Cari Rae Woodfield is a YA certified RYT 500 yoga instructor. She completed her training at The Yoga Bridge in Black Mountain, NC under renowned master Ishanath Marcel Andres-Hoepgen. She studied Hatha Yoga disciplines and philosophies, and focused on the Nath tradition and series’ during her advanced training hours. She received comprehensive training on both the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, as well as many meditation techniques.
In her career as a yoga teacher, she has worked extensively with athletes, including basketball players, professional dancers, martial arts practitioners, wrestlers, and boxers. Her style focuses heavily on strength and body conditioning, using the breath to guide isometric poses and increase balance and flexibility, while also training the muscles to relax and build trust with the mind. She is highly adept at building perfectly paced flows for every level of practice, and has an intuitive understanding of how trust, pacing, breath, and belief in oneself all play a collective role in preventing injury and preparing the body for newfound health and strength. Cari also works with Alzheimers and dementia patients using chair yoga classes and breathing techniques, which are designed to strengthen focus and attention while stimulating regeneration for the sedentary body.
In addition to teaching yoga, Cari is also a Pilates and Bachata dance instructor. She has found that many of the same principals of energy, body awareness, breath control, trust and flexibility are incorporated on the dance floor as well as on the mat. She is also a C.M.A., X-ray tech, E.K.G. tech, and phlebotomist, with six years of practice in a professional health care setting. She believes her background in Western medicine, with focus on anatomy and physiology, helped prepare her to comprehensively grasp and easily apply the Eastern philosophies and disciplines found in Yoga.
Cari currently resides in Asheville, North Carolina, where she teaches group classes and private lessons.