Bio
Laurie Clarke, a registered Yoga Alliance instructor, has been teaching Hatha Yoga since 1977. As recognized by the Alliance, she has over 5000 hours of experience in the field. Originally practicing in the Catskill Mountains of New York, she moved with her family to Charleston, South Carolina in 1986. Influenced by her various teachers over the years, Laurie has developed her own personal, nurturing style of yoga. With a concentration on form and slow controlled movements, she has introduced yoga to thousands of students of various levels. Always focusing on the integration of breath and movement, she helps her students connect with their own inner ability to attain a state of peace and well-being.
Her most recent accomplishments include an advanced teacher training in October of 2001 in Estes Park, Colorado with Yoga masters Rodney Yee, Patricia Walden, Mary Dunn, Angela Farmer, and John Friend. In March of 2002 she completed the Yoga of the Heart certification program, a highly acclaimed therapeutic Yoga practice developed by Nischala Joy Devi in conjunction with Dr. Dean Ornish. This program adapts traditional Hatha Yoga practice to the special needs of cardiac and cancer patients. In 2003 she attended training with David Life of the Jivamukti Yoga Center, and with Cyndi Lee of Om Yoga, both located in New York City. In 2004 she attended training with Erich Schiffmann of Santa Monica, CA.
Laurie continued her studies in 2005 with Stephanie Keach, director of Asheville Yoga in Asheville, North Carolina. In the spring of 2005 she was reunited with Nischala Joy Devi at her retreat site in Puerto Penasco, Mexico for an in depth study of the Yoga Sutras. She studied yoga anatomy in 2006 with Roger Cole, an internationally recognized Iyengar teacher and an accomplished scientist trained at Stanford University in Stanford, California. The pinnacle of her yoga experience happened in January of 2008 when she was blessed with the opportunity of going on a pilgrimage with Nischala Joy Devi to southern India to visit Hindu temples and other sacred sites throughout the country.
Laurie has been teaching in the Charleston community since 1986 in a variety of fitness centers and private clubs. In addition, she has a private practice where she works with students on an individual basis, helping them to enhance the quality of their lives.