class - beginners and advanced students are often on mats right next to eachother.  These classes offer a safe and comfortable space to explore both the general aspects of yoga and the more subtle energies that exist in the practice of yoga.  We offer a Yoga Alliance approved 200 Hour Hatha Yoga Teacher Training Program which teaches a comprehensive curriculum covering asana (poses), ayurveda, anatomy & physiology and many esoteric aspects of yoga including (but not limited to) pranayama, chakras, sanskrit, mantra and philosophy.

Our Yoga In Schools program has been offering yoga classes to Santa Fe's public school students since 2001.  The program trains yoga teachers to teach a special Yoga In Schools curriculum which includes teaching students yoga poses to build strength, flexibility and concentration, teaching breathing techniques to bring calm into the body and teaches the students to have greater awareness of their impact on those around them.  In 2009, the program expanded to include a program specifically to teach Test Taking Skills to grades 3-6.  Since these grades are required to sit for mandatory testing each year, the YIS program developed a skill set specifically for this situation.  It offers students and teachers a few yoga poses and a few breathing exercises that can be used during testing.  The feedback from teachers and students has been overwhelming for this new Test Taking Skills program and for our continued yoga classes.  We are very fortunate to be bringing yoga to the schools and appreciate all of the financial support we receive from parents, community supports and Parent Teacher organizations.

The Yoga Center's founder, Michael, passed away in 2004.  Michael created a great sense of community at the Yoga Center and this community continues to thrive.  Many of the students at the Yoga Center have been attending yoga classes with us since it opened in 1996.  We're always welcoming new students into our ever growing yoga community.  To help support our community of teachers and students, we invite everyone in our community to add their business cards to our Network Binder.  Currently, this Network Binder includes doctors, body workers, teachers, musicians, printers, artists, energy workers, therapists and many others.

We are a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization and depend on the financial support of our students and our community.  If you would like to help support our Center and its mission, your donation may be mailed to the following address:

Santa Fe Community Yoga Center

PO BOX 23167

Santa Fe, NM 87502

Michael Maitreya Hopp—A Friend to All
January 7, 1961 - December 25, 2004

Michael was a well-known and loved leader, healer, teacher and creator of  community in Santa Fe. Michael passionately believed in being of service to mankind and in the power of community to enhance and enrich the lives of all. His dedication to a life of service and spiritual leadership was inspired by his great yoga teacher, Sri Swami Satchidananda, who gave him the name Maitreya, which means "friend to all", as they stood together on the banks of the Ganges River.

Michael was a life-long seeker of knowledge and understanding of the larger truths of our existence. He began his spiritual quest in 1981 when he left college to travel the United States and the world. He went to live at the Satchidananda Ashram in Yogaville, Virginia in 1986, where he received the Integral Yoga teachers training in 1987. He returned to receive his advanced teacher training in 1991. Michael graduated from the New Mexico Academy of Healing Arts in 1990 and worked as a licensed massage therapist from that time forward as well as teaching Yoga.

A 14-month pilgrimage around the world, including nine months in India, brought him back to Santa Fe in 1996 to create and direct the Santa Fe Community Yoga Center. The center offers weekly classes in a variety of styles of hatha yoga which provide a combination of non-competitive physical postures, breath, meditation and practical philosophy. Michael's classes were known as a place where people of all ages and levels of ability could come, safely explore and enjoy physical and spiritual wellness through yoga. He honored each student in a positive and respectful way. The yoga center is also a gathering place, linking people of diverse spiritual practices and beliefs in workshops, trainings, and ceremony.

Through Michael's vision and the work of the yoga center's advisory counsel a Yoga In Schools program was created for the Santa Fe public schools, reaching thousands of elementary students since it began in 2001. Under the auspices of the Heart Mountain Prison Project, Michael brought yoga into the men's prison in Grants and into the Santa Fe Juvenile Detention Facility.

Michael was passionately involved with the men's community. He led the 14th annual New Mexico Men's Wellness Conference at Ghost Ranch Conference Center in 1998, choosing for its theme, "Healing the Healer Within". For twenty years, the conference has provided the opportunity for men to gather, share their stories and their feelings, to hear the wisdom of other men, to explore new realms of personal growth, and to deepen their relationships with other men in a safe, supportive environment. For many years he also organized an annual gathering, entitled Man2Man, which brought together gay and straight men in order to promote mutual understanding and support for all men. Michael was also  deeply concerned with reconciliation between men and women, receiving training in gender reconciliation during 2002 and 2003 in Boulder, CO. He brought that work back to Santa Fe, offering gender reconciliation workshops through the Community Yoga Center.

Michael's community involvement also included service on the Interfaith Council, as the moving force behind the labyrinth built at Frenchy's Field, the yoga community, as a member of the massage and alternative healing communities of Santa Fe, and as a promoter of tolerance and understanding among all fellow beings.

The integrity of Michael's personal relationships was seamlessly woven into his spiritual and community work. Michael transmitted such love and passion to all areas of his life that he inspired in others a sense of wholeness and well-being.  His down-to-earth manner, his warmth, and his honesty enhanced his success as a teacher, a mentor, a healer, a leader, and friend to all who knew him. His bright light and energetic presence will be deeply missed by his family, as well as many in our community and beyond.

Michael Maitreya Hopp passed on Christmas Morning 2004 while visiting his family in Redwing, Minnesota. His partner, Jane Prouty, and his nephew, Nathan Schmidt, succumbed with him to carbon-monoxide poisoning.

Michael's work lives on with the continuation of the Santa Fe Community Yoga Center and the Yoga In Schools program. Heart Mountain Prison Project  continues to bring yoga and meditation to those incarcerated in New Mexico. His spirit continues within the hearts of all those whose lives he touched.