Michelle LaRue
Intermediate Junior I

Michelle has practiced yoga since 1994 and has been teaching yoga since 2001. She made her first visit to Pune, India, to study with the Iyengar family in 2005 and returned in 2008. Michelle's primary teachers are Mary Dunn, Judy Brick Freedman and Brooke Myers.

Michelle began ballet training at the age of eight and performed professionally as a modern dancer for twelve years in San Francisco and New York.

Michelle loves teaching Iyengar Yoga. Her teaching is strong and precise.

She blends physically demanding asana work with clear verbal instruction.

Her aim is to instruct and lead her students while allowing them to stay connected to their own experience.

Hugh Millard
Introductory

Hugh has studied yoga since 1991 and has been teaching yoga since 1997. His primary teachers were Mary Dunn and Manouso Manos. Since 2002 he has studied regularly with Donald Moyer at the Yoga Room in Berkeley California. In 2000 he studied for two months at the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune. In 2005 he returned to study there for three months. He intends to return for further study in the future.

Hugh has a background outside of yoga as a painter. He studied at Yale University as an undergraduate, then at the New York Studio School for Painting Drawing and Sculpture.

Hugh describes his teaching style as patient, exacting and humorous. He advises potential yoga students to think about why they are doing yoga and not to give up. He believes that Iyengar yoga, when practiced in a regular and thoughtful way, can transform a person’s life. In his teaching he works to impart what he has experienced and learned in his own practice. Hugh’s teaching philosophy is “do no harm. I observe the student and teach according to what I see.”

Hugh chose the Iyengar method because he believes it makes the practice of yoga experiential-physically, emotionally and mentally. Iyengar yoga has impacted his life by allowing him moments of peace and an ongoing sense of stability.

Tori Milner
Intermediate Junior I

Tori Milner began studying Iyengar Yoga in 1996 and teaching in 2001. She has trained in India with the Iyengar family twice and her primary teachers are Mary Dunn and Robin Janis.

Tori was formerly an account executive for graphic-design and public-relations agencies. She received a bachelor’s degree in English and women and gender studies from Sweet Briar College, in Virginia.

In her teaching, she strives to be clear, challenging, insightful, and motivating, to help students create greater awareness and joy in their own lives. “Having the privilege of watching students progress is very rewarding,” she says. Also rewarding is helping students cultivate perseverance, and conquer fear and doubt.

She advises new students to have fun. “Learn to take the practice of yoga seriously—without taking yourself too seriously,” she says, a challenge she is familiar with. She remembers being a raw beginner herself. “I saw a friend’s sixty-something-year-old mother do a headstand at a party and was inspired to try yoga. It happened to be Iyengar Yoga, and I was drawn in from the beginning of my studies—amazed that I could indeed lift my kneecaps and explore strength and flexibility that I had no idea existed within my own body or mind.”

James Murphy
Intermediate Senior I

James Murphy began practicing yoga in 1988 and has taught since 1990. He has made 10 extended trips to India to study with B. K. S. Iyengar and Prashant and Geeta Iyengar.

James began his study of Iyengar Yoga with Mary Dunn and Kevin Gardiner after a 10-year career with the Alwin Nikolais Dance Theater.

Describing his experiences in classes in India, James says, “Besides gaining invaluable insights into the physical aspects of yoga, I observed how Mr. Iyengar works on a psychological level to challenge students to go beyond their limits.”

At the Institute, James teaches a full range of classes, including a class for those living with HIV/AIDS; he also does mentoring and training in the Institute’s Teacher Training program.

Currently president of the Iyengar Yoga Association of Greater New York, James continues his leadership role in working to create evolving programs and an active interchange of teachers and practitioners in our four-state area.

In addition to his study of yoga, James is keenly interested in people and cultures around the world. Providing yoga study and experiences in people-to-people understanding, James and Mary Dunn lead groups to such fascinating places as Cambodia, Bali, and Turkey through Yoga Out There.

A yoga practitioner of unusual integration and ability, James is featured in the Yoga Journal book Yoga, has appeared in the Yoga Journal Calendar, and has been interviewed for numerous articles in national magazines.  

Through rhythm and sequencing, James creates an experience of integration in his classes that is both challenging  and  sensitive to the subtler aspects of the practice.

Brooke Myers
Intermediate Junior III

Brooke Myers has studied yoga since 1973 and taught Iyengar Yoga since 1987. She has trained many times in India with the Iyengar family. Her primary teachers are Geeta Iyengar and Mary Dunn.

Brooke’s social conscience informs her teaching. “Yoga should be for everyone,” she says. “We have to make a real effort to go where the need is.” Her outreach efforts have taken her to psychiatric hospitals and a drug rehabilitation center. She co-taught the Institute’s HIV/AIDS class for many years.

Brooke has taught special classes for knee and back problems, depression, and menopause.

The spiritual aspect of Iyengar Yoga inspires her teaching style, which is simple, reverent, and aspiring. “To motivate people, you have to first give them the experience. I can’t talk to them about their breath or their inner self. I have to show them that if they learn to come back into their heels and lift their chest, they won’t feel so depressed. I have to find physical ways to show them spiritual and emotional states.”

Brooke’s previous career was in radical experimental dance and theater. Along with political causes, she is active in animal rescue.

“I’m still looking for ways to use yoga to bridge the gulf between all kinds of people,” she says. “It should be possible—one of the meanings of yoga is union.”

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