Tirumalai Krishnamacharya was a yogi, healer, linguist, philosopher, Vedic scholar and one of the most influential yoga masters of recent time in India. Preserving the essence of India’s ancient traditional wisdom, Sri T. Krishnamacharya innovated and adapted yoga practices for the West leading millions of people in the new millenium to practice a form of yoga that originated through his insights. As Fernando Pages Ruiz said in Yoga Journal, “You may have never have heard of him, but Tirumalai Krishnamacharya influenced or perhaps even invented your yoga. Whether you practice the dynamic series of Pattabhi Jois, the refined alignments of BKS Iyengar, the classical postures of Indra Devi, or the customized vinyasa [of Desikachar], your practice stems from one source: a five-foot, two-inch Brahmin born more than one hundred years ago in a small south Indian Village.”

Larry Payne, PhD. is an internationally respected yoga teacher, educator and back specialist as well as the passionate co-author of a number of best-selling books on yoga: Yoga Therapy Rx, Yoga for Dummies and The Business of Teaching Yoga. The L.A. Times named Dr. Payne “One of America’s most respected Yoga teachers,” and his Samata Yoga Institute is perhaps the greatest yogic treasure on the Westside of Los Angeles. He is the founding president of the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT), the first Yoga teacher to offer Yoga classes at the World Economic Forum, co-founder of the yoga curriculum at The UCLA School of Medicine and the founding director of the Yoga Therapy certification program at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles – the first University-based yoga therapy training in the country.