Yoga Faculty
Kathleen Wright
Kathleen Wright is the founder and director of Garden of Yoga. Kathleen is a cofounder of Yoga Circle and Wild Onion Yoga. She has been studying Yoga since 1974 and teaching since 1976. Her initial training was under the direct guidance of Swami Veda Bharati of the Himalyan Tradition. She holds a degree in Movement Education from the University of Minnesota and graduated from the Iyengar Yoga Institute of California’s two-year state certification program in 1983. She has studied by invitation with the Iyengar family, including B.K.S. Iyengar and Geeta Iyengar in India on five different occasions. She has also helped to host the Iyengars on visits to the U.S. and participated in many Iyengar Yoga national conventions. She is a nationally certified Iyengar Yoga instructor at the Junior Intermediate level. Her Yoga teachers in the U.S.are Ramanand Patel, Janet MacLeod, and Lois Steinberg. Kathleen serves as mentor and teacher to many of the area’s top yoga teachers. She continues to study and practice Yoga.
Patricia Layton
Pat Layton is a graduate of the California College of Ayurveda, and has a Master’s Degree in Integral Health Studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies. While living in California she owned and operated the Yerba Buena Ayurveda and Pancha Karma Center in San Francisco. She has taught Ayurveda and Yoga-related subjects at several schools and colleges including San Francisco State University (Adjunct faculty), California College of Ayurveda (Core faculty), Kanyakumari Ayurveda (core faculty), and the Iyengar Yoga Institute’s Teaching Training Program (Physiology for Yoga Teachers). She frequently travels to India to continue her studies in both Ayurveda and Yoga. She has been an initiate of the Himalayan Yoga Tradition since 1974 and continues her meditation and philosophy studies with Swami Veda Bharati at his ashram in Rishikesh
Janet MacLeod
Janet has been a Certified Iyengar Yoga Instructor for 25 years. She teaches classes to the general public in San Francisco; teaches in the Teacher Training Program at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco (IYISF) and conducts retreats and workshops worldwide.
She continues to study in India and in the U.S. with the Iyengar family. Janet has been an active community member holding positions on both the local and national boards. She has relinquished these duties and is now happy to dedicate her life to the practice, study and teaching of Yoga.
William Hunt
William Hunt began his Yoga studies at the Temple of Kriya Yoga in Chicago in 1972 with Goswami Kriyananda. After a decade of study and practice, he became certified to teach Hatha Yoga. At the same time he completed the Temple’s seminary program and was ordained as a swami priest. This training included extensive studies in numerous spiritual texts from all the major religions, spiritual counseling and rituals. In 1989, William began assisting Kim Schwartz in the Hatha Yoga teacher training program and in 1994, after Kim moved to Albuquerque, he became the program’s director until 2005.
Numerous Yoga teachers in Chicago and elsewhere, credit their Yoga training with William. For ten years he has been registered with the Yoga Alliance, a national registry, with one of their highest credentials, E-RYT 500. For the past eight years, William has been the director of Oak Park Yoga where he has led and sponsored numerous spiritual programs in Yoga, meditation, Yoga Sutras, Ayurvedic Studies, retreats, children’s Yoga, mandala art, and many others. Besides Kriyananda and Kim Schwartz, William expresses much gratitude to two other of his strong mentors. One was the late Roger Eischens and now for the past four years with Kathleen Wright, director of the Garden of Yoga.