Kathleen Wright is the founder and director of the Garden of Yoga, and cofounder of Yoga Circle and Wild Onion Yoga in Chicago, Ill. Together Kathleen and Patricia Layton founded the Bhavana Institute for Yoga and Ayurveda.
When at the tender age of 15 she was given and read the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi she began her pursuit of Yoga. The principle of nonviolence led her to her studies. In 1974, Kathleen began her formal studies of Yoga under the direct guidance of Swami Veda Bharati of the Himalayan Tradition. She began teaching in 1976. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Movement Education from the University of Minnesota, and is a 1983 graduate of the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco’s two-year state-certified vocational teacher training program.
Kathleen has studied many times in Pune, India with the Iyengar family, including B.K.S. Iyengar and Geeta Iyengar. Recently she attends classes with Abijata Iyengar and lectures with Prashant Iyengar, Professor Edwyn Bryant and Ramanand Patel. She has helped host the Iyengar’s on visits to the United States during national and regional conventions. She continues to work with community efforts to spread the Light of Yoga.
Kathleen is a nationally certified Iyengar Yoga instructor at the Junior Intermediate level, and an experienced certified Yoga Therapist and Certified Ayurvedic Educator. She is a beloved teacher known for her love of Yoga and her keen and compassionate eye recognizing and working with students’ abilities and possibilities. She continues to serve as a mentor and teacher to many of the Chicago area’s top Yoga teachers and the Yoga community at large on local and national levels.
