Alyssa
Alyssa Dougherty is a Meditation and Mindfulness Instructor, certified through the McLean Meditation Institute.
About Take Five
Take Five Meditation is Washington, D.C.'s premiere meditation only studio. We offer drop in and membership-based classes to help you develop and enhance your meditation practice. Whether you’re new to meditation or have been meditating for years, Take Five is a one-stop shop for all your meditation needs. Our world-class instructors (aka Guides) specialize in many different meditation traditions, bringing you unparalleled diversity in the options available for you to explore. Located in the heart of the Dupont Circle neighborhood of our nation’s Capital, Take Five exists as your oasis from the hectic pace of day-to-day life.
Eldad Moraru
Co-Founder and Chief Contentment Officer
Tara Huber
Co-Founder and Chief Happiness Officer
Eldad Moraru
Eldad is a husband, father, Realtor, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Black Belt, Harley Davidson rider, published author, world traveler, and all around foodie, pretty much in that order. He was born in Israel, moved to Zimbabwe, then to Queens, college in Boston, and finally to Washington, D.C. where he's lived ever since (if we don't count the year he sailed the Caribbean on a boat named Take Five with his best friend and was first introduced to meditation via a teacher on a Bahamian beach). After 27 years here, D.C. has been, is, and always will be Eldad's home.
Eldad's core is his family – his wife Jodi, son Eli (17), and daughter Talia (12). He works out religiously and fanatically, noting, “Take care of your body and your body will take care of you.”
Over the years, he experimented with meditation, but it became a profound source of comfort and strength following the passing of both of his parents within months of each other in 2012. At 43 years old, he started experiencing real anxiety for the first time. He began very deeply pondering his mortality and everything in his life from relationships to career choices to his purpose and on and on. His brain was on overload.
At that time, Eldad rediscovered meditation and began practicing on a daily basis through the self-teaching resources he could find. He found a calmness and a presence of being in the moment that he had never experienced before. The anxiety went away. Meditation was his game changer, and Eldad became determined to share meditation and mindfulness with his community too.
Tara Huber
Tara has worked as a personal trainer and yoga teacher in the District of Columbia since 2001. She grew up in Brooklyn, New York in a multi-cultural family with a father who believed that world travel was an important part of education, shaping who she is. While living in the city, she grew up with a passion for the outdoors and worked as a wilderness guide in the Adirondacks during her summers off from college. She spent a lot of her free time cultivating her love of long distance running, cross-country skiing, and discovering the wonders of nature.
Due to their shared love of nature, Tara and her husband Laurent moved to Helena, MT for six years after graduate school. During this time, she found her passion for yoga, trained for marathons, and started to cultivate her meditation practice. Tara discovered the lifelong benefits of meditation when she used yoga and meditation techniques to have a completely natural and drug-free birthing experience with her twin sons.
While living in Montana, Tara launched a program that provided advocacy across the entire state on behalf of children in abuse and neglect cases in the court system. It was then that Tara travelled to DC for work, fell in love with the city, and decided to move her family back east.
Her two sons (Tristan and Loic) who are now sophomores in college went to DCPS schools from kindergarten through high school. During her sons’ years at Janney Elementary, Deal Middle, and Wilson High School, Tara was immersed in each community as a member of the PTA and as a fitness provider to a large swathe of her local community.
With an extensive personal background and practice in yoga and meditation, Tara was always interested in finding that place where she could support Washingtonians in moving from working with their bodies to also working with their minds. Through personal experiences, Tara learned that power and healing come through a regular meditation practice.
Tara lives happily in Friendship Heights DC with her husband Laurent, her cat Sai, and her dog Stella.
Welcome,
We're Eldad and Tara, co-founders of Take Five Meditation. We created Take Five with one simple mission - to enable the greater Washington, D.C. community to find peace and happiness in their daily lives.
With our understanding of the intense, busy, networking, and intellectual ethos of Washington, D.C., Take Five Meditation provides an oasis, a place of deeply grounding mindfulness, a strong sense of community, and intellectual discovery.
If you meditate regularly, you've thought about trying meditation but don't know where to begin, or you were turned off by your existing options, then Take Five Meditation is the place for you. We've developed a space, class curriculum and special community events that will teach you how to bring tranquility, joy and balance into your everyday life through the pracitice of meditation.
Wondering how we do it? Stop by, try one of our guided meditation classes, and enjoy complimentary tea we source from Teaism in our community lounge where you will meet some of D.C.'s most fascinating people in our growing Take Five community. You'll be glad you did.
See you on the cushion!
Tara and Eldad
