THE MOVEMENT APOTHECARY
Medicine in Motion
OUR TEAM
The heart of The Movement Apothecary
LACEY GASAWAY
Owner
Instructor of Pilates, Yoga & Dance
My name is Lacey, and I am a movement instructor out of Fort Collins, Colorado. I utilize the teachings of Pilates, Yoga, Dance and more in my sessions with clients. I grew up as a dancer and fell in love with learning how the body moves. After a spinal injury in high school, I began physical therapy and found what I was passionate about: Helping others understand and move their bodies.
I went to university and graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science in Kinesiology. I began teaching fitness classes at the university recreational center. That was where I found my love & energy for teaching. Pilates teacher training and Rock Steady Boxing Coach training only furthered my desire to learn more.
After graduating from university, I spent the next 5 years working at The Parkinson’s Exercise & Wellness Center in Kansas City. There I specialized in working with people who have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. I began the Moving & Shaking (dance) program, The Pilates program and the Spinal Roll & Release program at the center. All of these classes were specifically designed for those with Parkinson’s.
Pilates taught me how to put words to movement, Yoga gave me the breath work and control, and Dance gave me the flow and flexibility. My teaching style is intuitive and present. I love teaching, it is where I feel connected and powerful. I believe my classes can be beneficial for everyone and am always happy to modify for injuries. It’s important for me that everyone feels safe in my classes.
I am a lifelong learner and am always eager to expand my repertoire. I have undergone Yoga teacher training in India, reiki training, one-on-one assisted stretching, herbalism, massage therapy and more!
ASHLEY VAN DIXHORN
Barre Instructor
Ashley graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran College with a bachelor's degree in Biology before attending Carroll University to undergo her doctorate in Physical Therapy. She graduated in 2011 and began work at an outpatient orthopaedic clinic in Wisconsin. Here in Fort Collins, she fell in love with Barre fitness and teaching group exercise. Ashley combined her medical skills and joy found in creative movement to build her concierge bodywork and physical therapy practice, The Rehab Barre. Her classes combine her medical knowledge and her creativity to create an atmosphere that improves motivation, consistency, and mood. Ashley can tailor a class to include mobility, stability, strength, and function at each joint. Barre with Ashley is a building block for all other forms of exercise!
Ashley's favorite phrases: Motion is lotion, Consistency is Key, Variety is the spice of life!
JENNIFER CARMACK
Pilates & Yoga Instructor
Jennifer has been a full time teacher at her studio, Wild Spirit in Houston,Tx since 2009-2022. There she taught yoga, pilates, creativity coaching, as well as offered Reiki sessions and trainings and developed an integrative Yoga Teacher Training. Working in session over the years she realized the reformer is a great feedback tool to help her clients feel grounded, present and in their bodies as well as somatically regulate their nervous systems.
She developed a modality of Pilates, her students affectionally deemed, "Sacred Pilates". Thru Pilates, Jennifer merged her work in the Somatic Experiencing lens with Pilates. Tracking the felt sense of the nervous system while we worked to create strength, stability, fluidity, length and watching for the response in the body, thru the nervous system while being supported by the Pilates Reformer.
“Over the years I has accumulated thousands of teaching hours and holding space. But most importantly this experience and time has shown me many paths and patterns to how the body can respond and initiate healing. Energy and emotions often come up during a session, offering insight and acknowledging what the body is holding on to and how it wants to heal. Modalities like breath work, meditation and yoga asana, reiki, pilates, and somatic experiencing techniques merge to meet the moment in what is arising. We feel moment by moment, to complete the charge and ride it down the backside the wave. Trauma is not what happens to you, it is what didn't happen. We spend the time to follow the body's lead to offer that completion.” Jennifer Carmack
MADISON FRERS
Yoga Instructor
I am Madison Frers, and I love movement as an outlet for creative expression and connection to oneself. The practice of yoga has allowed me to develop and deepen into this love of movement, particularly through vinyasa flow. While I was initially drawn to yoga because of the asanas (postures) and dynamic movements, I became fully immersed in all of the teachings and spiritual aspects of this ancient wisdom. The various asanas open energetic channels in the body and with mindful practice and awareness, the body communicates how it needs prana to be directed each time you step on your mat. My vinyasa practice has taught me to play with discipline, resistance, and control while tuning into all the wisdom inside myself. This is what led my to the teaching path- my soul wants me to help others connect to this same inner wisdom and be immersed in the present moment.
I answered this soul calling by traveling to Rishikesh, India in September this year where I received my 200 hour YTT.
I returned full of inspiration and motivation to share this beautiful and spiritual way of being with the world around me. My classes incorporate teachings from all 8 limbs of yoga science and will include asana, pranayama (breathwork), and dyana (meditation) to help students on their path toward connecting with the Divinity that exists within them. Each being on this Earth was born full of Divine, radiant light (jyoti), yet we become so separated from this true nature throughout the courses of our lives. I believe through a loving and committed approach, everyone can utilize yoga to reach a more harmonious and unified state of existence.
GNOSIS RENA MERCADO
Yoga Instructor
(Pronounced Know-Sis) aka Lightworker "G" grew up in an alternative way of life, living in big cities of the world, utilizing holistic and meditative practices and the ways of some the last living warriors of peace on earth. The account of her experiences and expertise of health and healing combined with learned earth magic allow for facilitation of ritual movement to be full circle to the place of here + the time of now.
Gnosis has over 1000 hours of training in various modalities of movement and movement therapy and loves to focus on helping people release trauma from the body. Fear, pain, and trauma are built up in the fascial system and can be released through specific types of functional movement that can be trained and tailored for ANY BODY. Gnosis is happy to co-create with Movement Apothecary and is also an aerial yoga teacher at Live Beyond Limit.
JOSE GONZALEZ
Zumba Instructor
Hello! I'm Jose Gonzalez, and I’m from Tucson, Arizona but currently I live in Fort Collins, CO. I love piña coladas and getting caught in the rain 🤣 I've been a Zumba instructor since Jul 2018 and I absolutely love teaching Zumba classes. The reason is simple: Every class feels like a party! I guarantee you will have a blast!
ANGELICA GUZMAN
Animal Flow Instructor
My name is Angelica (An-hel-ica) I am a personal trainer/Animal Flow Instructor/Boxing coach here in Fort Collins! I absolutely love movement in all sorts of forms! From a young age I was active and grew up playing sports, which led me into the weight room in high school. I continued my fitness journey throughout high school, but then I lost it for a while. Once I came back to the gym a few years later I realized not only how much I loved it, but how important it was for my mental and physical health. After coming to a crossing in my career path, I chose to help others in their own fitness journey! It had done so much for me and my health I wanted to help show others what it could do for them too! I did some boxing/muay thai style training which was so empowering that I began coaching it.
Somewhere along the way, I was introduced to Animal Flow. I absolutely fell in love with it. Animal Flow has been a perfect addition to my training and has become a true practice and passion of mine… It has allowed me to tap into my creative side, explore breath work, body control, playfulness and really being in tune with my body and the human animal within me. We have pillars within Animal Flow; two of which are Community and Resilience. The community is world wide, so supportive, and you can find someone to flow with just about anywhere in the world! It’s a group I am so beyond happy to be a part of and to show you. Now resilience, the goal is to do this for the long haul and that's my goal for my clients as well. Animal flow helps provide varying types of load in the different ways our bodies can move. This helps to decrease the chance of injury from the repetitive movement we perform throughout our everyday life. Plus it encourages you to move better and we have fun with it!
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing” - George Bernard Shaw
I am so excited to be a part of this team, introduce you to Animal Flow and share my passion for it with you all! Can’t wait to move with you beautiful people!
ALISHA JOHNSON
Yoga Instructor
Hi there! My name’s Alisha Johnson and I am a Certified Yoga Teacher through Root to Rise since July of 2018 and Certified Breathwork Facilitator since June of 2020. I was born and raised in Northern California surrounded by redwoods and the beautiful Pacific coast and moved to Fort Collins in 2013 to complete my Bachelors in Sociology and Human Development and Family Studies at CSU. I currently work as a mental health therapist with Kindred Counseling.
The purpose of yoga to me is to leave the ego and transcend into a state of curiosity and exploration through incorporating the breath with movement. My passion is helping guide others towards a healthy and holistic lifestyle through the breath and functional movement. I look forward to having you in my Tuesday 2:30pm Yin Yang Fusion class to move through a vinyasa and slow flow style practice.
TAYAH NORRIS
Yoga Instructor
Tayah began practicing yoga in 2010 and instantly recognized the countless healing benefits yoga has to offer. She started working closely with a yoga studio in Key West, FL and decided teaching yoga was her next step. In 2020, she completed her first 200 hour Yoga certification in Key West, FL with an emphasis in Hatha and Vinyasa. She went on to deepen her knowledge by completing another 200 hour RYT Hatha/Vinyasa training in Bacalar, Mexico February of 2022. Being a lifelong learner, Tayah also obtained her Yin Yoga certification in 2022.
“Yoga has helped me so much on my journey called life. I truly feel that helping others find and experience the joy and healing powers of yoga is what I am meant to do.”
Tayah creates a safe, non-competitive space for her students to dive beneath the surface of their daily lives to find deeper meaning and inspiration. In her classes you will experience a mix of flow, breath work, and meditation.
TAYLOR ESTRELLA
Calisthenics & Yoga Instructor
My name is Taylor and I grew up involved with different contact sports such as boxing and wrestling, tumbling and gymnastics, parkour, climbing, and pretty much any activity I had an interest in understanding that made me move my body and control it more. I was a competitive boxer for 7+ years and went from assisting athletes in that field to coaching them. My love for boxing is still there, as it’s helped me achieve my coordination and control over different aspects in my movements today!
I have always been in love with movement and unlocking a deeper potential with my vessel. I loved seeing personal growth and progress when practicing various forms of movement. Which is what guided my interest in getting certified in Yoga, and further deepened my practice in Calisthenics. I had been a practitioner of Yoga and Gymnastics for some time, and had always incorporated some form of Calisthenics into my exercises when it came to doing different activities. But studying Yoga in Rishikesh, opened my mind to the potential my body and all of our bodies have lying within them. Understanding this, I decided to go down the road of Calisthenics once more, but with more of an open mind. I developed a dream routine I wanted to achieve for myself, and have since been on that journey to obtaining it. It became a transformative way of thinking when I started getting really deep into practice, and that really carried over to different aspects in my life. Calisthenics has provided me with patience, body awareness, and tenacity. My goal is to expand your idea on what Calisthenics can be, and help you develop a dream routine of your own.
In the middle of my journey to understanding and mastering Calisthenics, I decided to seek out another form of movement I fell in love with at a young age, and that was Gymnastics. Remembering the strain and the coordination it took for me to participate in this sport made me want to take another swing at it and see where it could go. I currently coach at Timberline Gymnastics in Fort Collins and I am implementing Calisthenics everyday. There’s only one cheat code in Gymnastics and that’s strength. This and the heavy use of Calisthenics throughout the history of the sport appealed to me and I have been learning new regressions and progressions to movements I’ve been racing towards since I’ve been involved again. Because of this, handstands are a vital part of my practice and journey, as the skill itself has many shapes Calisthenics can help achieve and strengthen. Im looking forward to bringing this knowledge and passion I have with these style of movements to the Movement Apothecary. Especially perfect handstands.
When I’m away from the studio or the gym, I take interest in reading, writing, transcendental meditation, traveling, writing music, producing music, engineering music for myself and others, and playing the piano. Outside of the movement I’ve been in love with learning more on hermeticism, the occult, metaphysics and philosophy. In 2014 I sought out a TM certificate that would later change my whole development and outlook on what I wanted to understand more of in life.
I am more than excited to be around you conscious collectives at the Movement Apothecary and create synergistic relationships with all who come in!
MICHAEL PALSER
Animal Flow Master Instructor
I am a health and fitness enthusiast, that is on a non stop pursuit of becoming whole. And it is my life mission to help others do the same!
I can help you, because I believe… Not only do I believe in you, I believe in myself, and the dedication I have to be the source of inspiration, knowledge, and support, that you need to achieve whatever it is you hold inside and desire to become.
My evolution to becoming a coach started from my love of athletics and all sports. This led me to becoming a featured demonstrator for a sports performance program at a medical center. I was then hired as a personal trainer, and then began shadowing and interning with the physical therapists on staff. This gave me the foresight to combine cutting edge, performance training with any ever evolving desire for more knowledge of the human body and how to optimize its existence.
I am and have been a certified personal trainer for 20 years. Within all of the certifications that I have and still hold, my greatest asset is study and application. I have worked with countless people from all over the world, varying from children, Olympic athletes, and to elders, upwards of 80 years old.
My offering includes, but is not limited to, muscular development, weight release, mobility, mindset shifting, yoga, sports performance, muay thai, kettlebell conditioning, bodyweight programming, and of course, Animal Flow.
We are all human. I have made MANY mistakes. And through those mistakes, I have learned to extract the lessons within. I have been down many paths to achieve a sound body and mind. Although we are different, we all want to be the best versions of ourselves.
I help people transform their mind, body and soul. Through movement, mindset, and daily relationships with others and themselves.
I like to think that I bring a spirit warrior mindset to Animal Flow, without losing my connection to my inner child and the urge to play!
I can help my students to become more aware of their bodies and to truly live in the now.
Animal Flow will always resonate with me, for the simple fact that the practice will never be mastered. There is always more to learn and more skills to hone.
Animal Flow is intuitive movement that combines ancient and primal patterns with an up to date and highly intelligent understanding of how and why the human animal moves.
I teach movement because it sets me free. In an external world, movement grounds me, keeps me present, and helps me grasp what’s truly important. We are all connected.
Anytime ANY one of my students achieves success, I achieve success. But the moment I am most proud of is becoming a Master Instructor for Animal Flow.
FELICA CARROZZA
Yoga Instructor
Felicia Carrozza is a believer of holistic health and has been practicing yoga for 11 years. After graduating with her 200RYT certification in 2017, her passion for yoga made her jump right back in to achieve her 500RYT . Soon after, Felicia attended Florida's School of Holistic Health with desire to gain a better sense of the Mind and body connection. Now, teaching for almost 6 years, she finds value in growing that same mind and body connection and is eager to share it with her community. Recently graduating from CSU with a degree in Food Science and Human Nutrition, Felicia looks forward to blending all aspects of knowledge together to lead others through a safe and spiritual practice.
