Meet Our Teachers
NICOLE CHUMSKY
Nicole is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Mindfulness Coach and Registered Trauma Informed Yoga Instructor. She specializes in helping people build self-awareness, learn how to be powerful in their lives, strengthen their ability to tolerate change and guide them in making choices that are meaningful. She is the owner and founder of Be Embodied, LLC and has been in private practice since 2013, teaching mindfulness since 2015 and teaching yoga since 2016.
With years of experience she realized how many people suffer from being out of touch with their bodies. She was able to draw upon her own experience and the experiences of her clients to clearly see the ways in which disembodiment increases stress levels, reactivity and discontent with life. Using her expertise she created Mindflow™ Yoga.
Mindflow™ teaches you how to keep your mind in flow with your body through mindfulness meditation based instruction. These classes teach you to train your brain to pay attention to everything happening inside the four corners of your mat. You are encouraged to let your body inform your pose rather than the pose inform your body. In this way, you embody self-compassion, focus your mind and master taking yoga off the mat and into your life! Nicole realized that everyone can greatly benefit from yoga practice and was eager to share her secret to living a more fulfilled life!
LAURA GRAY
Laura is a certified 200-hour yoga instructor and registered with the Yoga Alliance. She teacher Hatha and Vinyasa styles of yoga. Her personal practice began more than 20 years ago and has evolved and deepened over the years. She recently completed an online trauma informed yoga certification. Laura believes in striving towards a holistic practice through breath (pranayama), poses (asanas), and self-contemplation (svadhyaya). Most importantly, she promotes the idea that anyone can do yoga and everyone should have access to a safe and welcoming space on their mat.
Namaste!
Courtney Hall
Courtney believes that centering yoga in your life is key to deepening the spiritual, emotional, and physical relationship you have with yourself and the world, both on and off the mat.
She holds her RYT-200 in Tantra Yoga from Vira Bhava Yoga School. She also has her BA in English, Creative Writing from the University of Mary Washington. Courtney currently teaches Restorative and Hatha yoga at University at Buffalo to students, faculty and staff. When she’s not teaching, she enjoys spending time with her husband, 2 sons, 2 cats, and old dog.
Betsy Eberle
I Love Yoga!
My practice began 16 years ago as a way to prevent and ease running injuries. It was a beautiful surprise to find that not only my physical Body felt better, but that both my Mind and Spirit had also gone through Wonderful changes…on and off my mat. This inspired me to become a certified yoga teacher(CYT), with a strong desire to share some of the beautifully transformative aspects of Yoga with others.
I received my CYT-200 certification in 2017 at East Meets West Yoga in Buffalo, NY and was very fortunate to learn from and teach among many of the area’s best, until the studios closed in 2022.
I am ever grateful for all I’ve learned and continue to learn, as my Yoga practice has changed my life! I welcome you to practice with me as a seasoned Yogi or beginner 🙂
Namaste, Betsy
Lauren Etu
I am a 500 hour registered yoga teacher, a trauma – resiliency coach, and a 20-year veteran school psychologist. I reside in Williamsville, NY with my family.
My passion is to teach others about their nervous system and how yoga and mindfulness can be healing tools for such. I specialize in Yin, restorative, slow-flow, and children’s yoga. I believe yoga should be accessible to all and healing towards the mind and soul, in addition to the body.
Ed Hilfstein
Studio Assistant
After practicing meditation sporadically for several years, Ed developed a daily yoga and meditation practice as a way to stay more fully anchored in the present moment during times of internal and external challenge and chaos. He graduated college with a sociology degree in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and began to realize that the most important thing he could do for the world around him was to deepen his connection with self. Ed is passionate about using yoga as a practice to navigate life’s challenges and to better one’s mental health. He completed his 200-hour yoga teacher training in 2023 and is honored to share his practice at Be Embodied, a space whose mission aligns with his own. Ed’s classes emphasize the importance of finding balance between pushing past the edges of discomfort and resistance, as well as being gentle and compassionate to the body and mind. Ed believes everyone can benefit from the practice of yoga to cultivate a deeper state of internal wellbeing.
