Staff
Marcia Miller
Marcia Miller, E-RYT 500, has been teaching yoga for nearly 35 years and has taught all levels and types of students from new beginners to yoga teachers and everyone in between. For example, she has developed classes for prisoners, seniors, ballet dancers, cancer patients, children, pregnant women, people in pain and athletes. Marcia started and directed the Columbus Integral Yoga Teaching Center, and in 2001 became one of the founders/owners of Yoga on High. Along with her two business partners, she wrote the curriculum for and co-directs the 200- and the 500-hour Hatha Teacher Training Program. She designed and taught the yoga protocol for two large Ohio State University research projects, one researching the effect of yoga on the immune system and the other on the benefits of yoga for women recovering from breast cancer.
Marcia is also a Reiki Master Teacher and enjoys sessions with her private Reiki clients. She finds the insights gained by working with subtle energy practices continue to inform all her teaching. In 2008, Marcia took the lead in founding the Yoga on High Foundation, a fund at the Columbus Foundation, as a way to serve people in her community including low-income kids and people with diabetes and cancer.
In the past few years, she has fallen in love with Non-Violent Communication (NVC) as taught by Marshall Rosenberg, and is developing ways to bring NVC to the yoga community and yoga to the NVC community.
Her other passions include knitting (including learning to make things that fit a specific person!) and growing as much food as possible on the organic farm she shares with her husband, Kevin.
In addition to her original teacher training many years ago, her ongoing training has been continuous, as she has broadened her knowledge in areas of asana and meditation, anatomy and physiology and therapeutic yoga. Her yoga teaching incorporates her love of yoga philosophy, anatomy and the wide richness that yoga can bring to a daily life. She blends technical expertise with a sense of humor and love.
Michele Vinbury
A Columbus, Ohio-based yoga and meditation teacher, mentor, trauma and resilience educator, and teacher trainer, Michele Vinbury offers local, regional, international in-person and online trainings and retreats. She is the co-Director of the Karma Yoga Foundation and was the co-owner of Yoga on High from 2013-2021.
In 2014, Michele co-authored, with Marybeth Hamilton, a 12-week Trauma Sensitive Resilience course (www.emberyoga.org). The eMBER™ (Mindfulness Based Emotional Resilience) course is founded on evidence-based practices and was the focus of a 2016 study at the Ohio Reformatory for Women. Results from this study found that the eMBER group demonstrated positive improvement across all three measures (warnings of relapse, body disassociation and difficulties in emotion regulation), as compared to the other groups. Current research is underway at a local hospital to measure the efficacy of the curriculum with opioid addicted youth.
Michele’s teaching draws on over 25 years of direct-contact volunteer service with domestic violence, sexual assault, suicide prevention and human trafficking agencies. She has specialized training in trauma sensitive yoga, breathwork, and mindfulness practices, and calls on her own experiences of healing from trauma in order to teach from a place of embodied knowledge.
A dynamic, playful and interactive teacher, Michele builds connections and community with her students through knowledge of the practices and a lighthearted sense of humor. Central to her teaching is her ability to meet each student right where they are and to offer them experience that highlight choice.
Michele is a registered E-500 yoga teacher, certified iRest Yoga Nidra (Integrative Restoration) Teacher, an Ayurvedic Health Educator, and a registered yoga therapist through IAYT. In 2013, Michele was honored to receive SARNCO’s (Sexual Assault Response Network of Central Ohio) Community Supporter Award for her efforts to support survivors and to end sexual violence.
What else? Michele grew up in coastal New England, loves to be outside and now resides in Ohio with her husband, two children and dog, Captain Haven Stardust (aka “Dusty”).
What Students are Saying:
“There were so many valuable aspects of this class and of Michele’s ability to create a safe place. Learning how to re-engage with my body has been invaluable.”
“Before I used to use drugs to stop my nerves from bothering me, now I use tools from yoga.”
“I feel that I’ve been able to work through a lot of things in myself and some healing and trust has taken place since taking this training. It’s been a life changer for me.”
“eMBER training combined the most recent trauma research, historical perspectives, and first-person narratives to give a full picture of how to best to consider teaching populations who have experienced trauma, all while making no one a victim, no imposed ideas of “us/them” or “broken/fixer”. Thank you for this. ”
“Your Trauma workshop was positively reinforcing and authentic…I appreciated how you clearly weave together so many scientific views about the complex trauma brain. You did a lot of homework.”
Here is a partial list of the groups Michele has taught:
Volunteers at SARNCO (Sexual Assault Response Network of Central Ohio)
Women of Freedom a la Cart (DOMA)
Male Combat Veterans
Female Veterans
Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse through Mt. Carmel Trauma
Survivors of Sexual Assault
Weekly class open to the public at a local yoga studio
Clients in IOP at Center for Balanced Living
Clients of CORRC (Central Ohio Rescue and Restore Coalition)
Female Inmates at Ohio Reformatory for Women
Students at St. Vincent’s partial hospitalization treatment center for kids
Staff at psychiatric hospital.
Michele is also the lead teacher in Yoga on High’s 100hour Trauma Sensitive teacher training.