Tara stiles what kind of yoga

I moved to New York [originally] to do dance. I did some fashion modeling but it was mostly commercial—I got picked up especially when a company was looking for someone flexible to do something like put their legs behind their head!

Modeling was fun, it paid my bills. I bought a small apartment and at the same time [in ], I started leading yoga classes. Were you always into yoga? I grew up doing meditation on my own but didn't know much about yoga. My ballet teacher from the American Ballet Theater was into it and I thought it was fantastic. But I found the community to be small and insular and wasn't really mainstreamed.

You had to be a certain way, and a lot of it was about Buddhism and Hinduism. I grew up Catholic so it reminded me a lot of the Church. But I explored yoga and would help friends with back pains or stress. I saw pockets of opportunity where you could evolve yoga instead of popularizing what yoga already is. How would you say your yoga method is different from others?

The one main problem I saw with yoga is that you had to be in a specific position and if it didn't feel good, too bad, you had to stay. Yoga, for me, is about finding individuality with the movement and you can get more physical and mental benefits if you allow yourself to move however it feels good. I don't want to tell someone how to feel amazing.

I say that a rabbi, priest, supermodel and NYU professor all walk into Strala and they all had a good time because no one told them what religion to be. We call yoga instructors 'guides' not teachers, because it's one less layer of 'listening to the teacher. Stiles practicing yoga in a glass box to promote her W Hotels partnership. Courtesy of Patrick MacLeod Photography. How do you respond to critics who say things like you're watering down an ancient tradition?

But talking about spirituality does not make you spiritual. Everyone is spiritual, everyone has a mind, body and spirit. Lecturing someone is quite the opposite, it's very rigid and I think it's wrong. We're offering an approach where people can connect and expand and attach to what they want or to nothing at all. We don't preach. We are hands off and that why it's caught on.

How did you build such a strong following? I started writing for the Huffington Post, like quirky posts about yoga for jocks or hangovers. Some people thought it was crazy, some people were mad. But I built that audience without meaning to, especially on YouTube. Why did you decide to start your own studio? I wanted to create a space for myself, and for people who had similar interests.

People on the internet were asking me where they could go [to practice with me]; I had the number views but it's hard to discern your following that way so I started a local business. What were the steps to opening the studio? I had a class every day at 7. I've always been really conservative with finances and didn't want to get into something if it wasn't going to work.

So I just did it under the radar at first, sneaking people up. People in the building would say, 'hey, what are you doing, you can't do that,' but we didn't make noise and everyone went home. But then it grew beyond myself and journalists wanted to come over for interviews because I was writing a book and I figured it would be more legit to get a commercial space.

How did you get a steady flow of students? I like to connect and make friends and get feedback to improve. On YouTube I posted one video a week and received good feedback from there.

When I first started Strala, we didn't have a website, we just had a Facebook page. I'm not the type to post ten time a day and look at reports. My book publisher would tell me things like how I need to write a newsletter at 7 AM and I'm like, 'I don't want to that! It takes the pressure off. We teach our guides how to lead a class, very simply and effectively and powerfully, and how not to turn anybody off in the room.

We keep it open and thoughtful, simple and clear. There are just under 1, Strala guides in about a dozen countries now. What do you mean by this? TS: I talk a lot about ease and being comfortable and free, and really being intuitive and getting to know yourself.

This has nothing to do with being or wanting to be a certain body size or type. Taking care of yourself is the number-one thing. Stop worrying about what that looks like.

Who cares? TS: Music is big for us. All Strala classes are taught to music, and we have a playlist of the month on Spotify. Our music selection is community sourced around certain themes, but the guides are free to make their own playlists. TS: I keep a mat out in my living room and hop on it in the morning before going to lead a class. About 10 minutes of moving does the trick for me.

I also have two blankets stacked in my living room that remind me to sit and meditate. I do, however, notice a huge difference when I meditate regularly; I feel more spacious, and calm and easy. I think people get frustrated and frazzled when they attempt to use social media as a tool for promotion more than personal connection.

How did you meet him? TS: I got an email asking if I wanted to lead a yoga class at an event where Deepak was talking. It led to collaborating on the Authentic Yoga app, and he asked me to teach him yoga. This is yoga that moves far beyond poses, helping you blow past your goals and get into your dreams. You reveal your radiantly inspiring self. Your Body.

You get strong, a healthy range of mobility, and radiantly healthy from the inside out. Your Health. Immunity strengthens, your Relaxation Response is activated, and stress dissolves. Imbalances have the space to rebalance, repair and restore to optimal you.

Your Result. You look and feel fantastic. You are creative, inspired, connected to your intuition, and to the world around you. You have the space to improvise, to move easily in everything you do, and to create more than you dream. Your health shines bright. You get happy. Flow State. Strala Yoga brings you here, using calm connected movement, through all kinds of challenges. This is your body and mind working at levels beyond your imagination.

Creativity is heightened. You achieve a super-human state of strength and movability in your body, and calm focused awareness in your mind. You move through the familiar and unfamiliar with far less effort, taking you much further without tiring, just feeling good.

Relaxation Response. When attention is aimed narrowly and forcefully at accomplishing goals — for example in yoga, jumping and pushing into poses — our body is bathed in stress hormones, including cortisol.

We become chemically less able to see the full range of options available to us. We are less creative and less intuitive. This is where we want to live most of our lives. The good news is, we can activate our own Relaxation Response response by moving gently and exploring where we are, rather than forcing to be somewhere else.

We get happy, creative and intuitive.