Teachers
Anna Blackwell
Director of The Village Shala, Anna has been a practicing “Ashtangi” for ten years. The practice has become her teacher, and she continues to learn everyday from her wonderful community of students. With a background as a massage therapist, Anna studies how bodies move through practice, with a special interest in serving the individual student's growth.
Anna assisted and studied extensively with Christine Hoar for nearly a decade.
Since March of 2016, Anna has made two trips to Mysore, India to practice with Sharath and Saraswati Jois, connecting to the Ashtanga yoga lineage. While in Mysore, she studied philosophy and chanting with Dr. M.A Jayashree, and Professor M.A Narasimhan of the Anantha Research Foundation.
In addition to yoga, Anna is a clinical herbalist having completed a three year program at the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism. She offers individual consultations, plant walks, and group classes ranging in topic from herbal medicine making, specific body systems, and herbal body care products. Her goal is to match plants with people, making herbal medicine available to everyone.
Anna offers a caring, welcoming space for all who come to practice.
Anna assisted and studied extensively with Christine Hoar for nearly a decade.
Since March of 2016, Anna has made two trips to Mysore, India to practice with Sharath and Saraswati Jois, connecting to the Ashtanga yoga lineage. While in Mysore, she studied philosophy and chanting with Dr. M.A Jayashree, and Professor M.A Narasimhan of the Anantha Research Foundation.
In addition to yoga, Anna is a clinical herbalist having completed a three year program at the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism. She offers individual consultations, plant walks, and group classes ranging in topic from herbal medicine making, specific body systems, and herbal body care products. Her goal is to match plants with people, making herbal medicine available to everyone.
Anna offers a caring, welcoming space for all who come to practice.
Katie Manaras
Katie’s first love was mountaineering, where dicey situations required her full concentration and allowed the rest of the world to fall away. When she first rolled out her mat at Bristol Yoga in 2006, she was thrilled to discover that this feeling of freedom was accessible from within, and in every moment. Compared to her background in competitive sports, it was revolutionary to be told that it didn’t have to hurt, and that there was no need to compare herself to others or judge her performance in any way. She embraced this new frame of reference, kept practicing, and found herself healthier and happier.
Katie is grateful to have studied and assisted long term with Christine Hoar. She has done adjustment clinics with Nancy Gilgoff and David Swenson, as well as weekend intensives with Time Miller and Andrew Eppler. She takes regular practice among her much-valued community of friends at the studio. In teaching, she aims to provide a warm, welcoming and fun environment like the one that has kept her coming back all these years.
Katie is grateful to have studied and assisted long term with Christine Hoar. She has done adjustment clinics with Nancy Gilgoff and David Swenson, as well as weekend intensives with Time Miller and Andrew Eppler. She takes regular practice among her much-valued community of friends at the studio. In teaching, she aims to provide a warm, welcoming and fun environment like the one that has kept her coming back all these years.
Lonny Edwards
Lonny Edwards has been teaching Ashtanga for two years and practicing for seven years under the guidance and tutelage of internationally renown yogi Christine Hoar. Lonny has taken adjustment clinics with Nancy Gilgoff and Christine Hoar, as well as weekend intensives with Andrew Eppler. His classes are rigorous, fun, welcoming, warm and challenging. "Ashtanga has been transformational in my life. It has taught me how to love myself, my body, each breath. I want to share that love with others.” In addition to yoga, Lonny is a husband and father, a musician, a carpenter, a youth sports coach and an avid Wiffler.
Jill Kiedaisch
Jill has been fostering a dedicated Ashtanga practice for more than a decade. She has been teaching at The Village Shala on and off for two years and considers the studio her “yoga home.” Jill began studying Ashtanga in earnest with her teacher, Christine Hoar, in 2005, and has also been fortunate to attend adjustment clinics with Nancy Gilgoff, and weekend intensives with Andrew Eppler. Over the years, yoga has woven its way into many aspects of Jill’s life and has become more than a practice. It’s become a way to grow, learn, heal, love, and be present within each day. Jill is incredibly grateful to be a part of Bristol’s unique, supportive yoga community, and to continue her study with Ashtangi Anna Blackwell.
Jen Peterson
Jen Peterson has a 200YT certification from Yoga Alliance and has been teaching yoga for almost 3 years at the Village Shala in Bristol, VT. She has been practicing yoga regularly for 10 years and is a student of mindfulness and meditation. Her emphasis in her classes is on helping people experience all of the holistic benefits of yoga. She loves yoga for the profound help it offers in slowing down within our demanding lives and acknowledging the moment. Jen loves the depth, expansion, and humanity that yoga can inspire and is happy and grateful to have the chance to share that with others in her classes.
Allison Lea
Allison attended her first yoga class in Montana in 1998. In 2009, Allison took a Yin Yoga workshop with Petrina Plecko and resonated with the way the slow, passive nature of it complimented and balanced her Ashtanga practice, as well as her active lifestyle. She then took a teacher training in Asheville, NC. Allison appreciates how her practice of Yin Yoga has guided her to vast stores of creative energy which can be discovered in stillness, and invites people from all walks of life and all levels of yoga to come practice with her.
Christine Hoar
Christine has been a practitioner of the Ashtanga Yoga System for nearly 20 years and has been teaching Ashtanga yoga for over 17 years. She was the director and founder of Vermont’s only dedicated Ashtanga yoga studio, Bristol Yoga and currently directs Ashtanga Montauk in New York. Specializing in the integration of the Ashtanga system of asana with the principles of Ayurveda and the depth of Yogic philosophy, Christine offers students unique insights into discovering greater joy, freedom, and self-transformation. Christine has made many trips to Mysore, South India to study with the late Sri K Pattabhi Jois, and she is honored to have received his blessing and authorization to teach.
Christine is also a certified Ayurvedic consultant. As a teacher and practitioner, she is devoted to creating health and joy by fostering a sense of interconnectedness with our natural environment. Combining the practices of Yoga with that of Ayurveda, she offers students a body of wisdom designed to help them achieve vitality while realizing their full potential.
She is registered with the Yoga Alliance as an E-RYT500 and her school, Ashtanga Montauk, is registered as a RYT-200 Teacher Training Program.
Christine is also a certified Ayurvedic consultant. As a teacher and practitioner, she is devoted to creating health and joy by fostering a sense of interconnectedness with our natural environment. Combining the practices of Yoga with that of Ayurveda, she offers students a body of wisdom designed to help them achieve vitality while realizing their full potential.
She is registered with the Yoga Alliance as an E-RYT500 and her school, Ashtanga Montauk, is registered as a RYT-200 Teacher Training Program.
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