“Lara's teaching style is energetic and focused; her classes are dynamic, challenging, and complete. She welcomes all levels of students and is attentive to specific needs.”
“Lara has a wonderful enthusiasm for the subject of yoga which she communicates to her students with a dynamic presence and beautiful demonstrations.”
Lara first explored B.K.S. Iyengar’s “Light on Yoga” when she was twelve. Enthralled with the pictures of “Guruji” performing a myriad of postures, a year later, she went to her first Iyengar Yoga class in London.
Lara received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in Environmental Sciences from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, in 1992. In University, she practiced with a Shingon Buddhist group that combined Chinese Yoga with seated meditation and martial arts. Lara knew she had found her calling from the first class she had ever taught. Lara moved to New York City soon after she graduated from University.
In New York, she studied Iyengar Yoga with Robin Janis and Mary Dunn. She began building the HipJoint Yoga Studio, where she was director from 1994-2014, and worked as a project manager and environmental organizer with the Council on the Environment of New York City. In 2001, she decided to go full-time into teaching yoga. Lara felt that as an environmentalist, she was running from crisis to crisis, busy trying to transform her surroundings or influence policy with much effort but without much success–while as a yoga practitioner and teacher, the effects she experiences and witnesses are much more immediate and tangible. She believes that as dedicated yoga practitioners, we are empowered on a very visceral level to make positive and lasting changes in all aspects of our lives.
In addition to daily yoga practice and raising her beautiful child, Lara is happiest when playing guitar, traveling the world, or simply staying closer to home and enjoying all NYC has to offer.
Lara looks for joy and ease; challenge and transformation; evolution and peace in her life and practice, and some of the elements with which she hopes to imbue her students.