Creators

A yoga teacher since 1971, Judith Hanson Lasater holds a bachelor of science degree in physical therapy from the University of California, San Francisco, as well as a doctorate in East-West psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. In l974 she helped found the Institute for Yoga Teacher Education (now the Iyengar Institute of San Francisco), a nationally known yoga teacher training program that has since trained thousands of teachers. In l975 she cofounded Yoga Journal magazine. Judith modeled yoga poses for Yoga Journal and started and served on its editorial advisory board. She created and wrote the asana column in the magazine for thirteen years, as well as dozens of other articles relating to postures, anatomy, kinesiology, yoga therapeutics, breathing exercises, and the psychology and philosophy of yoga. She continues to write regularly for Yoga Journal as a nationally recognized authority on yoga and serves on the magazine’s advisory board.

She is president of the California Yoga Teachers Association, the oldest independent professional yoga teachers’ association in the United States, with over 6,000 members. She has served on the advisory boards of the International Yoga Studies Association, the medical journal Alternative Therapies, and the national registry association for yoga teachers, Yoga Alliance.

Judith has taught yoga as an invited teacher at national and international conventions of yoga teachers for decades. For three years she was a featured speaker at the Governor’s Women’s Conference in Long Beach, CA, and was the opening keynote speaker at Yoga Journal’s annual yoga conference. She has also been a speaker at the IDEA-Yoga Journal Conference in Anaheim, CA, the Yoga Northwest Conference, the Kripalu Conscious Parenting Conference, and the Yoga in Toronto Conference.

She has trained beginning students and teachers alike in asana, pranayama (breathing), meditation, anatomy, kinesiology, yoga therapeutics, yoga philosophy, and restorative yoga, one of her specialties. She teaches in San Francisco as well as across the United States and throughout the world. During her second visit to Russia, she directed the production of a video on therapeutic yoga to be used in Russian military hospitals. She has also been an invited guest teacher for the heart patients in Dr. Dean Ornish’s Preventative Health program for heart disease as well as in his prostate study using yoga. In 2007 she was an invited speaker at UC Davis School of Medicine, under the auspices of the Complimentary and Alternative Medicine Program.

Judith is the author of:
Relax and Renew (1995)
Living Your Yoga (2000)
30 Essential Yoga Poses (2003)
Yoga for Pregnancy (2004)
Yoga Abs (2005)
A Year of Living Your Yoga (2006)
Yogabody (2009)
Spiritual Speech (coauthored with Ike K. Lasater; forthcoming)

Judith is currently writing a regular feature called “Real Yoga” for Yoga Journal magazine. She also acts as a health and movement consultant for several other national magazines, including Shape, Men’s Health, and Body + Soul. She has served as an advisor for a National Institutes of Health (NIH) project studying the effects of yoga on lower back pain for the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, as well as a consultant on another NIH project on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) with the University of San Francisco. She recently completed advising an NIH study using restorative yoga to reduce hot flashes and is consulting on two other NIH studies,...