Learn from leaders in healthy living.
Margaret Burns Vap
Margaret is the founder of Big Sky Yoga Retreats. Her relationship with yoga began almost a decade ago, in a bid to combat a hectic New York City lifestyle and a corporate career with cosmetics giant L’Oreal. A few years and several hundred down dogs later, Margaret knew that the corporate world no longer held her future, so switching her designer duds for comfy pants - and NYC for Washington DC - she combined her business know-how with her passion for yoga and created Georgetown Yoga, one of DC's most popular yoga studios.
Now Margaret brings that same recipe for yoga success to Montana. Margaret combines her fresh approach to teaching with a unique ability to create a nurturing, safe space in which to learn yoga. Her teaching will leave you calm and refreshed after a vigorous flowing practice, putting you in touch with your true potential and transforming your health and well being in the process.
Margaret has studied with many top instructors at the Jivamukti Yoga Center in NYC and Richard Freeman's studio in Boulder, CO; has attended David Swenson's intensive training in the foundation and teaching techniques of the Ashtanga yoga Primary series, and has done intensive practice and study of the Ashtanga Primary and Intermediate series with Dave Oliver from At One Yoga in Phoenix, Arizona. Margaret completed a 200-hour teacher training intensive with Yoga Works; this training was the 
result of a partnership between her studio Georgetown Yoga in Washington, DC and the renowned CA-NY based Yoga Works. Margaret has also traveled to Hawaii for Baron Baptiste’s Level 1 teacher training bootcamp. Margaret is a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT) with Yoga Alliance; Margaret's photo "mountain dancer" taken in Big Sky was chosen for the 2008 Yoga Alliance calendar. Margaret represents companies she believes in: she is sponsored by Athleta, outfitting women athletes since 1998, and is a product ambassador for Cloudveil Inspired Mountain Apparel, LUNA bars and Manduka. Margaret has been asked to speak on career transition and, of course, yoga. She authors a blog called Cowgirl Yoga. Margaret teaches weekly yoga classes at Be The Change yoga studio in Bozeman.
Margaret holds a BS in Business and Languages from Georgetown University and an MBA from Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management. She speaks fluent French, Spanish, and a little Italian and has lived abroad on numerous occasions.
Margaret is mom to Morgane Sienna, who will be four in June 2009 and loves yoga poses named after animals. In early 2007, Margaret, her husband David, Morgane and their two Boston Terriers Lola and Rocco all packed up and moved to Bozeman, Montana. They enjoy an active outdoor lifestyle in their new mountain home. Margaret continues her life’s work of sharing yoga, while watching Morgane grow up learning to ski and horseback ride.
Janice Cartwright
Janice Cartwright is our head wrangler for Cowgirl Yoga and founder of Montana Horse Sense. Originally from Pittsburgh, Janice attended the University of Pittsburgh as a Health, Physical Education and Recreation major.
Her family spent every free minute at their private boy’s camp in Ohio; there she was able to discover and nourish her love for horses. She started teaching horsemanship when she was 12 years old; she's always been a teacher by nature. She chooses to teach through her horses - lucky her. After moving to Atlanta in 1981, Janice managed to continue her with her love of horses and teaching while raising 3 daughters and starting a new business, Roswell Bicycles. Her introduction to Montana was on a vacation in 2001, and she immediately related to this special place. After all, she had always felt she was born in boots and jeans! After her last daughter graduated from high school, the move was made. Having lived here for the past 4 years, Janice has thoroughly enjoyed getting to know this beautiful place and the friendly people she's met, usually from the back of a horse.
Upon arriving in Montana, Janice joined the Back Country Horsemen. This organization works with the US Forest Service to maintain the trails that she was so eager to discover. She was immediately immersed and became Vice President and a board director. Given her teaching background, the yearly Defensive Horsemanship Clinics dealing with safety on and around horses in all situations became her responsibility. Janice also met a wonderful man with some cows so...thus her cowgirl instruction began. Just because you ride a quarter horse does not mean they automatically know what to do with a cow.
Throughout all her time with horses, Janice has come to understand that to be as safe as possible around these wonderful creatures we must understand how they think. Their instincts are what drive them and the more we learn about them, the safer we can keep ourselves and our mounts. She has enjoyed the journey of helping others down this path.
Chris Hamilton
Chris is our Outdoor Adventure Consultant & Photographer and is affectionately known as the mountain goat. While mountain goats are not necessarily known for their yoga skills they are known for their incredible climbing abilities. As an experienced climber and mountaineer, Chris provides Big Sky Yoga Retreats with valuable advice and counsel on all our outings.
Based in Bozeman, Montana, Chris’ passion lies in exploring remote, wild places. He has been climbing and mountaineering around the world for over 15 years. From big mountain expeditions in the Alaska Range to solo ascents in the Southern Alps of New Zealand to big walls in Yosemite, Chris’ brings us a wealth of experience in the backcountry. When he’s not hanging from his ice axes, you’ll find him behind his camera. As a photographer and filmmaker, his focus is in bringing the natural beauty of these remote, vertical environments to life in both photography and film.
Chris holds a BS in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. In his spare time, he is Director of Product Management at RightNow Technologies, Inc.
Chris is also the founder of High Peaks Productions and Gallery, showcasing his fine art photography.
Lisa Marie Hughes
Practicing yoga has transformed my life. I chose to teach yoga because I hoped that I could share this with others. Yoga has become a great love of mine, and I have had the good fortune that it has been part of my life for quite awhile. During a familiar night of insomnia my unofficial yoga practice began with pranayama when my mother taught me how to control my breath and use my mind to relax. I was 4 years old. Little did I know that these accidental yoga teachings would continue to serve me well into the future. Savasana and pranayama were relevant when treating my migraines, anxiety, stage fright and were drawn upon when a plastic surgeon stitched up my forehead after a car accident at 14 years old. In the Summer of 1996, my formal yet rudimentary yoga practice started in a rented 100 square foot room in Maryville, Missouri. While sitting in the aisle of our campus library at Northwest Missouri State, a book about yoga literally fell off the shelf and into my lap. It was at that moment that everything I had learned from my mother had illuminated.
My teachers come from varied backgrounds; my mother, father and grandparents being my very first ones. My second was Tippi Denenberg (One Tree Yoga, Omaha), who urged me to become more than a practitioner, and convinced me to consider teaching. After an ongoing 2-year training with Tippi, I became certified as an instructor with Yoga Alliance. Since then, I have had the opportunity to study with and become certified by both Shiva Rea & Jimmy Barkan. Currently, I believe my dog, Rocco, to be one of the most consummate yogis around.
Admittedly, attempting to live my yoga practice "off the mat" can be challenging. However, the teachings remind me to keep my energy relaxed in moments of confrontation, and that all it takes is practice, not perfection. Yoga is everywhere, and a yoga practice lives within all of us in everything we do. For me yoga is in the wind while riding horses to move cattle across the badlands of Eastern Montana, sitting with my own thoughts, walking a trail with my dog Rocco, hugging my niece or nephews and navigating the mundane stresses a householder encounters in this amazing crazy life.
Visit Lisa's website at www.lisamariehughes.com
Julia Kern
Find joy in your yoga practice and it will follow you into your life! Julia’s yoga practice started in 2004 and in her short yoga life she has taken workshops in many different styles including Ashtanga, Iyengar and Anusara. She has studied with Nikki Duane & Eddie Modestini, Shiva Rae, Jamie Allison, and Cyndi Lee. She is in the process of completing her training with Tias Little. In her classes Julia uses a short meditation as a way to center and focus the minds of her students before starting a challenging physical practice. Being a mother of 3 she knows first hand the importance of taking time out of your day to reconnect with your true inner self and feed your own soul. She believes that in your yoga practice you can find your own breath and use it to create balance and space in your own body, and then take this with you to find your own expression of peace and calm off your mat. Julia teaches weekly classes at the Be the Change Yoga Studio in Bozeman.
Julie Kleinman
Julie is Yoga Works’ Director of Program Development, and the director of faculty and business development for Yoga Works Teacher Training. She has been teaching yoga over 13 years and has taught hundreds of students around the world.
Julie began practicing yoga in 1990 at the Jivamukti yoga center in New York City. In 1993 she moved to Los Angeles where she discovered Ashtanga and then, Iyengar Yoga and continues to practice both traditions. Julie took the Yoga Works Teacher Training in 1993 and was certified by Yoga Works in 1996. Julie has taught all levels of students, from brand new beginners to aspiring teachers through the world renowned Yoga Works Teacher Training Program.
In her free time she writes songs, plays bass guitar, rides horses, surfs, hikes and reads and makes artwork.
Julie has recently been featured in Yoga Journal:
February 2007
from article "why I became a yoga teacher"
I was living in New York and bartending at the Knitting Factory when another bartender took me to Jivamukti. I just went back and went back. I was 20, pretty young - too young to be bartending. I had already become brittle and angry and sad. Doing yoga completely broke through that crust. All of a sudden I was smiling.
In 1993 a friend told me about an upcoming teacher training at Yoga Works taught by Erich Schiffmann and Rod Stryker. I borrowed $1,000 from my grandmother to pay the tuition and took a Greyhound bus to LA. As soon as I completed the training I started teaching, initially at small yoga studios. I immediately fell in love with teaching yoga. Pretty soon I was teaching eight classes a week at Yoga Works as well as private sessions, which are lucrative in LA. I supplemented that with workshops and retreats. Eventually, I started teaching in the Yoga Works Teacher Training program.
Meanwhile, I'm also an enthusiastic reader and writer. After 12 years of teaching, I was beginning to feel like parts of me were languishing. I wanted a new challenge, so I began to pursue other avenues at Yoga Works. Even though I hadn't originally wanted a traditional career and had always rejected the business world, I now work behind the scenes in Yoga Works' programming and teacher training departments. I get to use my writing and creativity and develop new business skills, and I feel like I've brought these two polarities, yoga and business, together in a satisfying way in my life.
I fell in love with teaching for many reasons: not only because I can share the practice I love and watch my students transform, but also because it has given me access to a lighter, more extroverted part of myself that I did not know existed.
Jessica Young
founder of Be The Change Yoga Studio in Bozeman, MT
bio coming soon!