Judith Lasater

Judith Lasater is a writer and yoga instructor living in the San Francisco Bay Area who is widely recognized as one of the best in the country. She used to teach yoga in a leased room with a photograph of BKS Iyengar on the wall in the 1970s. The trick, according to Stefanie Syman, an American yoga journalist and historian, was to remove all religious undertones from her yoga instruction. As a result of her efforts, Iyengar Yoga became more popular in America, as well as the development of slow, gentle Restorative Yoga based on Iyengar-style asanas. In 1974, she co-founded and later served as president of the California Yoga Teachers Association (CYTA). She has written a number of books on yoga theory and practice.

In San Francisco, Lasater co-founded the Yoga Journal and the Iyengar Yoga Institute. She and her husband, William Staniger, co-published 300 copies of the magazine's first issue, then worked as a copy editor and associate editor. Carrying on Indra Devi's heritage, she contributed to the journal's precision and technicality, as well as its emphasis on yoga's therapeutic potential. "Pulling yoga back from swimming," as Syman put it, was only feasible because of Iyengar's perseverance, determination, and knowledge, according to Syman. According to Syman, Lasater goes on to say that physical yoga is enough, allowing him to absorb "components of other Yogas, such as mental yoga (Jnana) and devotion (Bhakti)." She is still on the Yoga Journal advisory board and speaks at the magazine's annual conference on a regular basis.

Judith Lasater has a degree in East-West psychology and is a physiotherapist. She serves on the advisory boards of the Yoga Journal and the Center for Yoga Research and Education. Her yoga training included time with B. K. S. Iyengar in India and the United States. She offers continuous yoga sessions and teaches yoga instructors kinesthetics, yoga therapy, and Yoga Sutra in the San Francisco Bay Area. Judith also gives seminars across the United States and has given talks in Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Peru, and Russia, among other nations. Judith Lasater deserves to be one of the amazing yoga teachers in the US you’ll love.

Born: March 8, 1947