Bryan Kest (born 1964) is an American
yoga
Yoga (UK: , US: ; 'yoga' ; ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as pra ...
teacher. Recognized as the creator of one form of
Power Yoga
Power Yoga is any of several forms of energetic vinyasa-style yoga as exercise developed in America in the 1990s. These include forms derived from Ashtanga (vinyasa) yoga, namely those of Beryl Bender Birch, Bryan Kest, and Larry Schultz, and f ...
, he is the founder of Santa Monica Power Yoga, based in
Santa Monica
Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...
, California. Kest has led yoga classes, retreats and workshops worldwide. He is credited with pioneering the practice of donation-based yoga in the United States.
Kest was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1964. He began practicing yoga in 1979, at the insistence of his father, a physician. While still a teenager, Kest studied in Hawaii with David Williams, who brought
Ashtanga (vinyasa) yoga
Ashtanga yoga (not to be confused with Patanjali's ''Ashtanga (eight limbs of yoga), aṣṭāṅgayoga'', the eight limbs of yoga) is a style of yoga as exercise popularised by K. Pattabhi Jois during the twentieth century, often promoted as a ...
from India to the United States.
In 1983, Kest traveled to Mysore, India, to study with
K. Pattabhi Jois
K. Pattabhi Jois (26 July 1915 – 18 May 2009) was an Indian yoga guru who developed and popularized the flowing style of yoga as exercise known as Ashtanga (vinyasa) yoga. In 1948, Jois established the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in My ...
, the founder of Ashtanga yoga. Kest remained in Mysore for a year before he returned to the United States, moving to Los Angeles, California, where he studied holistic health and nutrition at Ryokan College. Additionally, Kest was a yoga therapist at Esteem, a Santa Monica treatment center for people with eating disorders.
Kest began teaching in Los Angeles in 1985, and founded Santa Monica Power Yoga in 1995.
Kest incorporates
meditation
Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking", achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditat ...
into his teaching and his teacher training, and has studied
Vipassanā meditation with
S.N. Goenka
Satya Narayana Goenka (ISO 15919: ''Satyanārāyaṇa Gōyaṅkā''; ; 30 January 1924 – 29 September 2013) was an Indian teacher of '' vipassanā'' meditation. Born in Burma to an Indian business family, he moved to India in 1969 and ...
. Kest's philosophy regarding donation-based classes is based partially on the principles of Vipassana meditation.
References
External links
Power Yoga Web Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kest, Bryan
1964 births
Living people
Educators from Detroit
Modern yoga pioneers
American yoga teachers