200-Hour Yoga

Teacher Training

A longtime Charlotte Yoga teacher, Suzanne Bergen, E-RYT 500, is known for creating classes and training environments that are grounded, empowering, and welcoming. Her teaching philosophy centers on yoga as a tool for healing, resilience, and self-trust, both on and off the mat. Suzanne’s goal is for students to feel capable in their bodies and confident in their lives.

Suzanne began practicing yoga in 1993 and has spent decades refining a teaching style that is accessible, intelligent, and supportive. With more than 14,000 teaching hours and nearly 1,000 hours of advanced training, she brings extensive experience and a deep commitment to continually evolving her practice and teaching. She has completed extensive training in power yoga and hot yoga, including 200-hour and specialty trainings with Grace Morales, along with continuing education alongside Bryan Kest, Seane Corn, and Tony Robbins. Her lifelong commitment to learning allows her to meet students where they are, whether they are new to yoga or deepening an established practice.

At Charlotte Yoga, Suzanne has helped shape the studio’s teaching culture through mentorship and leadership, including co-leading six teacher trainings. In teacher training, she emphasizes clarity, curiosity, and practical application, encouraging trainees to build confidence through experience, thoughtful sequencing, and learning how to hold space for students of all backgrounds and abilities. Suzanne also leads yoga retreats and workshops.

Giving back is an important part of Suzanne’s life. Since 2016, she has served as race director of the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation Stair Climb in Charlotte, growing participation significantly during her leadership. Before teaching yoga full time, Suzanne worked in sales and marketing in New York City. She moved to Charlotte in 1997 with her husband, Joe, and their triplet sons.

Jen Eddins has spent the past decade teaching people how to teach yoga, and there’s nothing that brings her more joy.

A 17-year veteran of the fitness industry, Jen is an RYT 500, Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider (YACEP), personal trainer, group exercise instructor, health and fitness blogger, and published author of Ultimate Plank Fitness and The Complete Guide to Yoga Inversions.

Jen fell in love with power vinyasa yoga in 2009 and quickly developed a deep appreciation for the practice. She earned her 200-hour certification at Y2 Yoga in 2011 and her 300-hour certification at Asheville Yoga Center. She has over 8,000 hours of experience teaching classes, hosting workshops, and leading teacher trainings.

Jen has led 10+ 200-hour trainings and there’s nothing she loves more than helping others learn how to share their passion for yoga in a powerful, impactful way. Jen believes great teachers are made through intelligent sequencing, deep anatomical understanding, and the confidence to find their own authentic voice. She pours all of that into every training she leads.

Buffy McCoy Kelly is a Kest Yoga “Become a Yogi” E-RYT 500 teacher-leader and Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider (YACEP) with more than a decade of teaching experience and several thousand classroom instruction hours. Known for attentive cueing and thoughtfully layered, intelligent sequencing, Buffy creates complete experiences that are athletic, cognitive, energetically purposeful, joyful, and transformative. Her expansive approach is informed by functional mobility, Thai yoga, acrobatics/circus arts, dance, pranayama, meditation, and the mind-body integration of the broader yogic tradition. Students describe her teaching as clear, intentional, demanding, powerful, supportive, and deeply transformative.

At the heart of her teaching is the belief that people learn through their bodies, not only through their intellect. She weaves meaningful messages and life-learning moments into practice, drawing from yogic philosophy, Stoic principles, and thoughtful observations about how we meet challenge, change, and growth. Her aim is to give students tools they can carry into daily life while building lifelong strength, mobility, resilience, and greater ease in their bodies.

She is deeply committed to continuous growth, regularly traveling to study with respected international yoga and movement teachers around the world, including Carmen Aguilar, Matt Giordano/Chromatic Yoga, Jonah Kest, Mikael Kristiansen, Emmet Louis, and others.

Buffy leads group classes, workshops, and trainings, as well as leading immersive yoga intensives in destinations including Guatemala, Greece, and Costa Rica.

One of Charlotte Yoga’s longest-tenured teachers, Terrie brings more than four decades of experience in movement, mindfulness, leadership, and human performance to the 200-hour teacher training program. With thousands of teaching hours, she believes yoga is one of the most powerful and transformative practices for cultivating awareness, connection, and community.

She began her yoga journey in 1999 with Charlotte Yoga founder Grace Morales and became a member of the original teaching staff when the studio opened in 2002. Since then, she has remained a dedicated teacher, mentor, and active member of the Charlotte Yoga community.

Her background spans yoga, meditation, sound healing, dance, martial arts, personal training, and competitive aerobics. As a three-time National Aerobics Champion, she was invited to the White House to launch the inaugural National Physical Fitness Day. She has produced national fitness videos, worked alongside elite athletes, and was named the Dancing with the Stars Charlotte Champion, reflecting her lifelong belief that movement inspires, connects, and transforms.

Beyond the studio, Terrie is the founder of Empower Health America. She holds a master’s degree in talent and organization development, is a certified executive and mindfulness coach, creator of the 5P Change Model®, author of Power in the Pause™, and serves on four nonprofit boards.

Whether working with executives in the boardroom or students in the studio, Terrie believes meaningful transformation begins with greater awareness. At the heart of her teaching is a simple belief: There is power in the pause. In that moment of stillness, intention becomes choice, awareness becomes action, and meaningful transformation begins.

Heather’s yoga journey began in 2016, when she stepped onto her mat looking for support with her mental health. What she discovered was so much more: strength, self-awareness, and a sense of inner peace that kept bringing her back. In 2020, she completed her 200-hour yoga teacher training at Charlotte Yoga as a way to deepen her practice, create space to heal and grow, and come home to herself.

Heather teaches vinyasa flow with an energetic, encouraging, and challenging style, creating an environment that is inclusive and welcoming to all levels. As a teacher, she brings authenticity, intuition, and a genuine desire to see others succeed. She believes great yoga teachers don’t have to fit a certain mold. What matters is showing up authentically and recognizing that the qualities that make each teacher different can also be what makes them effective.

Heather has a natural ability to read a room, recognize what students need, and adjust her teaching and cues accordingly. Students often mention her energy and the genuine connection she creates. She learns their names, gets to know them beyond the mat, and works to create an environment where students feel supported, connected, and comfortable showing up as themselves.

A Pittsburgh native, Heather has called Charlotte home since 2000. She holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing and spent much of her career in intensive care. Today, she works as a nurse consultant and enjoys hiking, reading, lifting weights, and spending time with her husband, two teenage sons and their dog. She is also actively involved with CureSearch for Children’s Cancer and its Ultimate Hike program.

Gretchen’s teaching combines thoughtful sequencing, clear cueing, and an emphasis on helping every student feel seen, capable, and at home in their practice. She believes the best teachers remain lifelong students and there is no single “right” way to experience – or teach – yoga.

She began practicing in 2016 and completed Charlotte Yoga’s 200-hour teacher training in 2020. She enrolled in YTT not because she wanted to teach, but because she was deep in professional burnout and hoped the self-inquiry and personal growth at the heart of the program would help her find direction. When she taught her community class at the end of training, she realized she’d found a passion that would completely change her career. Gretchen completed her 300-hour certification at iShine Yoga & Wellness and continues to love studying, thinking about, and talking about yoga.

As a graduate of Charlotte Yoga’s 200-hour teacher training, Gretchen understands firsthand what it’s like to be a trainee. She remembers the excitement, the uncertainty, and the rush when it begins to click. She brings that perspective, along with a deep curiosity about yoga’s history, philosophy, and methodology, as she helps trainees build confidence, stay curious, and discover their unique teaching voice.

When she’s not at the studio, Gretchen works as a freelance digital content strategist. She lives with her husband and beagle, loves books and Diet Coke, and believes one of yoga’s greatest gifts is the lifelong community it creates.