Karl Lucas

Karl found the practice of yoga in his late twenties. It took him only one class to realize how much he had been neglecting his body, despite years of movement through sports. He became consumed with understanding what it was about yoga that was so effective at nourishing the entire body. Since then he’s completed his first teacher training, taken various anatomy courses and workshops, and has continued to develop his and his student’s personal practices. He’s seen and experienced how yoga, when practiced with specific attention to the minute details of the postures, can remove tension in the body, leading to reduced tension in the mind. He believes in the practice as therapy for the body and its nervous system, which then opens up the possibility for deeper, richer experiences of life.

Karl’s goal is to bring the practice of yoga to beginners who are curious or dubious or simply unaware, and to deepen the practice of advanced practitioners. His classes are rich with precise verbal cues to effectively establish and maintain alignment in the bones and muscles, building strength with stability while creating ease in movement.

Dani Henry

Hello beautiful souls, my name is Dani! Originally from New York City, I came to Vermont to get my degree in Music Education. After graduating, I realized that I had a passion for teaching fitness. My first certification was in POP Pilates back in 2018, which I still teach regularly. Since then I have gained more certifications including my 200 hour Yoga Teacher certification. My focus is in restorative yoga, because it saved me from a difficult moment in my life. My hope is to pass on my love of yoga so that it can help someone else like it helped me. 

Sharon MacFarlane

Sharon was introduced to yoga in the summer of 2009, casually practicing at a local gym. In 2014, she moved to the Burlington area and began to intensify her practice at local studios including Evolution. After attending drop-in classes regularly, workshops, and retreats, she decided to deepen her practice by completing Laughing River Yoga’s Yoga Teacher Training, graduating in the spring of 2016. Her goal was not to become a teacher but soon after graduating from YTT a teaching opportunity became available. While teaching she realized how teaching continued her learning of yoga as she shared the practice with others. She strives to be inclusive of all, and create a safe space for all to learn and experience the gifts of yoga.

Tamasin Kekic, OTR/L, CBIS, RYT-200

Tamasin is a licensed Occupational Therapist who graduated from the Evolution PT and Yoga 200-Hour Teacher Training for Healthcare Providers in 2020. She found the teacher training at Evolution Yoga to be very expansive in both the exploration of her own yoga practice and in more diverse ways, and helping to integrate the science of yoga as a therapeutic modality towards wellness and union of mind, body, and spirit in her therapeutic work with others. Tamasin is inspired by her own journey of healing and learning through Yoga teachings and the physical practices that contribute to emotional and physical resilience and balance. In addition to the Evolution teacher training, Tamasin has completed Yoga trainings with the Love Your Brain Foundation, and LifeForce Yoga which include techniques for adapting yoga and mindfulness for those living with brain injuries, depression, anxiety and trauma.

Tamasin is currently building a mobile private Occupational Therapy practice, Equipoise Occupational Therapy, in southern Vermont. Her practice has a specific focus area of supporting people with Dementia in their homes, their unique challenges, and managing caregiver needs and risks. She uses integrative and evidence based Yoga techniques including mindfulness and meditation to help reduce caregiver overwhelm and symptoms of anxiety and depression in her work with others.

Tamasin fills her own cup with time spent paddling, swimming, and hiking in the Adirondack mountains and lakes with her husband Nicholas, two teenage daughters, and her dog Olive.

Christine O’Neill, PA-C, PCC, RYT-200

Nicci Micco (RYT-500)

Jessie Owens

Jessie is curious about the places where the art, science, and spirituality of movement overlap. She was drawn to yoga initially as a way to compliment her dance practice. While studying dance, she began to understand the transformative power of contemplative movement, making connections between meditation, movement, and breath. She became interested in the role fascial health plays in the body, in our movement possibilities and in our sense of our internal states. These are the connections that compelled her dig more deeply into yoga. Jessie is grateful to continue to share and learn. She emphasizes the meditative aspect within all of her movement practices and teaching, in the observance and tracking of sensation and breath.
Jessie completed a 200 hour yoga teaching certification with Evolution PT and Yoga in 2019. She holds a BA in dance from Smith College, and is a certified massage therapist who specializes in Myofascial Release, Swedish, Deep Tissue, and Thai Massage.

Sasha Finnell (she/her)

Evolution PT and Yoga Studio Office Manager & Yoga Teacher

Sasha is a yoga teacher here in our Vermont community and Evolution’s Office Manager.

It’s true that we live in a fast paced world — learning how to slow down and listen is a daily practice. Slow and reflective practices, like yin and restorative yoga help us do just that — slow down and listen. Explore embodied ways of being through yoga asana (movement), pranayama (breath & energetic work), and meditation in Sasha’s classes.

Sasha’s teaching encourages the practitioner to live fiercely, find strength in softness, and power in vulnerability. Classes feature gentle flows balanced with restorative and yin yoga. Together we can keep leaning in and gently opening to those parts of our being that feel squeamish. In a society that tells us to work until we drop, practicing stillness and rest seems a radical act — however it is our right.

Sasha has studied with Evolution Yoga (200 hr) and Laughing River Yoga (300 hr).

Take a free virtual class, sign up for a weekly class, or schedule a 1:1 session or private group class with Sasha at sashafierceyoga.com.

Zach Wilson

Zach was drawn to yoga through the management and rehabilitation of body pain. Intentional movement with emphasis on breathwork and meditation had a profound effect on his overall well being. After completing his 200 hour certification at Evolution, he knew that he wanted to share this practice of yoga with his family, friends, and Burlington area community. As a Physical Therapist Assistant, Zach draws from his experience to instruct alignment based classes with emphasis on fluid transition between poses. Zach teaches Wednesday nights at 7:15 PM and Thursday morning at 7AM in Smalley Park just down the street from Evolution.

Hope Elliot

The Yoga practice has the ability to help us learn to accept ourselves for who we are while continuing to grow. Hope believes that yoga is truly for everyone and every body. She found yoga in her early twenties while she was experiencing severe depression and anxiety after leaving a verbally and emotionally abusive relationship. Her therapist at the time introduced her first to meditation to help quiet and focus her mind. She then encouraged Hope to seek out a yoga class and teacher that inspired her. Hope’s first eye-opening yoga class was a vinyasa yoga class at Zen and Now, in her hometown of Niantic, Connecticut. She left class shocked by how much quieter her mind was. Hope realized that the focus of linking breath-to-movement was the perfect way to get in touch with herself and facilitate authentic lasting change.
Hope began her career in the fields of health promotion and clinical research with a focus on education and outreach. After five educational and rewarding years, she realized that clinical work was not the best gift of her’s to share with others. After an inspiring solo trip to Barbados, lots of reading and soul searching, Hope decided the best thing she could offer the world was sharing the gift of yoga. Hope’s work as a yoga teacher brings harmony, grace and meaning to her life. Hope hopes to extend the light that yoga has offered to her back to her immediate community as well as the global community at large.

With extensive experience in care-giving and mental health education, Hope seeks to help her students deepen their relationship with themselves through self-awareness. Hope’s yoga flows invite practitioners to be introspective and mindful of their own individual needs.
We are all interconnected.

Let us come together in the practice of yoga to deepen our understanding of ourselves in order to connect with others on a deeper level. With the tools yoga has to offer, Hope invites you to a practice that helps us live our lives with more intention and authenticity.

Patsy Tyler DPT, RYT

Patsy worked as a professional actress before moving to Vermont in 2000, with her husband and son via Los Angeles from her native Australia. A change of career was imminent and she decided to combine her love of horses, physical activity, movement and working with people into a new career. She completed her BA degree from the University of Vermont with a Minor in Animal Science and an emphasis on Equine Management.
She continued her studies earning a Doctorate in Physical Therapy from the University of Vermont in 2009 and for the past ten years worked at a very busy orthopedic outpatient clinic. Her focus was on pre and post-operative care for people with joint replacements (hips, knees, and shoulders) and pre and post-operative care for people with neck and back surgeries. She developed and specialized in working with patients of all ages with neurological deficits, sports injuries, and chronic pain. She especially enjoyed working with her older clients helping them develop well balanced and discerning exercise programs to improve bone and joint health through the aging process. Patsy’s continuing education over the years included courses in Balance and Vestibular rehabilitation, Mulligan manual therapy techniques for muscle and joint imbalances, Active Release techniques for the Lower and Upper Extremities, Kinesiotaping for pain and injured joints and muscles and therapeutic yoga for low back pain and patients with chronic pain.

It was through her own yoga practice and courses for health professionals at Evolution that she knew she wanted to delve more deeply into Yoga philosophy and the science and evidence of Yoga. Patsy recently completed her 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training course at Evolution PT and joyfully integrates yoga poses, breathing techniques and yoga philosophy into her physical therapy treatments. She believes it is imperative to treat the whole person if beneficial health choices are to be made and sustained over a lifetime.
Meet our PTs and get a piece of Wellness Wisdom

Janet Carscadden PT, DPT, E-RYT, YACEP

Owner – Evolution PT and Yoga Studio Inc.
Lead Faculty Evolution Yoga Teacher Training
Dr. Carscadden has been practicing yoga for over 23 years.  As a licensed physical therapist she was first drawn to ways that yoga improved flexibility, strength and clarity of mind. Gradually over time she discovered the full breadth of yoga’s practices.  She received training in the healing art of yoga therapy and started integrating yoga practices into her patient treatment sessions.  Janet completed her 200 hour certification in Vibrant Living Yoga Teacher Training in Bali and became a lifelong student of the eight limbed path of yoga.  She opened Evolution PT and Yoga in 2006 as a goal of creating a practice where yoga and medicine intersect.
Janet’s classes include pranayama, slow flowing sequencing, restorative postures, guided relaxation and meditation all built around a central theme. Drawing on her expertise of the physical body. Janet offers her students accessible instruction in alignment and anatomy to understand how to modify practices to their individual needs. She challenges students to remain focused on the present, meeting their practice where they are at that moment in time.
Dr. Carscadden teaches weekly a weekly drop-in Yoga Therapeutics Spine and Hips class on Tuesdays 4:30-5:30 pm, Yoga for a Healthy Back 6 week series, Yoga Nidra, Yoga Wall and Psoas Release Workshops. She is lead faculty in our 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training and Yoga Therapeutics for Healthcare Providers Courses.
Take a free class with Janet

Evolution is amazing for both physical therapy and yoga.
I began telehealth PT a month ago in the midst of Covid-19 office visit limitations.  I had considerable shoulder pain and restricted range of motion that severely impacted my activity. Within one month, my level of pain has dramatically decreased and my activity level is almost back to normal. I think telehealth is an excellent means of doing physical therapy. Dr. Janet Carscadden is a superb therapist in every way.  She provides skilled and carefully planned guidance and support.  I was so incredibly surprised how well this platform of health care delivery worked for me!
My practice of Kaiut Yoga with Julia O’Shea has been essential to my overall health and well-being over the past year. Julia does an amazing job of providing modifications and adaptations that work for each individual and has helped me work through many physical issues. She is a talented and extraordinary teacher of this healing method of yoga.  The delivery of these classes online during this challenging time has been a wonderful contribution to our collective wellness.
Thank you, Evolution Physical Therapy & Yoga! – NS

Martha Whitney CHT, SEP, E-RYT 500

Martha offers a mindful, inspiring and welcoming yoga environment that fosters an enhanced self-acceptance and embodied well-being. Her in-depth training in anatomy, movement and breath allows her to artfully guide postures that access body ease and aliveness. Martha compassionately meets her students where they are while encouraging them to stretch beyond what they have known and to experience more fully who they truly are. Students leave class feeling more comfortable, confident and resilient in themselves and in their lives.
Martha has been studying yoga and body-mind therapy for over 25 years. In addition to group and private yoga classes Martha is in private practice supporting life change through Hakomi, a body centered psychotherapy. Martha’s other great passion is long canoe trips in the open landscape of Labrador, where, as in yoga, she feels vastly alive.

Kirsten DeLuca, CMT, YTT-200

Kate Floyd RYT-500

Kate has 500+ hours of training and is a certified Hatha Yoga Teacher. She completed her training at Laughing River Yoga in Burlington, VT. A student of yoga since 2005 and teacher since 2012, Kate is perpetually curious about the power of yoga to transform us both on and off our mats. She loves that yoga encourages us to explore deeply and kindly. Most recently, she is influenced by her studies in Katonah yoga and incorporates this into her teaching. In Kate’s classes you can expect to explore classical Hatha poses, guided meditation, breath work, chanting, and to invoke your own imagination. You will be nurtured and challenged. To learn more about Kate and her offerings please visit: katefloydyoga.com

Rachel de Simone DPT, RYT 500

Director of Yoga Programming and Staff Development

Lead Faculty – Yoga Teacher Training and Yoga for Life Programs

Staff Physical Therapist and Yoga Instructor

Movement has always been part of Rachel’s life. As a former dancer, she is compelled by the fluidity, gracefulness, and creativity of vinyasa yoga, the precision and strength of alignment-based practices, and the clarity and focus found in stillness. For Rachel, yoga is a form of self-expression and a process of connecting to the most authentic parts of herself. Her personal practice continues to teach her how to live truthfully and reflectively.

Rachel completed her 200-Hour teacher training at Laughing River Yoga 2012 and a restorative yoga specialist training at Kripalu Yoga in 2016. She recently completed her 500-hour training at Kripalu and is certified as an Ayurvedic Yoga Specialist. Rachel is a lifelong student and is currently continuing her studies at Kripalu in Ayurvedic Health Counseling. In addition to teaching yoga, Rachel is also a physical therapist who integrates yoga and physical therapy into a holistic practice that treats mind, body, and spirit.

What can you expect from Rachel’s class?
Rachel’s teaching continues to evolve from her own practice. She integrates Ayurvedic, yogic, and Buddhist wisdom into her teachings to help students boost sattva (harmony and energetic balance). Her classes align with the rhythms of nature, with different energetic tones based on the time of day and season. It is her intention as a teacher to create a vinyasa krama, or a wise progression of movement, breath, meditation, and mindfulness woven together around a theme. Rachel believes that yoga is a practice of unlearning the habits of our reactive minds, unveiling the illusion of separateness, and waking up to our true nature, which is peaceful, loving, and kind. She hopes your practice empowers you to live from your heart, and to begin cultivating peace in the world by cultivating peace with yourself.

Meagen Satinsky MPT, PYT

Meagen received her Master’s degree in physical therapy in 2000 from Simmons College in Boston, MA. Combining over 18 years of PT experience in acute care, rehab, and outpatient medical settings with eastern and western studies, she offers an integrated approach to health and wellness. Her unique perspective integrating PT and yoga helps support students with both acute and chronic movement and pain challenges.
Meagen began her exploration into yoga following a back injury in 2005. This experience redirected her life path to focus on bridging the gap between healthcare and complementary alternative approaches to medicine. In 2006, she completed a 250-hour yoga teacher certification in Hatha yoga with a focus on Vinyasa yoga, and in 2014 earned a certification in Professional Medical Yoga Therapy with Ginger Garner. Upon arriving to the Burlington area in 2013 she began studying and practicing within the Iyengar yoga system and has found a natural fit teaching classes that fuse the structure of this system with her years of prior study. Meg enjoys working with all students and has specific experience in postnatal and pelvic floor, spine and hip populations. She regularly teaches group classes and workshops, contributes to the YTT training program at Evolution and is passionate about teaching healthcare providers about how to integrate yoga into their practice.
Creating an environment for learning, practicing and sharing with those who cherish the process continues to be a humbling experience. Meagen gratefully dedicates her practice to her teachers.
Meet our PTs and get a piece of Wellness Wisdom

Devin Russell

Devin has been practicing yoga since 2013, received her 200 hour certification through the UVM YTT program in 2016, and graduated with a degree in psychology from UVM. Her teaching style promotes the physical benefits of yoga as well as the importance of yoga and mindfulness in fostering mental and emotional well-being. In her classes, Devin encourages her students to engage in a practice of devotion to one’s highest self, nurturing a playful exploration between body and mind while simultaneously advancing her student’s knowledge of proper alignment. Devin is always eager to share her love for the art and science of yoga with her students!

Michelle Downing DPT, RYT

Michelle took her first yoga class at the age of 16 in a hospital in Bennington VT. When moving to Vermont in 2003, her passion for yoga lead to an intensive study of philosophy and detailed alignment principles with yoga instructors Todd Norian and John Friend, culminating with a 300-hour teacher training in 2006. An ever increasing curiosity about the human body and desire to use yoga to heal injury lead her to enter the University of Vermont’s Doctorate of Physical Therapy program in 2009. Michelle’s alignment and therapeutic classes facilitate developing flexibility, strength and stability while honoring the uniqueness of every body. There is a focus on mindfulness and non-judgemental embodiment to develop a healthy and strong mind body connection.

View Guided Meditations & classes

Meet our PTs and get a piece of Wellness Wisdom

Patrick McAndrew

Patrick teaches yoga like no other. A certified Kripalu yoga teacher, who has been practicing yoga since his teens, Patrick brings the magic of the ages into a gentle and lively practice that is completely relevant to today.
He uses unique postural sequences, deep devotion, and a light-hearted sense of humor, to help each student connect to yoga’s history, philosophy, and community. Like a modern male incarnation of Saraswati (the Hindu Goddess of music and knowledge), Patrick leads Kirtan (call-and response ecstatic chanting) and and often accompanies yoga classes on guitar, harmonium, and ukulele.
Bring movement, awareness, relaxation and a smile to every part of your being, in a fun and encouraging atmosphere, come experience yoga with Patrick!

Krista Marzewski RYT200, Y12SR Leader, Trauma Informed

YOGA was the wind beneath Krista’s sails, enabling her to find the missing pieces in her life. She learned to love herself again, embrace life & dream. Completing her training with Story Yoga, she learned to simply breathe. Connecting her physically, mentally and spiritually, Krista is passionate about sharing the gifts of the practice with you. She believes yoga is for everyone; her teaching style makes yoga accessible to everyone.

With over 30 years of experience teaching she brings her passion for teaching to her students and yoga mat. She is Trauma Informed and Mindfulness Based Trained through James Fox and Anneke Lucas. Krista is currently pursuing her 300hr. certification.

Krista is also a certified Y12SR leader. Y12SR combines the ancient wisdom of yoga with the practical tools of the 12-Steps. One of the Y12SR founding principles is that “our issues live in our tissues” – in her classes, Krista pairs an inspiring theme with a grounded vinyasa flow class to explore this concept.

Sharon McIlwaine MTCM, L.Ac.

Sharon McIlwaine has been teaching pilates matwork for 18 years. Previously a modern dancer, she loves floorwork, and gravitated towards pilates matwork versus the pilates apparatus (reformer, cadillac, etc). Pilates increases our awareness of our core musculature, activates it, and gets it working for us, like it’s meant to do and likes to do. Once we find our core, it becomes integrated into everything else we do. Since the core is what supports our back, many with back pain find pilates tremendously therapeutic.
Sharon’s pilates training began with Jonathan Urla, the creator of Yogilates. Her subsequent pilates trainings have been in the Stott Pilates technique, as well as the more classical Power Pilates. Sharon was the owner/director of Breathing Light Pilates in Montpelier, VT for 6 years, before moving to NYC in 2013 so that her son could take advantage of a full scholarship at the American Ballet Theater.
Sharon and her long-term partner, Andy Flagg, returned to Vermont in the summer of 2018. She completed the Evolution Yoga Teacher Training in May 2019. An acupuncturist as well, Sharon is the owner of Burlington Acupuncture.

Miv London Ph.D.

Miv is a psychotherapist, meditation teacher, and yoga teacher. She weaves mindfulness and meditative practices into yoga, helping her students cultivate self-awareness and self-compassion, and enabling them to tap their vast potential for healing and growth.
Miv received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Yale University in 1984. She worked at the University of Vermont from 1994 to 2015 as a staff psychologist at the Counseling Center where she cofounded the UVM Mindfulness Practice Center in 1999 and served as its coordinator until her retirement. She currently has a private psychotherapy practice in Burlington. Miv has practiced yoga for over 25 years. She did her 200 hour teacher training at Laughing River Yoga in 2013, and has subsequently studied with Amy Weintraub and become certified as a Level 1 LifeForce Yoga Practitioner. She has studied and practiced Buddhist meditation in the Shambhala and Insight traditions since 1999.

Adam Bluestein

Adam has practiced yoga since taking a class to meet a physical education requirement in his senior year of college. He began teaching yoga in 2014 and completed his Yoga Alliance 200-hour teacher certification with John McConnell at the University of Vermont. Adam’s classes emphasize safe alignment, the importance of breath, and a playful curiosity about the physical and spiritual aspects of yoga practice. In addition to teaching regular vinyasa classes, Adam offers yoga workshops geared specifically to men, and for three summers has led popular Yoga on the Dock classes at the Community Sailing Center. A freelance journalist and father of two, Adam uses yoga as a practical means to “conquer the self by means of the self” in the face of life’s daily challenges. Adam’s classes and personal yoga practice are inspired by his teachers, including John McConnell, Lauren Godes, and Kathy McNames.

Alison Aiken, PT, DPT, CYT

Alison began practicing yoga in 1999 while searching for a way to find peace within herself. At the same time she started running and found her yoga practice to be a nice complement to the repetitive stress that running places on the body. In 2005 she completed her yoga teacher training through The Yoga Institute learning a style of teaching that focuses on adapting and modifying postures for the individual rather than expecting the individual to conform to a certain ideal. This concept has blended her practice as a physical therapist into her yoga teaching. In 2019 she received her Professional Yoga Therapist certification through Naada Yoga in Montreal.
Alison’s classes include special attention to alignment, breath, and awareness of the body. She teaches in a way that links movement with breath and offers opportunities to explore the body’s capabilities with bits of anatomy, biomechanics, and self interoception thrown in. She demonstrates how yoga postures and consciousness carry over into everyday life. Classes are taught with consideration of individual needs allowing the student to embrace yoga with curiosity and without judgment.