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Kathy Cooper - Personal Biography

Kathy Cooper began practicing Ashtanga yoga in 1976. David Williams was her primary teacher, teaching her all of the Ashtanga yoga series (primary, intermediate, advanced A, advanced B) by the time Sri K. Pattabhi Jois came to Hawaii in 1980. Guruji immediately deepened the practice by adding daily half-hour headstands. He returned to Maui frequently in the 80s and early 90s, where Kathy always studied with him, forging a deep bond with him as one of his early students when the Ashtanga yoga movement was still small. She also studied with Guruji when he came to California over the years, the last time in San Francisco in 2006, and spent three months in Mysore in 2005-2006, receiving his shakti and deep root juice.

From the beginning, her awareness of following the breath and allowing it to direct the practice to open closed or stuck areas has taught her from the inside out. This uniting of the breath, bandhas and asanas--surrendering all resistance to the present moment--was the key that revealed the inner world of this innately wise practice. Kathy has informed her Ashtanga practice by studying with senior Ashtanga teachers over the years, and more recently with teachers grounded in Iyengar yoga, completing a three-month Anusara training in 2006. She has also practiced meditation, attended retreats, and for the past 12 years worked with awakened teachers. Adyashanti has been her primary teacher the past six years.

Kathy looks forward to supporting students in unlocking and deepening their practice to experience the purification, healing and opening to the truth of being inherent in Ashtanga yoga.