Our Team

Jo offers calm, flowing sessions and classes with individualised attention modifications to challenge your body.

Laura Spence

Admin Angel

Laura is a dancer, dance teacher, personal trainer and admin whizz! Her warm, nurturing personality shines through, and she gets a great sense of achievement seeing her clients and students improve, and achieve their goals. Laura is excited to expand her skills and experience with some Pilates training soon too!

Laura will also being taking our STRONG, FIT & FUN classes

Mondays 5:15pm and Fridays 7:00am

Yanny Tjiong

Pilates Instructor

Welcoming Yanny, who has joined the team at FLEX as a Pilates Instructor!

Yanny fell in love with Pilates back in 2012, and completed her Pilates Diploma with Polestar, covering Mat, Reformer and Studio comprehensively.

Yanny’s positive attitude and sunshine energy are absolutely contagious, and her wicked sense of humour makes her pilates sessions really fun, always leaving her clients smiling and wanting more.

Yanny’s background as a Group Fitness Instructor also makes her versatile, and she loves using various fitness props to challenge or assist her clients.

Yanny takes SOLO Sessions, TRIOs and MAT classes, and you can feel her experience shine through as she layers up exercises to modify or "level up" exercises for each client. Yes, she'll always offer a challenge, but she's just as skilled at offering alternatives that feel comfortable and safe for patients rehabbing injuries.

Yanny works Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday mornings, and Tuesday afternoons.

She'll also cover a few extra classes here and there for others - we just can't get enough of sunshine gal Yanny!

Henry Rheinberger

Pilates Instructor

Henry is a dynamic and nurturing pilates instructor who will keep you feeling good and working hard. He discovered his love of pilates when recovering from a significant dancing injury, and his passion continues to be evident every day. As a dancer and dance teacher, he loves helping dancers with technique, strength and precision, and this attention to detail flows through to each client. Henry has a beautiful way of connecting with a wide array of clients, and particularly loves working with the "silvery haired crew". Henry has a wealth of experience in other pilates studios (and worked with Jo previously - oh so Hobart!) and has also previously worked for a Physiotherapy practice interstate, so is already really proficient with making modifications for rehabilitation, and individualised sessions fr those with niggles or an injury.

Henry works Wednesday afternoons and Thursday mornings, and is our go to guy for filling in on other days so you can keep your routine.

Ida White

Physiotherapist

Ida is a sweet and encouraging Physiotherapist who is originally from Finland. She and Karrie met each other at a ConnectTherapy course in Sydney years ago - so it's lovely to finally work together and use a ConnectTherapy toolkit of fancy biomechanical assessment and treatment tricks.

Since then Ida has worked for 3 years in a ConnectTherapy and pilates focussed private practice in Sydney, so she's very familiar with using pilates reformers, pilates equipment and running mat classes alongside her hands on skills and home exercises.

Ida is passionate about helping patients understand how their injuries, niggles and movement patterns are linked up and down the biomechanical chain, and helping them to solve the underlying cause.

Outside of work Ida has been very busy too - with two gorgeous young children keeping her busy.

Ida is working at FLEX on Mondays and Fridays.

Fi Poke

Pilates Instructor

Fi is an experience pilates instructor

Anette

Rach

Jo Behrens

Pilates Instructor

Jo is an experienced pilates instructor who is well known for her precise instruction, great cueing, and flowing choreography. Her warmth and kindness shines through as she encourages her clients to challenge their bodies.

Jo works closely with our Physiotherapists to devise a program that targets your specific issues, and safely challenges you to improve how you feel in your body - stronger, more flexible, more confident. Jo has a special knack for adding little modifications to add variety and flow.

Jo has a particular interest in helping people to age well.  She is here to help you move smoothly, and wants you to feel comfortable no matter your age, fitness or ability level. She really enjoys working one-to-one and in small groups so she can offer individual attention.

When she's not here at FLEX, you'll find her in her teaching role, training others to become pilates instructors!

Jo takes our early bird TRIO sessions, reformer SOLOs and DUOs, as well as some Pilates Matwork classes.

Jo works at FLEX Monday, Tuesday, Wednesdays, Thursday and Saturday mornings, as well as a sneaky TRIO & MAT on a Weednesday evening ;) 

Michiel Van Straten

Physiotherapist

Michiel (he goes by "Michael") is a very approachable, friendly and capable physiotherapist with a good sense of humor. He literally has a world of experience to offer.  Finishing his degree in the Netherlands in 1999, he started working straight away in a private practice. After working for 12 years in Europe he and his wife decided to move to Australia in 2011, so Michiel completed the laborious theoretical and practical exams to become registered as an Australian Physiotherapist. 23 years of experience and he still loves his job because it's so rewarding helping people move and feel better.

Michiel then worked for 9 years in Penrith, Sydney in a sports and spinal focused practice, working with touch football NSW, rugby players, and a variety of other sports. As a result Michiel has lots of experience in ACL and knee rehab, and ankle injuries, and also shoulder assessment, and post operative rehabilitation to help get clients back on track.

Michiel has done plenty of extra courses during this time, always keen to keep learning more and honing his craft, but has also really enjoyed training and mentoring new graduates, sharing his wide ranging knowledge, skills, and clinical decision making to help the next generation of physios.

During his time working here in Australia Michiel has continued upskilling, and particularly enjoyed taking courses in dry needling, kinesio taping, cervical spine and a temporomandibular joint (TMJ) courses. Patients with TMJ (jaw) disorders can have a whole range of symptoms like stiffness and pain around the joint, the feeling of ear pain, neck pain, headaches, clicking of the joint, pain when talking, eating, or not able to open the jaw properly.  Michiel's expertise fits in beautifully alongside our FLEX Headache Clinic as there is often overlap between neck and jaw conditions.

Overall, Michiel is a very good all-round physiotherapist who enjoys treating both acute injuries, and also more chronic musculoskeletal problems.  He is a very hands on physio with great manual therapy skills. During his spare time Michiel enjoys travelling, walking the dogs, swimming, going to the gym and watching sport, especially soccer, rugby league and tennis.  

Michiel works 4 days, with Fridays off.

Anette

Admin Angel

Super organised and friendly, and lots of coffee and laughs in between.

They are queens of multi-tasking, towel folding, tea making, settling babies, and finding extra, emergency appointment slots.  

They are worth their weight in gold.  And you might spot them in some of our classes and duo sessions - there are some nice perks to the job!

Bec is our practice manager.

Debora Fonseca

Massage Therapist

Debora is an Debora holds a Diploma of Remedial Massage and is a Member of the Australian Association of Massage Therapists so clients can claim their remedial massages using private health insurance.

She naturally chooses a medium pressure, but definitely has some strength in those hands if you like a firm effective massage. As regular FLEX clients know, we only employ the best.

Debora works Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturday mornings (fortnightly).

Emma Sorbian

Oncology & Lymphoedema Physiotherapist

Emma is absolutely passionate about helping patients through their cancer journey with top quality care.

Having worked in the public system in a specialist oncology physiotherapy department for 15 years in Perth, she was keen to try to bring those skills into the private system to help streamline the process for patients, and prevent the waitlists that can unfortunately bank up in the public system and cause patients to wait longer than what is best practice. Emma can help you prevent or manage lymphoedema with advice, lymphatic drainage massage, garment measure and fitting and bandaging.

Emma also offers a pre-op screening service for patients who are about to undergo surgery - early intervention is always preferable where possible.

Emma works Tuesdays and Wednesdays (and an occasional sneaky Friday slot!)

Stuart Nolan

Physiotherapist

His obvious passion for helping his clients, and his wealth of experience across both sports and spinal injuries, and post operative rehabilitation make him an asset to our team.  Stu has completed Watson Headache Approach Level 1 and 2, and loves helping headache and migraine patients feel better. Stu also has extensive experience with knee, ankle and hip patients, and loves sussing out shoulder issues too.

Stu is a keen multi-sport competitor, and loves helping sports people of all ages and levels of competition to achieve their goals and enjoy their sport.  This ranges from running biomechanics and injury rehabilitation to swimming, cycling and paddling.

He has competed in dragon boat racing for Australia, and has a particular interest in shoulder injuries, rehabilitation, and sorting out the tricky paddling related problems. Stu is always keen to help paddlers, kayakers and dragon boat racers not only deal with and recover from an injuries, but also look at technique to prevent this occurring, especially around the shoulders and lower back.

Stu's broad experience shows in his manual therapy skills, holistic approach, and the many tips and tricks he has up his sleeve.  We love learning from him and sharing ideas as a team.

Stu works 4 days, with Wednesdays off.

Chloe Foster

Physiotherapist

We are looking for a Physio with an interest in pilates to join our team.

Karrie Malan

Physiotherapist & Owner

After working for 15 years as a physio in private practices, her passion and enthusiasm for her work and helping her clients has only grown, and you can see the buzz she gets out of seeing them improve, and also reviewing more complex patient presentations with her physio colleagues and coming up with a plan together.

Karrie’s special interest areas include neck and shoulder pain, hip and lumbar issues.  These areas lend themselves to the art of observing, analysing and retraining movement patterns, where she incorporates her expertise in Clinical Pilates and exercise therapy, which she balances with hands on skills, including dry needling.  In the past few years she has particularly enjoying seeing "2nd opinion" clients to find the root cause of persistent issues.

Karrie is a Watson Headache®Certified Practitioner, having completed levels 1, 2 and 3 over the past 2 years.  She is excited about the seeing the effectiveness of treating both headaches and migraines using a unique and research based approach - the Watson Headache® Approach.  

There can be a large interplay between neck pain, posture, shoulder pain and arm pain.  Karrie enjoys the challenge of teasing out these injuries, and addressing each aspect of the problem step by step.  Combining thorough shoulder assessment with neurodynamic testing and exercise therapy means she can help track and explain symptoms that extend up into your neck or down into your arm, wrist or hand.

Similarly, hip pain, lower back pain and groin pain can sometimes become a complex picture to assess or treat as a physio.  She believes that understanding and explaining to patients how these puzzle pieces fit together empowers them to start changing habits and solving the underlying issues that are causing the pain.

With a keen interest in recreational running herself, Karrie really enjoys analysing and improving running technique and treating running related injuries, and she does most of our Running Screenings at FLEX.

Having worked in sports focused practices, alongside bootcamps, football and netball teams, Karrie enjoys the fast paced, decision driven world of sports physio, returning clients to sport quickly, and allowing them to play at their best.  

As an ex dancer herself, and with extra physio training in this area, Karrie treats many dancers.  She does our Pre-Pointe Dancing Screenings and understands the specific challenges that dancers face with their injuries.

She's also a bit of a nerd, attending lots of professional development courses, and reading physiotherapy journal articles . . . for fun.  

Karrie works part time as she juggles the joys (and challenges) of parenting  Jamie and Amelie.  She enjoys being outdoors, running, bushwalking, netball, pilates and keeping fit in her "spare" time.  

Karrie works 4 days, with Wednesdays off.

Visit the experts at FLEX Health Therapy today

FLEX Health Therapy in Hobart provides exceptional Physiotherapy, including assessment and diagnosis, effective hands on therapy, and targeted exercise rehabilitation, looking after you from top to toe.

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