Sarah Powers (born c. 1963) is a

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

transpersonal psychology Transpersonal psychology, or spiritual psychology, is an area of psychology that seeks to integrate the spiritual and transcendent human experiences within the framework of modern psychology. Evolving from the humanistic psychology movement, ...

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 a 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 yoga styles. Advanced practitioners may stay in one asa ...

Life

Early life

Sarah Powers began yoga in 1986 at the

Institute of Transpersonal Psychology Sofia University is a private for-profit university with two locations in California, one in Costa Mesa and the other in Palo Alto. It was originally founded as the California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology by Robert Frager and James ...

, 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 (, ) 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 different names. It has been called the king of all asanas. Its ...

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

backbend A backbend is a gymnastics, contortion, dance and ice skating move, where the Vertebral column, spine is bent backwards, and catching oneself with the hands. Throughout the move, the abdominal muscles, Abdominal external oblique muscle, obliques, ...

(

Dvi Pada Viparita Dandasana Viparita Dandasana (, ) 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 one leg raised straight up. Etymology and origins The name of this asana com ...

, an advanced pose, rated 24 by

B. K. S. Iyengar Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar (14 December 1918 – 20 August 2014) was an Indian teacher of yoga and author. He is the founder of the style of yoga as exercise, known as " Iyengar Yoga", and was considered one of the foremost yoga ...

). 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). Chiropract ...

in the lumbar region. Recovery was lengthy, involving "

chiropractor Chiropractic () is a form of alternative medicine concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of physical disorder, mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially of the vertebral column, spine. It is based on sever ...

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 Tirumalai Krishnamacharya Venkata Desikachar (21 June 1938 – 8 August 2016), better known as T. K. V. Desikachar, was a yoga teacher, son of the pioneer of modern yoga as exercise, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. The style that he taught was initi ...

and Gary Kraftsow. The injured back led her to try the gentler

under the instruction of Paul Grilley.

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 Hatha yoga (; Sanskrit हठयोग, International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: ''haṭhayoga'') is a branch of yoga that uses physical techniques to try to preserve and channel vital force or energy. The Sanskrit word ह� ...

" 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 p ...

(harder) by contrast, influenced by schools such as

Iyengar Yoga Iyengar Yoga, named after and developed by B. K. S. Iyengar, and described in his bestselling 1966 book '' Light on Yoga'', is a form of yoga as exercise that has an emphasis on detail, precision and alignment in the performance of yoga postures ...

and

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 ...

. She has given workshops at the

Esalen Institute The Esalen Institute, commonly called Esalen, is a non-profit American Retreat (spiritual), retreat center and intentional community in Big Sur, California, which focuses on humanism, humanistic alternative education. The institute played a ke ...

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 Mindful Yoga or Mindfulness Yoga combines Buddhism, Buddhist-style mindfulness practice with yoga as exercise to provide a means of exercise that is also Meditation, meditative and useful for Stress reduction, reducing stress. Buddhism and Hin ...

'."

Personal life

She is married with Ty Powers. 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. A large share of its claims are pseudoscientific, with the majority of treatments having no robust evidence of effectiveness or ...

, in particular its meridian lines, and with the Vipassana meditation style of

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

, emphasising

mindfulness Mindfulness is the cognitive skill, usually developed through exercises, of sustaining metacognitive awareness towards the contents of one's own mind and bodily sensations in the present moment. The term ''mindfulness'' derives from the Pali ...

. 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