Teachers
Dedicated to the craft of teaching, MSY teachers are professionally-certified and use their years of experience to offer safe and transformative classes and workshops.
Carla McAdams
MA, E‑RYT 500, C‑IAYT
Carla is an experienced yoga teacher and professional yoga therapist, certified by the International Association of Yoga Therapists. She is dedicated to helping her students realize their own pathway to self-awareness and healing. Drawing from many styles of yoga and over 20 years of teaching experience, she crafts in-depth yoga practices that are safe for her students to explore movement in their bodies, while creating stillness in their minds and compassion in their hearts.
Carla has practiced yoga since 1982 and began teaching it in 2000. She has studied extensively since 1999 at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, earning both 200 and 500 hour yoga teacher certifications, a 1000 hour yoga therapy certification through Integrative Yoga Therapy, plus completed numerous other trainings applicable to yoga therapy. She also holds advanced yoga therapy training certificates in Yoga for Back Care and Scoliosis with Elise Browning Miller, Chakra Yoga with Anodea Judith, Yoga Therapy through Body Balance Yoga, and Prenatal Yoga through both the Himalayan Institute and Pranakriya Yoga. Additionally, Carla earned a certificate in Yoga for Seniors through Duke Integrative Medicine, plus completed trainings in Advanced Anatomy Assessments with Maria (Mendola) Shamas and in Sensory-Enhanced Yoga for Self-Regulation and Healing through the Sensory Enhanced Yoga Institute.
Mountain Spirit Yoga studio was opened by Carla in 2007, with the goal of creating a community-centered studio for people from all walks of life to experience the healing benefits of yoga. There she specializes in structural yoga therapy and back care, and is passionate about the effects of postural alignment and functional movement on all aspects of our health and well-being.
An avid gardener and traveler, Carla loves to bike, hike, and drink in the expansive quality of standing on top of the highest mountains.
Audra Monk
E-RYT 200
Audra has studied yoga since 2000 and began teaching in 2002. has studied yoga since 2000 and began teaching in 2002. She earned her teaching certification from Sun and Moon Yoga Studio in Virginia. She has studied yoga for kids, pregnancy, and seniors. She has taken Yoga for Arthritis training with Dr. Steffany Moonaz. Audra believes that yoga is for everybody and encourages students to recognize that our bodies change each and every day; to accept where they are in their bodies at any given moment, be gentle with themselves, and –most of all- to have fun! Audra brings a lighthearted style to her classes that are infused with all of the things she holds dear: nature, her husband and children, her pets and the world around us. To Audra, everything is connected and yoga makes those connections more vibrant.
Mary Barton
RYT 200, Certified Pilates Instructor
Mary is certified at the beginner and intermediate levels for mat Pilates classes by Power Pilates. To enhance her teaching, she became licensed in the Buff Bones program to strengthen bones and improve balance. Her Pilates Plus! class incorporates principles from that training and is accessible for students with osteopenia/osteoporosis, as well as for all students working to improve their bone health. Mary is also a certified Prana Flow yoga teacher at the 200-hour level and has specialty training in Restorative Yoga with Shannon Paige. Her teaching is precise and suitable for beginners, yet individually challenging for intermediate students.
Linda Franklin
RYT 200
Linda’s classes reflect an interest in self-discovery through body awareness and guided meditation, based on where her students are now. Her gentle style and voice invite students to discover and then explore the place where they are at that moment, in an atmosphere of complete acceptance.
Linda received her 200h Kripalu Yoga teaching certification in 2013 and began teaching in 2014. Since then, she has taken further trainings in Divine Sleep Yoga Nidra with Jennifer Reis, Integrative Yoga for Seniors with Carol Krucoff and Kimberly Carson, and Dynamic Gentle Yoga with Rudy Peirce. These additional trainings have provided her with tools to help older yogis to find safe options to incorporate a yoga practice into their life.
In addition to classes at Mountain Spirit, Linda has taught beginning gentle yoga classes for the Institute for Learning in Retirement at Frederick Community College and chair yoga at local residential communities.
Did you know that Linda is also an avid handbell ringer and conductor? Handbells have been a part of her life for more than 30 years! And she has workshops on “Yoga for Practice and Performance”, and “Yoga for Safe Ringing” for the Handbell Musicians of America.
Mary Koster
RYT 200
Mary has been studying and practicing yoga since 2000. She became a student at MSY in 2013 and got certified as a Kripalu Yoga Teacher in 2020. Mary completed advanced certification as a Dynamic Gentle Yoga™ Teacher from Rudy Peirce and studied Trauma-Sensitive Yoga with Rachel Allen. Mary brings to her teaching a sensitivity to the subtleties of yoga including physical alignment, pranayama, and yoga philosophy. In addition to yoga, Mary enjoys photography and swimming. She resides in Frederick, Maryland with her husband and three sons.
