Our Teachers

Sandra Pleasants

Teacher Emeritus

CIYT Level 3

Sandra is privileged to have studied at the Iyengar Institute several times as well as attending every Iyengar convention since 1987. Her primary teachers are Gabriella Giubilaro, Patricia Walden, and John Schumacher.

She served on the board of the IYASE as both treasurer and president, and has written several asana columns for the Association's magazine and Samachar.

Sandra discovered yoga in her early 50s. She is now in her mid-80s and after bilateral hip replacements in 2009, continues to practice and teach and explore life. Her life experience as mother of five and grandmother of eight gives her an accessibility that allows her students to feel simultaneously challenged and supported.

Mary Bridle

CIYT Level 1

Mary has been practicing yoga in the Iyengar tradition since 1984 and teaching since 1992. Her primary teachers include Joe Adlesic, Sandra Pleasants, Siegfried Bleher, and Kevin Gardner. She is a certified Iyengar yoga teacher, having achieved this December 2014.

Mary's 48 years as a practicing occupational therapist provides her with a thorough understanding of how the human body, mind and spirit work in health and in ill health. Her experience working with people of all ages with a wide variety of challenges including injury and disease, acute and chronic, orthopedic, neurological, psychiatric and psychosocial gives her a profound appreciation of human resilience and capacity for healing.

This knowledge and experience infuses her teaching style allowing her to explain why a particular instruction is given as well as how to implement that instruction. She adapts the poses to accommodate individual students' physical limitations within the class context. She is vigilant in listening and watching for both verbal and non-verbal cues from students to help her respond to their needs and maximize their participation. She is patient yet persistent, helping her students achieve their potential. Her teaching is characterized by consistent, meticulous, and serious attention to detail and alignment, leavened by a sense of humor so her classes are fun as well as instructive.

In 2016 Mary underwent a total reverse shoulder replacement in February and a total hip replacement in November. She continues to work through her practice to regain poses temporarily lost, such as Sirsasana ( headstand) and gracefully relinquishes poses irrevocably lost due to prosthetic limits such as Adho Mukha Vrksasana (handstand) and be grateful for the relief of joint pain and all the poses she can do. These surgeries have deepened her practice and teaching in unexpected ways.

Mary currently teaches level I/II and II classes at Yoga Cville. See the schedule and class descriptions. She is also available for private instruction.

Amy Stewart

CIYT Level 1

Amy began her yoga practice in 2002 to aid in recovery from a running injury, and found that asana is a wonderful metaphor for all of life’s challenges. She has studied Iyengar yoga with Shaaron Honeycutt, Mary Bridle, Sandra Pleasants, and Joe Adlesic. She regularly attends workshops with senior Iyengar teachers.  She has taught yoga since 2012, and in 2016, completed Introductory 1 and 2 assessments. 

Amy loves introducing students to the precision, beauty and challenge of Iyengar yoga, and finds joy in learning from her students.

Carol Gardner

CIYT Level 1

Carol began her study of yoga in San Diego, where the first class she took was an Iyengar class. Over the years she has tried other styles but always returned to Iyengar style yoga for its precision and attention to detail. She also appreciates the Iyengar focus on the safety of the students. After moving to Charlottesville in 2010, she began to study at Allied Yoga with Mary Bridle. Not long after, she began teacher training with Sandra Pleasants and Shaaron Honeycutt. She has also participated in several workshops with senior Iyengar teachers. A mother of 3 children, she finds a regular yoga practice provides a sense of emotional well-being that is critical in a hectic life.

Holly Korab

CIYT Level 1

Holly has studied yoga since 2003, studying under the direction of Lois Steinberg, one of Iyengar’s senior-most teachers, and attending workshops with other senior teachers. Holly fell in love with the precision of the movements and the possibility for deep, lifelong growth in the discipline. Following Lois’s example, and as a certified Iyengar instructor, Holly developed a teaching style that encourages students to focus inwards so they become aware of their own physical abilities and possibilities. When a student does so, Holly believes that yoga can become meditation in action, yielding gifts of strength, flexibility, healing, and peace.

Anne Barkley

CIYT Level 1

Anne adores Iyengar yoga and loves to share this gift with others to experience greater energy, freedom of movement, strength, balance, and reduced stress. She first studied Iyengar yoga in 1988 from CIYT Ruth Fiske in Santa Cruz, Ca as she pursued a graduate degree in dance at UCSC, with extensive study of anatomy and kinesiology. She attended a Presentation with BKS Iyengar at the Palace of Fine Arts Theater in San Francisco in 1990 and received a yoga series from Mr. Iyengar which, when practiced, cured her pituitary condition. In 1990, she moved to Ithaca, NY where she practiced and taught yoga for many years while she met her husband Geoff and started a family. During this time, she studied with Senior Teachers Dean and Rebecca Lerner, and Theresa Rowland. She took Iyengar Yoga teacher training from Theresa Rowland in Madison, New Jersey in 1999. 

In 2000, she moved to Charlottesville, Virginia where she studied with Joe Adelesic and taught at Blue Ridge Yoga. She also taught yoga at Allied Yoga, and eventually Yoga Cville in Charlottesville. She studied teacher training with Siegfried Bleher in his Iyengar teacher training program in Morgantown, West Virginia. She apprenticed with Shaaron Honeycutt and taught yoga at ACAC. She also mentored with Megan Bowles out of Unity Woods Yoga Center. In 2021, she became a CIYT Iyengar Yoga teacher. In the last few years, she continues her yoga studies with Senior Teacher John Schumacher, Senior Teacher Lois Steinberg, and Megan Bowles.

Polina Mischenko

CIYT Level 1

Polina is a Level I certified Iyengar Yoga teacher. She has studied and practiced Yoga since 2012 and currently mentors with senior teacher Holly Walck Kostura. In 2015, she travelled to India to complete an intensive five-month yoga teacher training program under Sharat Arora, a long-time disciple of BKS Iyengar. She has taught yoga, mindfulness, and meditation in India, Russia, Italy, and the U.S. and led specialized workshops for children, university students, public school teachers, and educators.

In May 2020, Polina completed her Ph.D. at UVA School of Education and Human Development. She studied mindfulness and yoga in schools and taught undergraduate courses on mindfulness. She currently develops and teaches yoga and mindfulness programs for children and teens. She loves learning, playing, and inspiring others toward joy, ease, and inner freedom.

Rebecca L'Abbé

After many years of studying and performing ballet and modern dance, the gift of yoga provided a natural transition to stay strong, creatively curious, and mentally disciplined minus the stress of competition. She began her teacher training in the 1980’s at the Iyengar Institute in San Francisco, but was sidelined by a back injury that had its roots in years of dancing. Yoga was the cornerstone of her recovery, not only on a physical level, but through years of careful loving care from teachers who helped her to overcome her fears about re-injuring her back, realign her body from years of compensating, and regain confidence. Rebecca received her teaching certification through YogaWorks at Yoga Source, Richmond, VA in 2003. Her primary instructors there were Sandra Pleasants and Jennifer Elliot. Additional certification includes training to teach yoga to people with Multiple Sclerosis.  Most recently she has obtained the necessary skills to teach Yin Yoga.  She continues to study hatha yoga in Afton, VA with Sandra Pleasants and yin yoga with Biff Mithoefer. Her teaching is informed by many streams of interest including dance, an ongoing study of physiology and anatomy, and a sense of humor.

Ronda Ingersoll

Yoga Cville Co-Owner

Asian American, Army brat, and mom to a beautiful blended family. Studio owner for 7 wonderful years. A grateful student of Iyengar yoga for 14 years. Certified Virginia Master Naturalist and docent at Ivy Creek Natural Area for 10 years with a special interest in working with wee ones. Change Management professional for 15 years, with a focus on the people side of change, which involves preparing, supporting, and helping people adapt to changes in business processes, systems, technology, job roles, organization structure, and more!

Jocelyn Kitchen

CIYT Level I

Jocelyn has been a student of Iyengar yoga since 1998. She has taught in Poughkeepsie, New York; Oxford, England; and Lawrence, Kansas, where she earned her 200-hour Yoga Alliance certification in 2014. She received her CIYT Level I certification while teaching in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2021.

While exploring other methods of yoga, she has continued to deepen and develop her practice mentoring with certified Iyengar instructors and attending workshops with senior teachers. Over her twenty years experience working as an educator in elementary and middle school, she has learned to marshal the energy of a classroom while recognizing each individual student’s needs. 

Jocelyn believes that at any phase of life, a regular yoga practice can be a transformative experience that allows one to enjoy greater equanimity both on and off the mat. She hopes to instill this belief in her students and provide them the tools and confidence to patiently pursue and sustain their own practice.