Briana is a bright star in the community teaching kids and family yoga. Her love of working with children is evident in all her roles in life. With a background as a primary school teacher, she is a multi-talented gem, always wearing a warm smile that makes the children she works with feel loved and supported. After receiving her 300 hr yoga certification with Modo Yoga in 2018 she continued to live and be inspired by their pillar: “Live to Learn” by diving deeper into her passion to work with children and families, completing her 95 hour kids’ yoga certification with Deven Sisler Yoga in Bend, Oregon. She continues to take workshops and courses, both with Deven as well as with Seattle Kids Yoga, in an effort to better serve her community. In her spare time you can often catch her relaxing with a new movie, enjoying a game night with friends or family, or out exploring new trails with her husband, and, of course, spending time with their 1 year old son.
Kate is an experienced Pilates instructor, personal trainer, sports coach, musical theater director and dance teacher. Kate was drawn to teaching Pilates in 2003 as a complement to studying dance and playing ultimate frisbee in Chicago, IL. After moving to Seattle in 2006, she completed the Metropolitan Authentic Training Pilates certification program with Dorothee Vandewalle and continued teaching Pilates around the region. She has also completed Power Pilates Mat, Balanced Body Reformer, Ring and Roller, Pilates Mat, and multiple personal training certifications.
In her Pilates teaching she embraces the confluence of control, alignment, breathing, flow, strength, and flexibility. Kate strives to communicate clearly, teach to the students in front of her, and level classes appropriately for all including modifications and advancements for students. Kate inspires her students and peers to perform beyond their expectations and to embrace an active lifestyle! As a mother of two, Kate is looking forward to working with moms to give them space and guidance on their fitness journey as their lives evolve.
After taking a break from teaching Pilates when her son was born in October of 2019 and giving birth to her daughter in February of 2025, Kate is thrilled to return to teaching Pilates and to be a member of the Aditi team. When not teaching and parenting, Kate enjoys dancing (tap, ballet, jazz, musical theatre, hip hop), playing ultimate frisbee, traveling, and gardening.
Ryan completed his 200-hour teacher-training at beloved Samadhi Yoga in 2011 and, since then, has taught in a variety of settings including gyms, climbing gyms, yoga studios, preschools, high-schools, at Fred Hutch Research Center, an ashram, a Zen meditation center, and for incarcerated youth. He is continually inspired by the people who show up to class, and by the presence of mind and joy embodied in their practices. His classes focus on breath, alignment, and play; three things which are inalienably ours as humans.
Jen began teaching movement at a young age as a student instructor in her high school dance company. Her love of guiding individuals into liberated movement grew in 2018, when she completed her 200-hr RYT at The Craft of Teaching Yoga, with Adrienne and Eric Rabena. Her classes at Aditi can be described as accessible, creative, playful, and nourishing. Her prenatal and postnatal classes are informed by her own journey in pregnancy and postpartum. Jen believes freeform somatic-based movement is essential to any yoga practice. She loves to blend a juicy, grounded flow with intuitive movement, and often invites her students into a mini ecstatic dance party.
Outside of her yoga practice, Jen is a Somatic Experiencing™ Practitioner, a Dance Healing Facilitator, and co-founder of The Well: A Somatic Healing Circle. She is a mom to a vibrant 6 year old and as of Oct. 2025 is expecting her second. When she's not working, Jen loves adventures with her family, soulful conversations with friends and a good chocolate chip cookie.
Naomi has been practicing yoga for over 20 years and completed her 200-hour teacher training at the University of Washington. The philosophies and practices of yoga inspire her to offer accessible approaches that support those navigating modern life and chronic stress. Guided by her sankalpa (intention) to serve with care, she helps people reconnect to themselves through yoga tailored for modern needs.
In 2024, Naomi trained with Petra Coveney, the founder of Menopause Yoga in the U.K., and went on to establish Seattle Menopause Yoga, offering classes that support people through perimenopause and menopause. She aims to reframe menopause as an opportunity for self-knowledge, health, and empowerment through movement and community.
Yoga has long been Liv’s anchor—a steadying force and a source of inspiration that keeps unfolding. She teaches to help people ease anxiety, tune into their body’s innate wisdom, and reconnect with their own inner nourishment. Her classes blend grounding Rasa Yoga–Vinyasa flow with mantra, mudra, breathwork, and asana—inviting students to return home to themselves, one breath at a time.
After completing her teacher training in 2022, Liv traveled to India in 2024 to study Ayurveda and yoga’s philosophical roots. Each time she witnesses someone courageously step onto their mat, she’s reminded why she teaches: practice is how we remember who we are. Beyond the mat, Liv works as an executive coach and leadership consultant, bringing the same presence, clarity, and heart-centered awareness that yoga inspires.
Carey DeMartini, LMHC, ATR-BC, RYT500 is a licensed therapist, art therapist, and yoga teacher who has been integrating movement and mental health for over 25 years. Her yoga teaching journey began alongside her counseling education and her practice has remained a steady companion through life's ups and downs for more than three decades, including during her prenatal and postpartum experiences. She’s studied with talented teachers such as Ana Forrest, Shari Friedrichsen, Colette Crawford, Molly Lannon Kenny, Tari Prinster, and Amy Weintraub. Carey is particularly drawn to how yoga can serve as a bridge for emotional balance and overall well-being. She brings a light-hearted and warm presence to her classes, leaning into the benefits of the community aspect of doing yoga with others while offering modifications to meet your body where it's at and weaving together mindfulness, breath practices, and asana to help you feel integrated and at home in your body.
Liz, a longtime teacher and yoga practitioner, got certified to teach yoga in 2020, deep in the quiet of lockdown. As soon as it was safe to gather again, she started teaching in studios and, soon after, joined the wonderful Aditi community while pregnant with her first child! These days Liz loves using yoga and gentle movement to support the other activities she adores: running, skiing, hiking, and chasing her toddler around the PNW. She teaches to build strength and community, to create space for breath and presence, and to support people in showing up for the rest of their lives with a little more ease.
Outside of yoga, Liz also works as a coach, helping busy professionals – mostly working moms! – make time for what matters most. She also helps education and mission-driven organizations transform ideas into straightforward messaging through writing and content creation.
Loriana is a lifelong competitive athlete and an enthusiast of all types of movement and exercise. She continues to travel to national and international tournaments with her club Ultimate Frisbee team, which she co-founded and leads. She’s an outdoor adventurer, a youth sports organizer and coach, and a mother of two (9 and 12). Loriana finds deep fulfillment in helping people feel connected and grounded in their own bodies, and aims to foster connection to community through movement and exercise.
Loriana draws from her experience in sports, injury rehabilitation, and injury prevention training to make sessions fun, challenging, and functionally relevant. She strives to make each student feel welcome and supported by finding modifications that work for their bodies on any given day. Loriana has specialized training in coaching prenatal and postpartum people, and is an advocate for girls, women, and non-binary folks to help them feel strong, grounded, healthy, and capable throughout all the different phases of life.
NASM Certified Personal Trainer
Prenatal Fitness Specialist Certification
Postpartum Fitness Specialist Certification
Kim completed her 200hr Power Vinyasa training in May 2018. Since then, she has taught prenatal yoga, Mommy & Me yoga, yoga sculpt, and outdoor classes. Kim completed her training as a birth doula in March 2022. Kim’s classes focus on strength, balance, connecting the breath to movement, visualization and relaxation techniques. She loves incorporating aromatherapy whenever she can.
Yoga has deepened Kim’s physical strength and flexibility but, to her, it means so much more. It is a safe place, a breath of fresh air. It helped her to breathe and flow through some of the most challenging times in life and will continue to be there through the ups and downs. It has unlocked a power within she didn’t know existed. Yoga has allowed Kim to be more in touch with her body and listen to its wisdom.
Kim has additional certification as a Reiki Practitioner and Essential Oil Specialist. Aside from teaching yoga, Kim loves hiking with her husband and corgi dog Pancake, taking care of her plants, and making her own candles.
Deirdre brings her passion for optimizing the human experience to the mat. The greatest challenge she sees in herself and others is people simply wanting to be more comfortable in their lives and skins, wanting to feel safe, strong, grounded, resilient and clear minded. She has been working in the field of health and wellness since 1990, and has taught yoga and therapeutic movement since 2003. She brings this depth and breadth of experience to her classes. Deirdre supports students in “coming back home” to their best selves through breath, movement, a safe environment and irreverent humor.
While Deirdre’s teaching foundation is in the Viniyoga tradition and in Aston Kinetics, she incorporates the influences of many teachers and paths, favoring an eclectic approach. This includes a breath-focused practice, mini flows alternating with holds, conditioning, restoring and whatever meets the needs of the students before her on a given day. Together they shape the class. All are welcome. Modifications and options are freely offered.
Kathy has been practicing yoga since 2003 after the birth of her first daughter. She found yoga as a wonderful way to move her body slowly and gently after pregnancy. While continuing to practice, she discovered that yoga was much more than a movement practice. Once her second daughter was born, yoga was a way to relax, connect with Self and find her center. Yoga continues to help her stay grounded and is a wonderful compliment to her active lifestyle.
In 2015 – 2016, Kathy and her family spent 9 months traveling around the country in a truck camper, and while she was not able to pop into a yoga class in every town she visited, she was able to visit a handful of studios to help her keep up her practice and develop a yoga routine that she could do in the confines of the camper. After returning home from the trip, she knew that her next journey was to follow her love of yoga and dive into yoga teacher training. In 2017, she received her 200 hour RYT through Synergy Yoga School with a focus on Vinyasa flow yoga, yoga philosophy and Ayurveda, the sister science to yoga. This training has prepared her to follow her path to teaching gentle and energetic Vinyasa classes around the Seattle area and online.
Darla completed her 200 hour teacher training at 8 Limbs Yoga in 2013 and her 500 RYT in 2019. She is also trained in iRest Level 1, Insight Yoga, Restorative Yoga and Prenatal Yoga. She teaches restorative, yin, iRest Yoga Nidra, gentle, slow flow, Hatha, Vinyasa, prenatal, postnatal, and Baby & Me Yoga. Her teaching focuses on calming the mind and connecting the breath with movement so that the practice becomes a moving meditation. She believes yoga should be fun and laughter is always welcome.
Darla is a retired RN and worked in nursing for over 20 years. The focus of her nursing practice was chemical dependency issues, mental health issues, and maternal/infant health.
Clarissa has over two decades of experience in the yoga world. She has completed two 200-hour teacher training programs one in 1999 and the other in 2011. With this wealth of experience, she is able to infuse her classes with her intuitive knowledge about the body and its relationship to the poses. She remembers vividly her very first yoga class. It was in the 1980s (gasp) at the University of Rhode Island, in a regular classroom with the desks pushed aside. Afterwards, she walked outside into the sunshine, and marveled at the beautiful shades of green in the grass. She had not taken such pleasure in walking through a grassy field since childhood.
Clarissa was born in Thibodaux, LA, a town about 50-miles southeast of New Orleans, running right along Bayou Lafourche. Her family moved to Seattle when I was nine. Aunts, uncles, cousins, as well as my dad and godmother reside in Thibodaux and although she loves Seattle, flying into New Orleans and driving back to Thibodaux a couple of times each year feels like coming home.
When not in the yoga studio, she is an attorney at a large downtown Seattle firm. She earned her J.D. from Seattle University, after receiving a Ph.D. from Northwestern University. As an undergraduate, she attended the University of Washington. She enjoys learning new things and taking classes. She will always be a yoga student. You will likely see me in many classes at Aditi.
Julie was the founder, owner, and the heart and soul of Aditi Yoga and Wellness. She passed away in March of 2023.
Julie took her first yoga class while pregnant with her second child in 1991. It was through her prenatal yoga classes that she gained the knowledge, strength and confidence to birth her daughter naturally. From the sense of empowerment she felt from her own birth began her journey to assist other women in obtaining that same feeling - being a warrioress!
Julie graduated from Brenneke School of Massage in 2006 and immediately following became certified in Bodywork for the Childbearing Year taught by her mentor, Kate Jordan. In 2007 she studied and apprenticed with Colette Crawford in prenatal/postnatal yoga and birth support. Julie’s classes were fun, challenging and informative while fostering a sense of community. Her presence can still be felt in the studio through this empowering and healing space she created. She is deeply missed by all who knew her and worked with her. To learn more about Julie, and the founding of Aditi, navigate to the page “Ode to Julie.”
Lara first stepped on the mat in 1991 and more than 30 years later (in 2022) completed her RYT200 through Yoga Renew. In the intervening years she practiced a wide variety yoga styles, including Hatha, Iyengar, Hot Yoga, Vinyasa, Yin, and Kundalini. She is currently exploring Ashtanga yoga through Fightmaster Yoga online.
Lara is also a dedicated meditation practitioner and has completed two 10-day silent meditation retreats through the NW Vipassana Center in Onalaksa, WA. Her spiritual journey began in earnest in 2002 after the difficult birth of her first son. This experience left her worn-out, exhausted, disillusioned, and angry. Not wanting to be an angry mom, she turned to yoga and meditation to help her heal after this experience. She loves sharing the ups and downs of life, and the tools she has learned to manage this reality through her yoga and meditation practice, with her students.
In addition to teaching a Vinyasa class, Lara also helps manage the front desk at Aditi and teaches one-on-one special education at a small private school in Seattle.
Sally has been teaching yoga since 2002, and is proud to have been among the very first teachers at Aditi. She received certification from both 8 Limbs Yoga and The Samarya Center, where she also trained in Integrated Movement Therapy. These, plus hundreds of hours of training with many nationally known teachers, combine to support Sally’s style of teaching. Her spiritual teachers come from yogic and Blackfoot traditions, and her classes are infused with the core teachings of each. At Aditi, Sally teaches two Gentle yoga classes in which she combines Hatha asana with pranayama, meditation and Yin, Restorative poses, and Yoga Nidra. Her classes are accessible to all, and a joyous mix of yogic philosophy and light-hearted fun, welcoming students of all ages, regardless of perceived barriers.
Sally teaches mindful, fluid, alignment-based yoga linking breath with movement. Teaching with compassion, acceptance, and humor, she encourages students to honor their own body and experience, while cultivating inner awareness. She hopes to help her students quiet the mind, reconnect to the heart and the breath, and find strength and ease in the body, both on and off the mat. Sally has been a student and practitioner of yoga for more than 20 years, a practice that has greatly influenced her life. It is a joy and honor for her to share her knowledge with others. Sally completed her 200 hour RYT in 2012 and her RYT 500 in 2017.
Suzette has been a yoga practitioner in Seattle since 2001. Shaped by her initial training in the Viniyoga tradition, Suzette’s Hatha teaching style takes a more gentle and therapeutic approach. Although she enjoys teaching all levels, her primary love is working with prenatal and postnatal women. This passion inspired her to train with renowned teacher Collette Crawford of Seattle Holistic Center, and with International Prenatal Instructor Janice Clarfield from Vancouver, B.C. Whatever class she leads, Suzette's goal is to improve each person’s health and well being. She does this by helping students value their uniqueness, live each day finding optimal balance between effort and ease, and taking life one moment at a time. Suzette is registered with Yoga Alliance at E-RYT 200, RYT 500 and RPYT 500 level.Iris
MA 60837266
With an extensive background in dance and yoga, Iris has always cultivated a keen physical self-awareness and is particularly interested in the ways different experiences manifest uniquely in each person’s body. She first became seriously interested in bodywork after experiencing the great emotional release that can occur in tandem with physical release, and her understanding of the connection between mind, body, and spirit has continued to deepen with every massage given and received. Iris graduated from the Northwest Academy of the Healing Arts and is trained in techniques such as deep tissue, Swedish relaxation, trigger point work, myofascial release, prenatal massage, and reiki. She approaches each massage with compassion, intuition, and sensitivity to individual needs, combining both deep and gentle work to usher the body into a state of relaxation where profound release may take place.
With a lifelong movement background in theatre, dance, martial arts and yoga, Valerie is interested in helping students find body-mind connection through a fun, holistic practice. She guides physical exercise, mindfulness, and relaxation techniques based in traditional yoga to offer strength-building as well as stress relief. Valerie has 18 years of teaching experience in various styles of yoga including pre & postnatal. She loves sharing yogic wisdom to support the challenges of the perinatal cycle and early parenthood. Her instruction is culturally competent, trauma-informed and inclusive.
Growing up in an active family, Tara has always found movement a way to engage in life and appreciate her body. Her happy place is on one of her bikes (yes, she has many). Being an athlete, however, led to injuries, and pain. It wasn't until she found barre that her chronic hip and back pain disappeared. She loves the challenge that barre brings, and the evolution of strength that occurs with a commitment to practice. She achieved her barre certification through Barre Above in 2017, as well as her 200 hour yoga teacher certification through The Samarya Center for Integrated Movement Therapy and Ashtanga in 2011. In addition to barre, Tara also teaches Aditi Strong, for students who want strength training without the gym membership.
She approaches her classes with a playful energy, challenges her students, while celebrating the effort. She invites her students to take breaks as needed, because one comes to class to get strong, and pushing often leads to injuries, which, having experienced herself, she strongly wants her students to avoid.
Monique (Moni) McFadden is a mother, yogi, teacher, and artist. She was introduced to yoga by her husband David in 1992. She found herself on the mat more seriously after dealing with lower back issues during and after pregnancy. After teaching English to adults for 20 years, Moni decided to combine her passions for teaching and yoga and completed her 200-Hour Teacher Training at Whole Life Yoga. She is registered with Yoga Alliance, and she completed the Pre/Postnatal Teacher Training with 8 Limbs Yoga in Seattle.
Moni truly believes in the power of yoga - mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual - to transform and enhance life, mindfulness, and awareness, both on and off the mat. She is a committed, nurturing, and creative instructor who thinks yoga should be accessible to students of all ages, levels, and abilities. Moni believes there is always something new to be learned through pranayama, asana, and meditation. She is excited to be sharing her love for yoga and parenthood and her belief in the mind-body connection. Her late mother-in-law, Roberta McFadden, was both a yoga studio owner and prenatal instructor, so Monique is beyond happy to continue on the same path. She also enjoys teaching yoga for Yoga Behind Bars.
Influences/Styles: Gary Kraftsow, Viniyoga, Gentle Yoga, Slow Flow, Pre/Postnatal Yoga, Yoga for Healthy Aging