Meet Our Team

SHANNON MCQUAIDE 

FOUNDER

Shannon grew up in a fire family. Shannon is a successful entrepreneur, educator, functional and resiliency expert with 20+ years’ experience creating empowering instructional programs for corporations, public schools, community groups and first responders. FireFlex Yoga was developed in 2014 when Shannon McQuaide created a yoga program - specifically for firefighters - to complete her master's degree capstone project. The outstanding results inspired her to launch the program across the Bay Area. Now serving 20 fire departments, FireFlex delivers yoga classes to more than 1,000 first responders each year.  

In addition to yoga, Shannon also teaches Mindfulness Workshops to law enforcement and has more than 15 years experience leading professional development training programs.  She's published articles for the California State Firefighters’ Association, Fire Rescue Magazine, and has recently completed her first book, Yoga in the Fire House: A practical guide to better functional movement and resilience. PennWell publication is expected to release this book later this year (2020).  

Shannon is a certified functional movement trainer, has completed Trauma Sensitive Yoga training, and she has a master's degree in leadership and psychology.  She has certified over 65 yoga teachers in the FireFlex methodology.

CAROL DAY

Carol Day is a 200 hour certified Yoga Works instructor, ACE Certified Personal Trainer and a YMCA Certified Exercise Instructor and has been delivering FireFlex Yoga classes and trainings for 6 years. Carol moved to the USA 20 years ago, where she started teaching for the YMCA. A keen exercise enthusiast, Carol has been working within the health and fitness community for 30 years and teaching yoga for 18 years. Carol’s training and specialties include teaching FireFlex Yoga, trauma sensitive yoga, pre and post-natal yoga and teaching yoga and exercise to cancer survivors through Stanford University.

CHARLIE HARRISON

Charlie is trained in a Vinyasa style based on Forrest yoga principals. She teaches yoga to people with PTSD, TBI, and with a focus on trauma informed techniques. 

Charlie loves her yoga practice and teaching yoga. When she began practicing she found many barriers to sustaining her practice. In her teaching now she strives to help remove barriers and make yoga accessible for people that don't typically think of themselves as yogis. Finding variations and being open to the moment are key to how she teaches. Part of her job as a yoga teacher is to help students find a way into the pose so that they can begin to experience the benefits of bigger breaths, stronger muscles, steady balance and the shared community that arises from coming to a yoga practice.

Charlie has completed the following trainings:

Mindful Resilience Yoga Teacher Training Level 1 and the Advanced Training, FireFlex Yoga for First Responders, Accessible Yoga Teacher Training and Yoga for People with Disabilities and Chronic Illness

In 2020 she completed my 500 hour certification through Yogaworks.

DEVANN SHEUERMAN

Devann Sheuerman is a yoga and meditation teacher based in San Jose who loves to teach whether in the studio, at special events or in the Fire Stations leading Firefighters. Her passion is to help others find their inner peace and purpose by promoting mindfulness of spirit and body. Her classes are filled with a variety of tools to help students attain this enjoyably and effectively. She loves to instruct all ages from grade school to elderly and everyone in between including prenatal/postnatal students. Whether you need to calm your nerves from wedding planning, a stressful job or just need to regularly tune-in to yourself, Devann would love to help! 

KELLY PARKER

Kelly is a San Francisco Bay Area yoga teacher and a retired police officer. After experiencing the benefits of yoga in her own life, her passion became teaching yoga and mindfulness to first responders. First responders often experience an extreme amount of physical and psychological stress while protecting and serving others. In her classes, she focuses on practices to increase resilience, process stress, reduce injury, and improve mobility and sleep quality.  It is her mission to help first responders live healthier lives, on and off duty.

Her trainings and certifications include: 200hr RYT, currently working towards a yoga therapy certification

FireFlex Yoga, Veterans Yoga Project, Accessible Yoga, Yoga for Disabilities, and Trauma Sensitive Yoga 

She has been teaching first responders and veterans in the Bay Area since 2016.

MICHELE KLINK

Based in Marin County and teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area, Michele Klink is a long-time experienced Yoga Instructor (E-RYT 500+ Yoga Alliance) with over 20 years of teaching experience. Michele specializes in Yoga Therapeutics and helps First Responders recover, renew and rehab bodies and minds.  Her classes incorporate Therapeutic Yoga practice geared toward stress and injury management. She focuses on breath, functional movement, corrective exercise and therapeutic alignment, therapy ball myofascial release, trauma support and positive psychology. Michele is an active member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT).  

ROXIE RIVAS

Roxie is a certified Hatha Yoga instructor and kids yoga teacher trainer. As a child she enjoyed gymnastics and is a long-time lover of multiple dance styles. She brings years of experience concerning body awareness blending insights across sports psychology, movement genres, and yoga philosophy. She is particularly interested in teaching in refugee camps around the world and sharing her passion for yoga & movement, mindfulness, and meditation with differently-abled bodies both young and wise. Roxie is also knowledgeable in applying trauma-informed approaches to her teaching style. She teaches Hatha, Vinyasa, Yin, Restorative & fusion yoga classes throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.