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 suits 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 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. Most recently, 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. In February 2007, Margaret 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 1997, and is a product ambassador for LUNA bars and Manduka. Margaret has been asked to speak on career transition and, of course, yoga. Check out her blog.
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 three in June 2008 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 look forward to an active outdoor lifestyle in their new home. Margaret plans to continue her life’s work of sharing yoga, while watching Morgane grow up learning to ski and horseback ride. Photo by the fabulous Alicia Caine Photography, Montana Baby & Children Photographer
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
I have been practicing yoga most of my life. During a night of insomnia in 1980 my official yoga practice began with pranayama when my mother taught me how to control my breath and use my mind to relax. Little did I know that the accidental yoga teachings of my childhood would continue to serve me well into my adult years. Savasana and pranayama became especially relevant when treating my migraines, anxiety, stage fright and even drawn upon when a plastic surgeon stitched up my forehead after a car accident at 13 years old.
It wasn't until years later - while sitting in the aisle of our campus library at Northwest Missouri State when a yoga book literally fell off of the shelf and into my lap - that everything illuminated. My formal yoga practice began in my rented 100 square foot room with that book. It was rudimentary, but life changing.
Since then, my yoga path has been nothing short of exceptional; yoga has led me to remarkable teachers and friends, the meeting of my husband, and becoming a studio owner along with an extraordinary partner - all in a span of 11 years.
My teachers come from varied backgrounds, and they have all helped shape me into the practitioner and teacher that I am so far. My mother was of course my first teacher. My second was Tippi Denenberg (One Tree Yoga, Omaha), who saw my potential and urged me to become more than a practitioner. After an ongoing 2-year training with Tippi, I was certified as an instructor with Yoga Alliance.
Since then, I have had the good fortune to study with and become certified by both Shiva Rea & Jimmy Barkan. However, my personal practice and relationship to my practice as well as my students continue to be my most astute teachers.
Lisa is the founder of Breathing Room Yoga in Livingston, Montana.
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 Bozeman Yoga Center.
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.
March 2007
from "ask the expert"
I practice yoga daily. My studio offers different types of classes (hatha, hot, power, yin). Is it better to focus on one type or take a variety?
- Joseph Lim, Hong Kong
There are certainly benefits to sticking with one style of yoga - digging a single deep hole rather than several shallower ones. The practice even within a single system is not necessarily uniform. In Ashtanga, the set sequence of postures can function like the "control" in a scientific experiment, highlighting changes in the practitioner...There is also validity, however, in being a yogic gourmand who delights in many tastes, styles, and approaches.
If one day you want to sweat and stengthen your way through a power class and the next day you feel more like being guided by your Yin teacher into a long, deep pigeon pose, you can choose appropriately. Varying your practice can be a way to get in touch with your inner guidance, foster balance in your body, and bring a quality of richness and spaciousness to your yoga.
A school that has a range of offerings can provide several doorways through which practitioners can enter into a yoga practice, as well as various places to make transitions along their path. You may find that, after several years of experimentation, one method really captures you. You may decide to give yourself to it completely. Or, you may dedicate yourself to a particular system, but as your circumstances (such as age, health, or energy level) change, you may find that you are drawn to other styles.
No one has the authority to decide the right way for anyone else. Yoga is fundamentally a deeply personal practice; no one system or approach is better or worse than any other. If you are growing through your yoga and love doing it, then it's working.