Beryl Bender BirchBeryl Bender Birch, a renowned visionary and author of Power Yoga and Beyond Power Yoga, has been an avid student of yoga and the study of consciousness since l971. With degrees in philosophy and comparative religion, Beryl has traveled extensively i India, has been teaching yoga for 33 years, and training yoga teachers as "spiritual revolutionaries" since l980. Beryl began teaching astanga yoga to a handful of adventuresome and ahead-of-their-time runners in New York City in 1981 at the prestigious New York Road Runners Club. She became the Wellness Director of the Club and slowly continued to grow the classes. She pioneered (along with husband Thom, a world class runner at the time, who joined Beryl as a teacher at the NYRRC from 1985 through 2001) the introduction of yoga to the traditional athletic community. In 2000 she was named by Yoga Journal as one of only seven American women in their "Innovators Shaping Yoga Today" issue. She is the director-founder of The Hard & The Soft Yoga Institute. Read More Read Less