Bruce Bowditch

CYT 500

I have authored five books about yoga and teach workshops both nationally and abroad. My teaching is alignment based, bringing students to a deep understanding of the body so they may flow safely and naturally in their practice. Yoga therapeutics is also an important component of my offering.

I think it was about 1978 when I took my first yoga class from my student advisor in high school. I loved it but only practiced sporadically. I was more interested in soccer, basketball and drawing at the time. It was also in this period that I started practicing a variety of martial arts. That brought me into contact with meditation and Asian philosophical systems. In college I studied fine art in Baltimore and Paris. I became an advertising Art Director for several years in multinational advertising agencies overseas. It ultimately wasn’t my calling but it did bring me back to yoga. One day while working in Melbourne, Australia, I stepped into a yoga class. I immediately sensed I had found something powerfully healing, heart-opening and beautiful. The atmosphere of loving kindness felt so nourishing! I had developed a lot of injuries over the years and was carrying a lot of pain in my body as well as my heart. Yoga began to bring joy and optimism back into my life. In 1996 I left advertising and began to pursue yoga in earnest. I studied several styles of yoga, most notably Iyengar and Ashtanga yoga, with master teachers of both styles. In 1999 another serendipitous event introduced me to Anusara yoga. Anusara merged my love for a graceful and powerful physical practice with a life-enhancing and heart-centered spiritual practice. After many years of apprenticeship I was certified in that style, though I am now independent. I currently live in Flagstaff, Arizona with my family and teach weekly classes at Northern Arizona Yoga Center.

In my classes and workshops, I like to create an atmosphere of serious playfulness, where students can safely push their edge, and reach beyond perceived limitations to a more expanded, more creative experience of themselves. I believe that once we know how to make our bodies feel better, this effect ripples through us, powerfully influencing our state of mind and heart. We actually feel happier, more enthusiastic and brighter about life as a whole.