Kate O’Neal Aitken
Kate O’Neal Aitken is a devout yoga practitioner, Certified Yoga Teacher (E-YRT 200) and Licensed Physical Therapist Assistant with over a decade’s experience as a provider in the clinical and wellness fields. The transformative powers of Yoga found Kate in 2009 at a Dojang in Baton Rouge as she healed physically, mentally and spiritually following a life-changing motor vehicle accident. Kate has dedicated her life to cultivating her own innate ability to heal through these practices and teachings. It is her wish to share these teachings with her students in the Bhakti spirit of love and devotion.
Kate is sought out for her skilled eye with postural assessment and intelligently aligned asana prescriptions. She has extensive experience with adaptive yoga sequencing and therapeutic touch. In her classes, students are encouraged to access the subtle body through sensory awareness training, breathwork, meditation, and mantra to promote greater equanimity in the mind and body.
Currently managing a thriving Yoga Therapy private practice in New Orleans called NOLA Therapeutics, Kate offers 1:1 Integrative Yoga Privates to students with limited mobility, injury, illness, chronic pain, trauma, sleep disturbances, neurological conditions, autoimmune disorders, stress, depression, anxiety, sport-specific concerns, etc. Each session is unique and tailored to the students’ specific needs. Please inquire about her private Therapeutic yoga sessions through the Wellness page on our website.
Kate received her Bachelor’s of Kinesiology with a concentration in Human Movement Science from LSU in 2009. She then completed the PTA program at Delgado in 2012. With a unique background in sports medicine and physical therapy, she has practiced as a PTA in the New Orleans area for 10+ years in various settings.
After completing her 400-hour Swan River Yoga teacher training in 2019 led by Michelle Baker, she continued her study with her mentor, Kelly Haas (C-IAYT), including the 100-hour Yoga Therapeutics Teacher Training in 2019-2020, along with Adaptive, Conscious Aging, Prenatal and Trauma Informed practices.
Kate is available for Private Integrative Yoga Session sessions via our Wellness page.
More about Kate
It is a joy for Kate to learn harmonium and take voice lessons with the brilliant Keith Porteous. Offering sacred sound and mantra to her students promotes downregulation of the nervous system and the release of held energy and emotion in the physical tissues. Kate believes that we all have an innate ability to heal through these practices. Creating safety in the body, mind and energetic field is at the core of her teachings. She believes that yoga is for everybody. In her opinion, the best teachers are forever students. Kate has dedicated her life to the art of Yoga Therapy and continues to refine her skill set by studying with an array of masterful teachers. Kate is forever grateful to her lineage, and she continues to be in awe at the synchronicities that brought her to these practices in this lifetime.
When Kate is not on the mat or teaching, she enjoys reading, spending time in nature and the beauty of motherhood. She believes her children, Anthony and Olivette, are her greatest teachers in this lifetime.
Jai Ma, great gratitude to the Divine Mother. May her power be victorious over all obstacles. May we embrace the full potency of the Shakti feminine energy, which drives all manifestation. May we open our hearts to love, joy, compassion and forgiveness. Jai Ma!