LARUGA GLASER
Laruga Glaser has been practising Ashtanga yoga continuously for over 23 years. Starting at the beginning of her 20s, she was immediately drawn to the practice after working with other forms of yoga years prior. After establishing a committed practice she then deepened her studies traveling to Mysore, India annually to practice at KPJAYI where the late Sri K. Pattabhi Jois taught and now his grandson, R. Sharath Jois teaches. Laruga has made more than 14 trips to Mysore and is on a mission to continue to learn and grow as a student as well as a teacher. She is one of the few in the world who have been given the distinction of being certified to teach up to Advanced B, which is not easily given and takes many years to earn. Through it all, Laruga teaches as an act of deep sharing and love for what yoga develops in each individual, facilitating space to open, challenge, and inspire those to realize their inherent potential, and has been personally invited all over the world to do so.
KIRSTEN BERG
Kirsten started ashtanga in 1996, studying annually for 3-6 months with K. Pattabhi Jois and Sharath Jois. She received Jois’ blessings to teach in 1999 and Level II Authorization in 2002. Kirsten is one of a few Ashtangis who studied Advanced (A) and its separate pranayama sequences directly with Sri K Pattabhi Jois, with permission to teach what she learned from him.
Kirsten holds a deep respect for this practice as a tool with which to cultivate awareness and dispassion.
She enjoys sharing and refining its internal practice, “yoga tristhana” (pranayama/drishti/bandha), gathered from years of direct study with KP Jois and Sharath Jois.
Kirsten has taught in Asia, Australia, Europe and the USA since 1999. She and her former co-teachers (Rolf Naujokat and Mitchell Gold) taught seasonal programs in India, Thailand, and Bali. She has resumed seasonal classes in Bali and teaching visits in Europe.
Kirsten is also an actively engaged artist deeply involved in Burning Man, so she divides other times of year in the San Francisco Bay Area, Nevada City (California). www.kirstenberg.com
VIDWAN LAKSMISHA BHAT
Born into a humble Brahmin family in a village called Madageri near Gokarna, Laksmisha Bhat has been associated with Guruji Sharath Jois for close to two decades.
Keen on learning Ashtanga yoga, Laksmisha undertook yoga asana practice under Guruji Sharath Jois. In the meantime, he also received the Vidwan title from the Sanskrit College in Advaita Vedanta philosophy and completed his master’s degree in Sanskrit from Mysore University in 2006.
Guruji Sharath Jois requested that Lakshmisha start teaching Sanskrit and yoga-related theory to the increasing number of yoga students who come to KPJAYI for yogic knowledge. In 2003, Lakshmisha joined the shala as a teacher of Sanskrit, chanting, and yoga-related theory.
Lakshmisha has so far taught hundreds of yoga aspirants. He believes yoga is incomplete without the right understanding of the theory and strives to impart that knowledge to everyone who comes seeking for it.
CHRISTINA HUG
Christina spent 6 years working and living in India, exploring various traditions of yoga and embracing the culture, the people and the food, India became a second home.
After several years of in-depth studies with the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in Chennai, she continued the practice of Vedic Chanting with various teachers and is today a student of the Bangalore-based school of the Challakere brothers. These living legends hail from the Mysore lineage and teach using traditional methods. She has been holding space as an Ashtanga Mysore teacher for over a decade and received Sharathji’s blessing to teach in 2018, and level 2 authorization in 2022.
