Cat Matlock, Founder of West Asheville Yoga

Cat took her first yoga class in college in 1989 and loved it right away! A dancer and athlete, Cat had been looking for a way to integrate flexibility and strength training and yoga filled that need. She practiced asana for many years learning through books, videos, and teachers in New York, Hawaii, Florida, and North Carolina. Cat became a student of Tibetan Buddhism in 1998 under Lama Norlha and encouraged by Ani Palmo. Cat served as the treasurer for her sangha for two years before deciding to delve more deeply into yogic studies. While in her first yoga teacher training program in 2000, she began to more deeply explore meditation, kirtan (singing and chanting), and the other aspects of yoga. Asana opened her body and kirtan opened her heart! Meditation brings it all together to the center.
Cat began her studies with Sri Swamini Mayatitananda in 2007 at Wise Earth Monastery School of Ayurveda. She continues to study and meditate with Mother whenever Mother is in the country.
Cat believes that her yoga practice, including chanting, singing, and meditation, is the key to her physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

Cat became a licensed massage therapist in 1993 and has spent the years since helping her clients use massage and yoga to heal themselves from injury. She leads several classes a week at the West Asheville Yoga studio and loves teaching to beginners and helping them to safely and joyfully find the yoga in their bodies and minds. She is also the anatomy instructor for the yoga teacher-training program at the Asheville Yoga Center, directed by Stephanie Keach. She has previously taught Kinesiology, the study of human movement, and Integrative Massage at the Asheville School of Massage and Yoga. When not teaching, practicing yoga, running the business of the West Asheville Yoga studio, or working with massage clients, Cat is busy enjoying time and hiking with her daughter and husband, riding her bike, or dancing and singing.

Cat started the inspirational Kirtan (call and response chanting in Sanskrit) band called "Japa" in 2007. She plays harmonium and leads the singing while backed by her wonderful band of Jeff Schmitt, Scott Mills, Will Young, Allen Frost, and Jacci Lea. The music is non-traditional kirtan mixed with some favorite old spirituals.

Cat’s yoga classes are grounded in her understanding of anatomy and alignment. Her classes are rooted in the Ayurvedic principle of balance and that balance in your physical and pranic bodies is what brings health and peace. She teaches various levels of classes with her higher level classes incorporating some slow flow, yoga with movement. Cat continues her lifelong study of the body and of yoga science, ayurveda, prana life force energy, Japa mantra recitation, and bhakti devotional yoga. She is excited to share this path of yoga with you.