Susan Mondi Bowen

Founder • Educator • Wellness Entrepreneur • Speaker • Creator, Momentum

Founder • Educator • Speaker • Wellness Entrepreneur • Creator, Momentum

Mission | Teacher | Momentum

Qualifications | Personal Practice

Mission | Teacher | Momentum | Qualifications | Personal Practice

A woman with short curly red hair posing in front of a colorful mural. She is wearing a sleeveless black top and hoop earrings, smiling with her arm resting on her knee.

The Teacher

Susan continues to teach every week because she believes the best teachers remain lifelong students.

Her classes blend anatomy, alignment-based sequencing, breathwork, meditation, philosophy, nervous system education, and practical application into experiences that challenge the body while cultivating greater awareness, resilience, and presence.

Rather than asking students to imitate a method, Susan encourages them to think critically, trust their own experience, and discover an authentic way of practicing and teaching.

A Mission That Continues to Grow

Susan Mondi Bowen has devoted her career to a simple but ambitious mission: to preserve the depth of yoga, advance the science of healthy living, and help people become more fully themselves.

In 2005, Susan founded Thrive Yoga on the belief that yoga could stay rooted in tradition while remaining relevant to modern life. What started as a single studio has grown into one of the DMV's most respected yoga schools, welcoming more than 100,000 people through teacher training, sound healing, longevity education, retreats, and integrated wellness.

But Susan measures success differently. It's the student who rebuilds confidence after years of self-doubt. The graduate who opens a studio or brings yoga into healthcare. The person who simply learns to feel more at home in their body.

Since founding the Thrive Yoga School in 2009, Susan and the Thrive faculty have mentored more than 800 graduates now working as teachers, studio owners, retreat leaders, healthcare professionals, and wellness entrepreneurs across the country.

Momentum

· Thrive

· Stronger. Longer. Together

· Momentum · Thrive · Stronger. Longer. Together ·

A yoga class taking place in a room with blue walls and colorful artwork. One woman is in a balanced yoga pose, supported by another woman, while several people sit cross-legged on mats watching. There is a whiteboard with lesson notes on the left side of the image.

A group of women practicing yoga or meditation, sitting cross-legged with eyes closed and hands resting on their faces, in a line against a plain wall.

Yoga Practices + Science

Susan's work sits at the intersection of wellness practices and contemporary science. Beyond decades of study in yoga, meditation, pranayama, and philosophy, she completed coursework in Lifestyle & Wellness Coaching through Harvard Medical School Executive Education, and continues studying neuroscience, healthy aging, and behavior change — deepening her understanding of why these practices actually work.

Momentum

Susan's newest initiative, Momentum, represents the natural evolution of more than thirty years of teaching, learning, coaching, and personal exploration.

The program focuses on the power of community when making lifestyle changes. Momentum’s blueprint is to increase healthspan through longevity and wellness protocols. Having built a business from the ground up, navigated injuries, experienced menopause, weathered personal challenges, and continually refined her own approach through research and lived experience, Susan teaches longevity with both scientific curiosity and deep compassion. Her mission is becoming increasingly focused on helping people live stronger, longer and in community.

Qualifications & Leadership

• Founder & Director, Thrive Yoga (est. 2005) and Thrive Yoga School (est. 2009)

• Harvard Medical School Executive Education – Lifestyle & Wellness Coaching

• Yoga Alliance Accredited, E-RYT 500 • YACEP

• American Yoga Council – Highest Professional Designation

• Certified Sound Healing Educator

• Creator and Lead Expert & Coach of Momentum

• Creator of Thrive's 200-Hour & 300-Hour Teacher Trainings, Thrive Sound Healing Training, Pranayama & Meditation Professional Training

• Co-Creator of Longevity Retreat Experiences

• 800+ teacher training graduates since 2009

• Trained in classical yoga traditions, with gratitude to Swami Satyananda Saraswati, T.K.V. Desikachar, Alan Finger and the ISHTA tradition, and Paramahansa Yogananda

• Winner of Start Right! Business Plan Competition, Entrepreneur of the Year Runner-up Maryland Women's Business Center, Community Award City Of Rockville Mayor & Council, Rockin’ Retailer Award Rockville Chamber of Commerce

• Board Member, Montgomery County Family Justice Center Foundation

Living the Practice

The most meaningful way to teach yoga and longevity is to live it.

Inspired daily by the perseverance, curiosity, and determination of her students, Susan continues to practice yoga, breathwork & meditation, fitness conditioning, focused recovery, and embrace the longevity habits she teaches. Her personal approach to health reflects exceptional levels of strength, mobility, and cardiovascular fitness for a woman in her sixties. Her longevity plan is an expression of the values she encourages in every student: consistency, resilience, curiosity, and lifelong learning.

Susan believes that her students are among her greatest teachers. Their commitment inspires her to continue evolving, asking better questions, and refining the work she brings back to the Thrive community.