Yoga Haven founder and director, Betsy Kase, RYT-500, C-IAYT, has been practicing yoga since 1991. She began her study of yoga at a time when her work and personal life were extremely stressful. Almost immediately, she found that a simple yoga practice unlocked a layer of peacefulness she had innately known existed but couldn't access, and was searching for since she was a teenager.  In 1994 she was certified to teach by the Integral Yoga Institute.  Betsy’s deep interest in women’s health and reproductive well-being led her to further her training and become certified in pre and post natal yoga.  Over the years, Betsy has studied with many of  the most accomplished teachers from many different lineages.  She is a life long practitioner and learner, and continues to incorporate all of her insight into how and what she shares.  Betsy embodies the experience that we are all on this path together.

After moving back to Westchester from NYC, she found herself somewhat lost trying to meet people, practice yoga, and find a like-minded community.  Betsy’s need for connection and community, and her dedication to helping people led her to change her career path and devote herself to yoga full-time.  It wasn’t long before she opened her first studio.  So, as the saying goes, “If you build it, they will come”… Yoga Haven opened its doors in 1997, starting as a one room space in Tuckahoe, NY. It worked! People showed up and kept coming.  Since then, Yoga Haven expanded significantly, offering 70+ classes a week, taught in a variety of levels and styles by highly qualified teachers, many of whom trained in Yoga Haven’s teacher training led by Betsy herself.

In January 2012, Yoga Haven 2 opened its doors in Scarsdale, NY. This studio expanded the Yoga Haven community in a way that was exciting and fulfilling for all. Many members of the community have been with Yoga Haven since its inception to the present day.

In 2020, Covid unfortunately made it impossible to continue the studios.  Both studios closed mid-March, and Betsy was devastated on many levels.  However, she used her relentless ability to move through extreme challenges and difficulties, as she leaned into the mind/body practices she had honed over the years.  Through this process, and her innate sense that the local community needed to come back together led her to re-build a new Yoga Haven in May 2024 with the hope and support of the whole community behind her.

With over 30 years of teaching experience she has witnessed yoga’s profound ability to reduce a student’s pain, on all levels - physical, psychological, and spiritual. With that experience, through her teaching of students and the training of yoga teachers she continues to find ways to help people transform from the inside toward a more peaceful, balanced, and healthy life. She provides educational opportunities for new teachers to have the tools to reach their beginning students as they start their own journey.  She is able to bring this to life through Yoga Haven’s annual 200 hour teacher training program and the studio’s mission to provide space and programming on women’s health and wellness issues. She is also an adjunct faculty member at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lennox, MA., here she teaches the prenatal section of the Adaptive Yoga Training.  Over and over she sees the results of her work, and is thrilled to be intertwined in a deeply caring community.  She takes the day to day issues of directing a studio seriously, and continues to strive to provide the highest quality environment for students and teachers to feel supported and able to learn.

Betsy’s journey is continuing to unfold and she is always finding innovative ways to implement and collaborate to offer the essence of the healing power of the mind/body/spirit connection through yoga and meditation practices.  She experiences her learning and growing as inextricably linked to all those she serves.