Sarah Powers (born c. 1963) is a

yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciou ...

teacher. She co-founded the Insight Yoga Institute and created Insight Yoga, a combination of yoga,

transpersonal psychology Transpersonal psychology, or spiritual psychology, is a sub-field or school of psychology that integrates the spiritual and transcendent aspects of the human experience with the framework of modern psychology. The '' transpersonal'' is defined ...

and Buddhist and Taoist philosophy, described in her 2008 book of the same name. She was closely involved with the creation of

Yin Yoga Yin Yoga is slow-paced style of yoga as exercise, incorporating principles of traditional Chinese medicine, with asanas (postures) that are held for longer periods of time than in other styles. Advanced practitioners may stay in one asana for fi ...

Life

Early life

Sarah Powers began yoga in 1986 at the

Institute of Transpersonal Psychology Sofia University is a private for-profit university in Palo Alto, California. It was originally founded as the California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology by Robert Frager and James Fadiman in 1975.Judy, Dwight H. & Schmitt, Robert. "Gra ...

, as a component of her degree there. Her career was driven by a life-changing accident in a yoga class led by "a senior yoga teacher". The teacher instructed the class to begin with

Sirsasana Shirshasana (Sanskrit: शीर्षासन, IAST: śīrṣāsana) Salamba Shirshasana, or Yoga Headstand is an inverted asana in modern yoga as exercise; it was described as both an asana and a mudra in classical hatha yoga, under differ ...

, yoga headstand without warm-up preliminaries. From there the woman suggested the class drop straight into a headstand backbend (

Dvi Pada Viparita Dandasana Viparita Dandasana (Sanskrit: विपरीत दण्डासन, IAST: Viparīta Daṇḍāsana) or Inverted Staff Pose is an inverted back-bending asana in modern yoga as exercise. It may be performed with both feet on the ground, or with ...

, an advanced pose, rated 24 by B. K. S. Iyengar). Powers, "with the lethal combination of a bendy back mixed with unbridled enthusiasm to try new things", complied. The teacher asked them to do it again, and as Powers lifted her legs from the backbend, her lower back gave an audible crack and a searing pain from a

vertebral subluxation In chiropractic, a vertebral subluxation means pressure on nerves, abnormal functions creating a lesion in some portion of the body, either in its action or makeup (defined by D.D. Palmer and B.J. Palmer, founders of chiropractic). Subluxation ...

in the lumbar region. Recovery was lengthy, involving "

chiropractor Chiropractic is a form of alternative medicine concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially of the spine. It has esoteric origins and is based on several pseudoscie ...

s and

acupuncturist Acupuncture is a form of alternative medicine and a component of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in which thin needles are inserted into the body. Acupuncture is a pseudoscience; the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientifi ...

s". She lost the ability to perform such advanced backbends, but learnt therapeutic yoga under T. K. V. Desikachar and Gary Kraftsow. The injured back led her to try the gentler

under the instruction of

Paul Grilley Paul Grilley (born November 11, 1958) is an American teacher of modern yoga known for helping, along with Sarah Powers, to develop the slow-paced style, Yin Yoga. He and his wife Suzee Grilley train teachers in Yin Yoga. Education Paul Grilley g ...

Career

Powers began teaching yoga in 1987. In 2008 she created Insight Yoga, a combination of modern yoga,

and Buddhist and Taoist philosophy including Chinese meridian theory, co-founding the Insight Yoga Institute with Ty Powers. Insight Yoga's style is a blend of the soft, slow and gentle

, a name that she devised, with a more typical "

hatha yoga Haṭha yoga is a branch of yoga which uses physical techniques to try to preserve and channel the vital force or energy. The Sanskrit word हठ ''haṭha'' literally means "force", alluding to a system of physical techniques. Some haṭha ...

" practice, that she calls

Yang Yang may refer to: * Yang, in yin and yang, one half of the two symbolic polarities in Chinese philosophy * Korean yang, former unit of currency of Korea from 1892 to 1902 * YANG, a data modeling language for the NETCONF network configuration pr ...

(harder) by contrast, influenced by schools such as Iyengar Yoga and Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. She has given workshops at the

Esalen Institute The Esalen Institute, commonly called Esalen, is a non-profit American retreat center and intentional community in Big Sur, California, which focuses on humanistic alternative education. The institute played a key role in the Human Potential ...

and other centres around the world. She was identified by ''

Yoga Journal ''Yoga Journal'' is a website and digital journal, formerly a print magazine, on yoga as exercise founded in California in 1975 with the goal of combining the essence of traditional yoga with scientific understanding. It has produced live events ...

'' as one of the people who had "each, independently, discovered the benefits of merging mindfulness with asana", leading to "something we might call ' mindful yoga'."

Personal life

She is married with Ty Powers, who she met when aged 18. They have a daughter and live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Insight Yoga

Insight Yoga, introduced by Powers's 2008 book of that name, balances Yin Yoga with conventional 'Yang' yoga, and integrates both with

Chinese Medicine Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of action ...

, in particular its meridian lines, and with the

Vipassana ''Samatha'' (Pāli; sa, शमथ ''śamatha''; ), "calm," "serenity," "tranquillity of awareness," and ''vipassanā'' (Pāli; Sanskrit ''vipaśyanā''), literally "special, super (''vi-''), seeing (''-passanā'')", are two qualities of the ...

meditation style of

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

, emphasising

mindfulness Mindfulness is the practice of purposely bringing one's attention to the present-moment experience without evaluation, a skill one develops through meditation or other training. Mindfulness derives from ''sati'', a significant element of Hind ...

. Powers describes the integration with Chinese Medicine as making her yoga practice more skilful, "like learning to be my own personal acupuncturist—only without the needles".

Works

* 2008: ''Insight Yoga''. Shambhala, *2021: ''Lit from Within''. Shambhala,

References

Sources

* *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Powers, Sarah Living people 1963 births Mindful Yoga American yoga teachers