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Julie Tran

Julie was born and raised in Canada. She grew up in a large family and in a diverse and multicultural environment. Julie earned her degree in education at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and has taught individuals of varying ages. Julie is a teacher, though she equally considers herself a student. Julie is passionate about learning and about sharing her knowledge and experiences with others.

Julie has a background of ten years in the study and performance of dance. She has trained in Canada and the United States in classical ballet. She has also studied modern, jazz, and various traditional folk dances. Julie’s dance studies have afforded her an understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the human body. More importantly, it has been her physical outlet for expression and creativity.

When Julie first arrived to Japan as a teacher, she turned to Yoga as a means of physical exercise. Yoga soon became much more than a physical practice for Julie, as she began to experience and appreciate its many benefits.

Julie found her way to YogaJaya through a fortunate series of events. She began to take public classes, then eventually enrolled in and completed the YogaJaya International Teacher Training Course.

During the intensive Teacher Training, Julie found herself contemplating and assessing many aspects of her past and present life. This inquiry led to deeper self-understanding, self-acceptance, and ultimately a feeling of connection to all things living. She feels her experience in the YogaJaya Teacher training was one of fundamental transformation that has affected her in a very positive way.

As a teacher of Yoga, Julie enjoys sharing through classes, courses and workshops. As a student of Yoga, Julie listens, observes and learns from her greatest teacher; her teacher called, LIFE. Julie feels blessed and grateful for the infinite learning opportunities she has been offered. They have brought her truth, balance, and peace. Through Julie’s classes, she aspires to help others find their own truth, balance and peace. She is humbled by the privilege to share with others.

Julie is a YogaJaya Accredited Teacher (YJAT300) and a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT200) with the Yoga Alliance.

Julie Tran

Gweon Jung Eun

Jung’s journey into yoga is a critical part in a continuing process of personal growth and self-discovery. Ten years ago, she was a 70kg tomboy who had black belts in Aikido and Taekwondo, as well as practicing Judo and Kendo. She had gotten into martial arts to convince her mother she would be safe on her first overseas trip, leaving South Korea for New York City at age 19.

After working and living in NYC, by age 22 Jung decided she needed to focus on her English language skills, traveling to the UK for seven months of study. In London, she absorbed Western culture, became socially aware and active, and made international friends with whom she traveled across Europe. Her travels took her further, to Southeast Asia and then to Canada and Japan.

Six years ago, as a university student back in South Korea, Jung began a “physical” relationship with yoga by beginning her practice by accepting a job as a teacher of yoga without knowing the fundamentals that differentiate yoga as a mere exercise from yoga as a way of living. Despite developing a reputation as a popular studio instructor, Jung became fed up with teaching the superficial elements of the asana. She eventually began to feel as if she were lying to her students and she moved from that experience to take up dance therapy while in post-graduate studies… Things came to a head when one day Jung found herself in tears, distraught about the lack of meaning in her life.

That was the turning point. In October 2007, Jung came to Japan in search of herself… and soon stumbled into YogaJaya. The experience exposed her to a real yoga practice, and she was soon taking classes five times a week, attending workshops and finally completing YogaJaya International Teacher Training. She is certified as a YogaJaya Accredited Teacher (YJAT) and a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT) with the Yoga Alliance. For the first time in her life, Jung explored her own deepest feelings, experiencing joy, sadness, fear and a sense of deep connection not only with herself but with everyone she met at YogaJaya. Her experience of freedom and communication has grown ever further now that she has joined the teaching staff of YogaJaya.

Immersing herself in yoga, Jung still maintains balance by practicing Thai massage and specialized yoga for pregnant women. She also has a continuing desire to learn more about the body and its manipulation through dance and other movement, as well as through healing-yoga, massage, ChineseTai Chi and Bikram, or so-called “hot yoga”.  Jung graduated from Seoul Women’s University with double-majors in Child Studies and in the Science of Adolescence. She has also spent time as a counselor, helping with people in various challenging educational and social circumstances.

Gweon Jung Eun

Hanae Kakegawa

Born in Tokyo, Hanae remembers playing in her neighborhood. She has a lasting connection to her community and to adults by helping out at a shop run by her family.

In high school, inspired by films and music, she got interested in human rights and joined Amnesty International. She moved to the U.S. to study film, but her interest shifted to photography and she majored in fine arts. The whole photographic process fascinated her, especially as she saw her concentration and creativity reflected in the results.

After getting her bachelor’s degree, Hanae returned to Japan, working in photo-related fields. Hanae also trained to work as a teacher of the Japanese language.

Hanae has traveled extensively, learning the old rules about being humble and about passing on any kindness received to the next person in line. She especially noticed a change in her thinking when she came into contact with nature and with people living alternative lifestyles. She found herself gradually freeing herself from restrictive rules and limits that she had previously accepted without any question.

In 2003, after going through some emotional challenges, she took a friend’s advice to attend a 10-day meditation retreat at a Thai monastery. Hanae came out of the event frustrated, thinking it had not gone well, but after getting back to Tokyo, she started seeing positive results appearing in her daily life.

After a few years Hanae did the retreat again and during the morning Yoga sessions, Hanae started to realize that the Yoga itself was bringing her something that had been missing in her life -- a calmness, as well as sense of mental and physical focus. The empowering effects of Yoga made her recognize it as something she simply needed to do and she began practicing Yoga on a continuous basis.

Hanae later went to a Yoga studio in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, for a few months to further develop her practice. Upon returning to Japan, she attended regular classes and workshops at YogaJaya, practicing mainly Hatha yoga, concentrating on asana, meditation, and pranayama. She was also attended workshops with Clive Sheridan, Simon Borg-Olivier, Emil Wendel, and Glenn Ceresoli. Intrigued by anatomy through Yoga, Hanae also studied traditional Thai massage called Nuad Bo-Rarn.

Deciding that she should share her appreciation of Yoga with others, Hanae attended and completed the YogaJaya International Teacher Training. She is certified as a YogaJaya Accredited Teacher (YJAT) and a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT) with the Yoga Alliance.

Hanae aspires to share all of the changes that Yoga brings to our lives as we walk on the ‘path of Yoga’ together.

Hanae Kakegawa

Satoko Horie

A Japanese born in Paris, Satoko was raised to feel as a world citizen, brought up in six countries by a family that thrived on traveling and on integrating into local cultures. She has traveled to all continents except Antarctica and loves to make personal contact with new places and people, making frequent visits to art exhibitions, interacting with interesting and creative people, and discovering completely new perspectives.

Following an example set by her parents, who made their home a center for social contact and interaction, Satoko became a skilled communicator in childhood and was at ease performing in front of others from an early age. Her teenage years in Kenya in particular had a great influence on her decision to study International Policy in University, followed by a Masters Degree in Developmental Studies in England. She then moved into the communications profession, building a career in the advertising industry with six years of work as a strategic planner while simultaneously studying advanced marketing at a school of business management.

Satoko’s natural interest in the arts spans contemporary art, sculpture, and installations. She spent a year at an interactive art school, coupling that interest with her love of activities that connect her to nature, such as swimming, cycling, farming, snowboarding, wakeboarding, and adventuring in wilderness. She sees nature as an inspiration to all creativity, simultaneously bringing us back to our basic instincts and binds all existence spiritually.

Her focused interest in spirituality has made a gradual and continuous ascent, starting from a few weeks’ stay in a Zen temple in Kyoto, bridging out to a 40-hour Yoga training course in Tokyo, to Vipassana in Australia, to completing a 200-hour Yoga Alliance Teacher Training program in Bali with Vibrant Living Yoga. Satoko’s ever-deepening encounter with yoga has profoundly changed her life in ways most unexpected, yet all simply a reflection of her most deeply rooted desires and intentions.

Satoko is the Vice Director of ParaImpacto/YogaJaya, enjoys her life as a constant explorer, a challenger of limits, and an experimenter in new domains.

Satoko Horie