mark wheat

avita yoga

Mark completed his 200-hour through the Yoga Center Retreat.

Born in 1960 and raised in Clenchwarton, a tiny hamlet in the East Anglia region of Britain, Mark has now been a resident in the USA for the majority of his life, becoming a citizen in 2014. Initially emigrating to St. Louis MO in 1983, and after spending time living in Kure Beach NC and Hoboken NJ, he settled in the Twin Cities in 1992.
A lifelong music head impressed by the quality of the local music scene, he spent time volunteering at KFAI, worked for Radio K at the U of M and helped create MPR’s The Current, hosting the evening shift for 15 years.

His own yoga story started late, when he turned fifty. At first he approached the practice as a way to maintain physical fitness. For about seven years, Vinyasa classes twice a week (mostly with Cheri Hannagan, another graduate from YCR’s teacher training program) became the basis of his routine and opened up the potential for the spiritual side of yoga to become important to him. When he discovered Avita in 2018, it quickly became apparent that it was not only healthy for his body, but also more meditative, allowing him to deepen the spiritual side of his practice.

In the summer of 2020 Mark went to live in Boulder to study Avita with Jeff Bailey. After graduating from his teacher training program in March 2021, Mark taught classes at his studio and attended a retreat with him in Costa Rica in January 2022. The Boulder studio closed in April 2022, so Mark returned to the Twin Cities and started teaching at YCR. Since his return, attendance at his classes and workshops has steadily grown.

Image of Mark Wheat teaching yoga
Image of Mark Wheat teaching Avita yoga