E-RYT500 | She lived with anxiety and depression since childhood. Sometimes it eased back - sometimes months and years were lost. In 2001 Barbara walked into her first Anahata yoga class and met her teacher Ana Costa. Barbara had always had a wonder and respect for yoga and had practiced here and there and on her own. She lived in her mind rather than her body but she had an inborn ground of spiritual life that had already led her to India and into art as her life’s work. Read more...
From the first Savasana, she knew she had found something she hadn’t know to ask for. Anahata was a completely different way of approaching life and it supported everything Barbara loved about spirit, heart, beauty, kindness, order, and what she would call ever present holiness - and it started with the body and breath.
Anahata focuses on the heart - expanding, deepening, brightening the heart while honoring the body and clearing the mind. During one of the early classes, though, Barbara felt a dark wave of depression beginning to build. The thought of living through it all again was like drowning. In the gentle forward bend at the beginning of the practice, she could hear Ana’s reassuring voice describing stress melting away, the breath relaxing the back and head, and anxiety being removed. It seemed impossible, but following Ana’s instructions as carefully as she could manage, Barbara felt the depression slide off like a load of heavy mud. She almost laughed out loud in class. When she slowly stood up from the pose and took a breath, all she could think was, ”I want this for everyone.”
It was the turning point in her life and she dove in and studied with Ana Costa to become a yoga teacher.
When she arrived in Weaverville in the summer of 2009 to open a yoga studio for the town, the students who appeared at the door had a special request of yoga. They wanted a practice that could help them age well and fully enjoy life by being confident in their bodies, emotions, and spirits. That became a unique focus of her teaching.
Then students confided that the weight their bodies had accumulated was uncomfortable and strange to them and they didn’t know how to regain a more appropriate weight. Exploring several ways, Barbara began the 10 Week Weight Loss Workshops at the studio. Using the structure of a yoga practice to steady the emotions and give the needed inner support for change, the program eliminates at the student’s pace - quickly or gradually - highly refined processed foods and gives guidance in choosing, cooking, and enjoying simple real food. It is a way made to last a lifetime and to treat our bodies and ourselves with self-care and gratitude as the gifts they are. And it works.
She lives with her husband, Jay, in Weaverville. Jay is the creator of the powerful website building engine HotWax. Without his patience and support Weaverville Yoga would never have happened and certainly would not be here five years later. You know how the Oscar winners always have a big long list of thank yous and make sure the person closest to them is on that list even when the orchestra plays the impatient music? That is Jay to Barbara. If you love Weaverville Yoga, a quiet thanks to Jay is in order.
They have three children. Annika is the founder and factotum of Beeswax, a website building community for women, now serving Etsy. Kipper is a well-known and loved DJ and late night host throughout Asheville. Tim is a fine arts student in Montreal.
Barbara has made it her life’s work to bring health, happiness, kindness, and love to others through the teaching of Anahata Yoga.
She still paints - mostly small and mostly gouache. She still goes to India when her heart calls and she often takes retreats at Meher Spiritual Center.
One more story. Why Weaverville Yoga? Barbara was living and teaching yoga in Asheville, quite happy. A friend kept insisting on going to a place called Weaverville where a bakery served lunch. To placate her friend, she went. She looked around the town as she walked to the bakery and she wondered,”Where is their yoga studio? This is such an interesting small town - artistic, light hearted, charming, and current. Where is the yoga studio?”
After lunch, they crossed the street to visit a friend on Florida Avenue who had a landscape design business. Barbara’s eyes were drawn to a door with a black canvas awning. ”That would be the place for a yoga studio for the town,” Barbara thought. It was a kitchen cabinet carpenter’s shop.
Three years later, when the old yoga center on Broadway in Asheville closed, Barbara gathered the teachers who wanted to go on and formed Weaverville Yoga to open in the summer of 2009. All they needed was a place. An agent called and said she had found a spot. Of course it was the small room with the black canvas awning over the door. Our first yoga studio in Weaverville.
We later moved into the old post office at 7 Florida Avenue. Our beloved studio still has the feeling of being given by grace with its beautiful space and light and the sincere, gifted teachers who have come together here to share yoga (and now ballet and Pilates). It is special. It’s home to us.
Yoga in a small town. Neighbors meeting neighbors in a friendly place. Yoga with kindness. Namaste! We welcome you.
Steve Mucciarone (Dass Tiaga)
Steven’s spiritual name is Dass Tiaga, which means one who, having given up all worldly attachments, serves the Divine in all with the highest and most heartfelt consciousness. He believes that Kundalini is the diamond from which all fractals of God Consciousness were created, and considers Kundalini the jewel of his heart from which all potentials and realities are formed. He is thrilled to share this practice to help other people as a guide to their own potential and awareness, to help burn away their karma so they can live happy, healthy, and holy lives.
Kundalini yoga:
Kundalini Yoga is the Yoga of awareness. Yogi Bhajan, the Master of Kundalini Yoga, delivered these teachings to help make our lives easier in the dark times of the Aquarian Age, which we are- by many people, believed to be living in now. Kundalini Yoga involves internal work by facing our subconscious blockages and finding ways to break through them in order to heal. This Yoga will awaken one to their full potential in life.
Randi Janelle
RYT200 | Randi has practiced yoga from age fifteen and relishes the gifts it has bestowed on her life. She is a performance poet, novelist, and a photographer among other things, and views yoga as a creative manifestation for the body, mind, and spirit. She enjoys creating poetry through awareness, movement, breath, and gratitude. For a few years she hobbled on crutches from a ligament injury to her knee, but has healed it from yoga asanas and listening to the lessons that injury had to teach. Yoga Inbound combines a few styles: Ashtanga Vinyasa, Iyengar, and Anusara, with emphasis on stabilizing energy, alignment, and heart opening. Randi focuses on the inward poetry of the body - what is it telling us that we may be ignoring? Perhaps simply that it is miracle! She believes like any art, yoga is best interpreted by intuition, visualization, and being present. Read more...
Randi is also an avid traveller and lived in Australia and New Zealand, returning to Asheville after four years overseas.
She received her training near Cusco, Peru and carries with her cultural inspirations from the New Zealand Maori, the Peruvian Quechua as well as Hindu. Her optimism and enthusiasm is infectious, and she’s thrilled to be sharing space with you!
About her style, Yoga Inbound,
What is Yoga Inbound? Sounds pretty meditative, huh? Well, to an extent it is. But it can also be very physically challenging and strengthening.
Randi Janelle studied at the International School of Yoga Inbound near Cusco, Peru in 2014. She came from an Ashtanga Vinyasa background, and enjoyed the rigor that that style of yoga demanded. Yoga Inbound differs with its use of activating muscle groups in particular alignments of”spirals,” which leave you feeling like a warrior ready for whatever challenge might come to you, physically or mentally! Due to these alignments, Yoga Inbound opens the heart and strengthens the back and shoulders, correcting our desk-seated droop, or curving of the spine at the shoulders from aging.
Randi teaches Yoga Inbound with the consistency of looking inwardly and making energetic alignments so that our external efforts and interactions emerge from a place of nourishment and balance. The practice is physically active, a quicker flow with holding poses for three breaths instead of Ashtanga Vinyasa’s five, but it requires mental calm and effort as well. Rest assured, Randi prefers not to take it all too seriously and invites camaraderie and jokes as the sweat starts to drip onto the mat!
Weaverville Yoga has the exclusive honor of offering Yoga Inbound in the Asheville (if not all of North Carolina!) area. The style of yoga has it’s roots in ancient India, but has been modified and taught around the world with schools in Latin America, Europe, Australia, as well as India. Come check it out, and see if this style suits you!
Here’s a reference from one of Randi’s regular students: Dear Randi, As your 65 year old Yoga Novice, I wish I had the verbal skills to let you know how amazing your Inbound Yoga class has been for me. You are such an awesome teacher with your constant posture reminders, explanations, encouragement, recognizing student strengths and weaknesses, taking care of each of our needs and at the same time challenging us to keep improving. My strength is getting so much better (and the body toning is such a great side gift!!), balance is improving and the over all physical and spiritual improvements I look at with such gratitude. I’m so thankful I saw this on the class schedule and decided to see what it was all about. Anyone looking to do something to improve their life would be doing themselves a favor to contact you for instruction. I thank you for all you do and look forward to each and every class…even though I know it’s going to be a workout!!! Ha!! Thanks Randi and YOU ARE AMAZING! Cathy Hetzel
And another student: As I think you know, I resumed yoga with you and Barbara about 5 weeks ago after an eight year hiatus, following a hamstring injury. I took a long vacation from yoga to consider the personality traits that might have sent me into harm’s way.
So I have come back to yoga with profound respect for the delicate balancing act required when we practice. It’s a balance that reflects how we move skillfully through life: on razor’s edge of paradox and ambiguity. Inner life and outer life. Giving and receiving. Self care and generosity. Moving and stillness. Yoga is all about that. Now I have been introduced to”inward spiral,, outward spiral!” I find your teaching to be a magnificent blend of all these opposites, culminating, always, in your encouragement to stay in this present moment, which is the most healing place of all. I am so grateful to you for your wise teaching. The way you incorporate the poses with the yoga philosophy will keep me challenged physically while protecting me from reaching beyond what is safe for my body in every moment. Plus I love your light heart and humor. Just the right amount of levity and seriousness. Another lovely balance. Peggy W.
Claire Elizabeth Barratt is an inter-disciplinary artist with a performing arts background. She is the director of “Cilla Vee Life Arts” – an arts organization with a focus on cross-media collaboration. Her work utilizes artistic disciplines of dance, music, text, media, visual and installation art.
Claire has presented her work in venues as diverse as Jacob’s Pillow, the New York Botanical Gardens, Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center and Art Basel Miami. She has performed and taught throughout the USA, Canada, Europe and Japan. Read more...
Claire received her professional training in London at The Laban Centre For Movement and Dance and at the London Studio Centre For Performing Arts. Her pre-professional training includes the Royal Academy of Dance and the Royal Schools of Music examinations. She also served an apprenticeship with the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation in New York.
On moving to the USA in 1992, Claire held the positions of Dancer for “Unto These Hills” drama on the Cherokee Indian Reservation and for Asheville Contemporary Dance Theater in North Carolina, as well as serving as Co-Director for Circle Modern Dance and as Choreographer for the Knoxville Opera Company in Tennessee.
Once based in New York in 2002, Claire founded “Cilla Vee Life Arts” and, with the support of arts advocates such as Chashama, Bronx Council on the Arts and Arts for Art, began to develop and present her signature modes of work – including “Motion Sculpture Movement Installations” and “The Sound Of Movement” projects.
Claire now uses Asheville NC as her home-base. Her most recent project was that of co-founding the arts organization The Mission for Temporal Art, with Audio-Visual artist David Linton, in Marshall NC. She is currently an MFA candidate with the Transart Institute, developing a pedagogy for Performance Art.
“My work as an artist blurs boundaries and crosses categories. Re-defining the traditional concepts of a “piece” and challenging the conventions of performance, time, space and audience relationships.”
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Rosanna Keyes
Rose is a freelance writer and yoga teacher based in Western NC. She has been writing for over twenty years and her pieces have been featured in a variety of online and print publications. She has been practicing yoga for over ten years, teaching for 4 years, and holds her 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Registration. She teaches many styles of class, ranging from Power Flow to Yin and Restorative.
Her classes are compassionate, intimate, and focused, and she continually encourages her students to meet themselves right where they are, engaging in the present moment with curiosity and courage. Over the years yoga, meditation, and writing have consistently brought her healing and peace, and she is grateful to be able to share those practices with others.
Rachel began practicing yoga in high school when she received an MTV yoga video for Christmas in 2002. The full body workout and trendy music sparked her interest, but it would be three more years before Rachel took a semester of Yoga 101 at the College of Charleston and encountered the history of yoga practice and experienced its healing benefits first-hand. Under the guidance of an accomplished teacher, Rachel glimpsed the mental and emotional support yoga could offer. and for the next few years she practiced yoga sporadically but always returning to a consistent practice when she need it most.
Her class is Rooted Flow:
This class is a gentle, grounding practice designed to get you connected with your body, allowing presence, understanding, and acceptance. Rooted Flow is accessible for all abilities and offers a safe, strengthening practice. Beginning with breath awareness and moving into a full body warm-up, followed by slow vinyasa and finishing with rooting balancing poses, this class will leave you feeling refreshed and relaxed. Read more...
Rachel graduated from College of Charleston in 2010 with a BA in Political Science. She knew at this point she wanted to write about pertinent social issues while also pursuing an interest in alternative health and wellness. After interning at a wellness center in Charleston, SC, Rachel was introduced to multiple healing modalities but realized yoga was still calling as a primary path. After moving to Asheville in 2012, she began a regular Kundalini yoga practice and loved the spiritual and healing aspects this lineage offered. In February 2014 Rachel gave birth to Leo, her first child. Once again Rachel’s yoga practice became inconsistent at best, but she knew it was only a matter of time before she would get certified to teach.
Darleen Benson
Darleen began a yoga practice almost 40 years ago. During recent years, as she has experienced the inevitable changes of an aging body, she has relied increasingly upon yoga to maintain strength, flexibility, balance, mindfulness and joy.
Several years ago, she was inspired to complete a 250-Hour Yoga Teacher Training program. She then graduated from Therapeutic Yoga for Seniors Teacher Training offered through Duke University’s School of Integrative Medicine. She has also completed courses on Yoga for Osteoporosis and Osteopenia, Pelvic Floor Health, Chair Yoga, and Postural Changes of Aging which have deeply influenced her asana practice and teaching style.
Her passion and pleasure today is in finding her voice as a teacher of others who are “Coming of Age” in bodies that are changing, becoming increasingly unable to perform like “they used to”. There is joy and celebration, art and mystery in growing old, and there is no better way to take that journey than on the Path of Yoga!
As we move through the later decades of life, our bodies lose postural integrity, mobility, and bone and muscle strength. This often leads to living with pain which is avoidable.
Our goal is to be Straight; Strong, Stable, Supple and Serene. The practice will include many ways to integrate yoga into your daily routine to create “off-the-mat” mindfulness of natural posture, breath, flexibility, strength and balance.
In this class you will learn to create and maintain a flexible spine that is in neutral alignment. The practice is designed to prevent and treat back pain, osteoporosis and the postural changes of aging.
This is a breath-centered practice which links movement with breathing techniques to center and calm you. We will practice deep relaxation and serenity, with reduction of stress and anxiety.
Kris Harris
Kris teaches different forms of yoga and meditation around Asheville, since moving here in 2017, all different ways ways of moving/shifting attention into stillness, ease, joy, wonderful well-being, and peacefulness. she also makes music and kirtan, exploring the possibilities of sound, mantra, and the heart.
Yin/restorative: Yin stretches into the body, with opening postures that are held for several minutes, bringing the layers of the system into greater health, and finding our way into deeper rest, openness, and ease. Restorative yoga uses more bolsters and support, and more resting postures that we let go into, for deep rest and rejuvenation. No experience necessary. All bodies can find a way with these practices!
Ginny Goodin
Ginny Goodin is a tai chi, qigong and meditation instructor, personal development coach, and a long-term student of centering practices as a core path to a relaxed, conscious approach to daily life.
Tai Chi Chuan was an easy love affair for her, enthralled by the fluidity and gracefulness of the movements, and deeply moved by the centering and peacefulness of the discipline. With 30 years of practice, she has experienced how energy moves through the body and how profoundly we can affect our daily life with this simple yet deep practice.
Ginny is a gentle, generous, and spirited woman, a sensitive and caring teacher, who offers warmth, unfailing patience, and deep support.
About Tai Chi, Ginny says:
Maybe you have heard of Tai Chi, or seen the graceful images of people gliding through dance-like poses, doing what looks like kung fu in slow motion. What is Tai Chi, anyway? Read more...
Tai Chi Chuan is characterized by soft, fluid, yet precise body movements that emphasize relaxation and the conscious circulation of energy throughout the body. Because Tai Chi is practiced slowly and with a relaxed attention, it calms the nervous system. This meditative effect brings mental clarity and relieves stress while developing focus and discipline.
Tai Chi practitioners experience increased flexibility, balance and coordination, resulting in reduced risk of falling. Tai chi practice can boost the immune system, increase bone density, reduce occurrence of illness and flu, and promote long-term health and longevity.Instruction begins with learning the specific movements and memorizing them like steps in a dance. In the beginning the movements may feel a bit awkward, but with time they become more familiar and comfortable. As the student gains some mastery of the moves, the teacher helps the student adjust their posture and alignment to foster more relaxation and fluidity in the body.
A tai chi student doesn’t need any special clothing, just something loose or stretchy to allow for easy movement. Footwear is a matter of personal preference, some prefer to go barefoot, some wear light-weight Tai Chi shoes, and some wear athletic shoes used only in Tai Chi class.
Joyce Hones
Joyce Hones is a teacher of heart-centered yoga with a focus on safe alignment and intelligent sequencing of asana. Her primary studentship has been at City Yoga (Columbia, SC) and she completed a 200-hour teacher training in November 2016 through Rasika Yoga School (Cornelius, NC).
Her primary studentship has been at City Yoga (Columbia, SC) and she completed a 200-hour teacher training in November 2016 through Rasika Yoga School (Cornelius, NC; led by Stacey Millner-Collins, Sarah Faircloth, Kelley Gardner, Allison Modafferi-Brewster, and Sari Weston).
For years, she has longed to live in the North Carolina mountains; a recent transplant to western NC, she is happy to have found a warm embrace in Weaverville Yoga. Read more...
Her classes focus on alignment, celebration of embodiment, and a balance of connecting inward to self and outward to community. The blend of theme with physical postures allows students to take what is meaningful to them and map it onto their body. Joyce’s classes honor the natural rhythms of our human experience - by hour, by month, and by season. She considers it a gift to have the opportunity to teach, and has an eager mind and open heart to learn from each class and student. Aside from yoga, she enjoys hiking, exploring and spending time on a new venture: opening a wood and metalworking studio with her partner in Burnsville, NC.
From a student: “As a student in Joyce’s classes you can expect to be rejuvenated in mind, body, and soul. No matter the type of day you have experienced, once you roll out your mat and are in her presence your worries slip away. She is always in tune with the seasons, elements, and moon phases and brings a quote or message that sticks with you after you leave the studio. She is great with helping you keep your breathing techniques and with alignment. She also is willing to research specific techniques that might help your body in particular if you let her know something feels off or hurts. The intentions set in the class resonate with me after and help me manifest in my own life off the mat.”
Hanna Zalesky
With the foundation of a childhood yoga practice, Hanna began to feel more seriously drawn to yoga in 2010. She has since completed a 200-hour teacher training and is grateful for the opportunity to begin sharing the joy of the practice.
She is interested in the benefits of yoga for the subtle body and the impact of the practice on the way that we relate and balance our bodies and minds. She’s entranced by the power of yoga as a component of holistic self-care.
Her Vinyasa-style class fosters the connection between breath and movement in a mindful, empowering and playful way. With attention to accessibility, comfort and alignment, Hanna’s class is designed to leave you feeling graceful, balanced and grounded.
Jenne Sluder
Jenne is a yoga therapist, professional musician, and a native of Asheville, NC. She is a qualified mental health professional with a Master’s in Transpersonal Psychology from Naropa University, specializing in a somatic approach to improving mental health. She is a certified yoga therapist and is trained as an advanced (RYT500) instructor of therapeutic yoga and meditation. Therapeutic Yoga applies anatomical precision, intelligent sequencing, and a calming pace to relieve anxiety, stress, and fatigue and to stretch, strengthen and increase mobility in muscles and joints as well as to fine tune the body’s systems, improving circulation of blood and lymph, balancing the nervous system and strengthening mental clarity, healthy breathing, and digestive function. As a therapeutic yoga instructor, Jenne strives to empower students to progress toward improved health and well-being through safe, informed, and precise application of the most relevant yoga practices for each individual’s capacities and conditions. Jenne teaches yoga in both traditional studios as well as in mental health settings for adults and at-risk youth.
She works with individuals and with groups using somatic (body-based), contemplative (meditation-based), and nature-assisted therapies to deepen intimacy and compassion with ourselves, our bodies, with each other, and with the natural world. Jenne often incorporates her soothing singing voice into savasana. You can learn more about Jenne at jennesluder.com.
