RICHARD FREEMAN began his practice of yoga in college in 1968 and in that same period he attended the Zen Temple of Matsouka Roshi in Chicago. As a student of philosophy, the political and cultural circumstances of the times took him to India to practice and explore schools of yoga and bhakti. As a monk he traveled throughout India and Southeast Asia, and in 1974 he began teaching yoga in Iran. He has been an avid student of both the Iyengar and the Ashtanga methods, their relationship to similar practices, and their application to each individual. To this day he remains a student of comparative philosophy and is interested in the interfacing of different cultures and practices both historically and, most importantly, in our current world. He and Mary Taylor currently teach ways of practicing yoga and meditation in the context of relationship to other people.
MARY TAYLOR began studying yoga in 1972 primarily as a means of finding balance and reducing stress while working as a professional chef and training in a Gestalt Center. She soon became absorbed by the profound impact āsana, when coupled with yoga’s other limbs, had on all aspects of life. Diving more deeply in search of intersections and differing (often complementary) underpinnings between yoga and other disciplines such as Buddhism, psychology, health care, politics, science, and art, she continues to study and practice daily, incorporating the residue that is produced on the mat into her work and life. Taylor cofounded, with Richard Freeman, the Yoga Workshop in Boulder, Colorado. They now split their time between Boulder and Thailand when not traveling to teach throughout the world.