About Sue Neufeld
"Yoga enables me to find center and clarity in the midst of life’s changes and to build my capacity for love, light and joy. I want to share that tejas (inner shining), and Sri (unity and beauty) with my students"
Sue Neufeld has been a dedicated yoga student since 1986. As she approached her 50th birthday in 2001, she decided that she wanted to inspire and offer healing to others by teaching yoga.
Sue is a Level 2 certified Para Yoga teacher and a member of the Para Yoga certification committee. She completed nine advanced-study courses with master teacher Yogarupa Rod Stryker of Para Yoga in 2009. "Para” means supreme, ancient, and highest. After 18 years of sampling classes with an eclectic mix of local, national and international yoga teachers, Sue found her lifelong teacher and guide in Rod. "He combines ancient texts, personal experience, Tantric science and world view to offer a prescriptive approach aimed at healing and awakening students," she says. Rod initiated Sue into the lineage of Swami Rama of the Himalayas in April 2005. She traveled to India on a spiritual pilgrimage in February 2009 with Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, Ph.D, spiritual leader of the Himalayan Institute in Pennsylvania and her teacher’s teacher (now her teacher as well.) View India Photos.
And in 2010, Sue and Kathryn Templeton, a fellow Para Yoga teacher, took their 500 hour teacher training group to the Himalayan Institute in Honesdale, Pennsylvania (see photo below) to study part one of a six part course called Living Tantra, taught by Panditji. Nineteen of the group as well as other Connecticut practitioners decided to commit to study the entire course, which completed July 2011.
Out of college, Sue was an elementary school teacher. She stopped to raise two daughters, helped a few friends to decorate milestone events, and for 24 years, became a professional party decorator who did yoga for relaxation, flexibility and stress relief. When Sue noticed that she was demonstrating relaxation breathing techniques to mothers of brides at wedding consultations, it became apparent that her true calling was on a different path. She received her 200-hour certification from Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Mass., in January 2003. She completed Yoga of the Heart™ with Nischala Joy Devi in March 2004, enabling her to effectively teach profound stress-reducing restorative yoga to all populations. She is an E-RYT (experienced registered yoga teacher) with Yoga Alliance, which provides standards and recognition for all yoga styles.
Sue custom-designs her classes to meet her students' needs. She currently teaches yoga at Balanced in New Haven and Your Community Yoga Center in Hamden, and she offers senior yoga classes at two senior centers in Connecticut. She encourages non-judgmental self-awareness and designs multi-level classes aimed at helping students to experience a total state of well-being. Sue also works privately to help students develop home yoga and meditation practices. Additionally, Sue is one of two national consultants for The Four Desires, a book published by her teacher, Rod Stryker in July, 2011.
Sue is always seeking to expand her own personal knowledge and experience through self-study, meditation, personal practice and ongoing studies with her teachers.
From October 2009 to October 2010, Sue teamed with Kathryn Templeton to teach a 500 hour Yoga Alliance approved Teacher Training at Your Community Yoga Center, Hamden, CT, Teaching Deeper Practices, in the lineage of Para Yoga.
In 2011 for the first time, Sue began to offer workshops with her daughter Sara. Sara is a certified Anusara teacher., living and teaching in Brooklyn (www.saraneufeldyoga.com) Sue is delighted to joyously share the teachings of yoga with her daughter.
In addition, Sue is a Reiki master. Reiki is universal energy healing for body, mind and spirit. Sue offers private Reiki sessions and does attunements for Reiki levels one, two, three and Masters.
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Testimonials
" I have been studying yoga with Sue for eight years. I often refer to Sue as a blessing in my life.
“Her profound ability to teach yoga and meditation practices have changed my life on a very deep and personal level. With her guidance, I now meditate daily and I am forever changed by this practice. She is passionate about self-study and her own studies with her teacher, and she graciously passes these lessons along to those who are fortunate to be one of her students. With much encouragement from her, I have developed from a ‘fearful/bad back student’ to a serious student and yoga teacher who is currently enrolled in her 500-hour yoga teacher training program."
Roberta S.
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"Sue's deep love for yoga and her generosity of spirit infuse her
teaching. Her classes are nicely paced and structured for those who want
to go within. And Sue is proactively alert to every student's special
needs, and right there to help out."
Margaret H.
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"It’s impossible to put my testimonial in words, but Sue is a wonderful teacher whose heart lifting-classes serve as lessons to carry though life."
Sica N.
