Like many people in the United States, Rebecca Polack's first introduction to yoga was at a gym-the YWCA in downtown Minneapolis. Yoga was still a foreign practice to most people 40 years ago, and yoga classes at the Y whetted Rebecca's appetite for a more comprehensive understanding of the practices. With that in mind, she quickly moved to study Iyengar yoga with William Prottengeier in 1987. After moving to New York City in 1996, she sought to deepen her practice of postures and breathing techniques at the New York Iyengar Institute with Genny Kapuler, the late Mary Dunn, and Judy Freedman. Yoga was fast becoming a way of life for Rebecca, and New York City offered an exciting array of yoga schools. Eager to learn still more about yoga and its practices, Rebecca studied in depth with Cyndi Lee and Dharma Mittra. In 1997, she became a Yoga Alliance certified Yoga teacher through OM Yoga. She studied Ashtanga yoga with Eddie Stern and Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, and took advanced teacher trainings with Rodney Yee, Dr. Jeffrey Migdow, MD, and Nischala Joy Devi. The teacher appears when the student is ready. In 1997, Rebecca met Om Prakash Tiwari-the highly-respected master of pranayama and former Director of the Kaivalyadhama Yoga Research Institute in Lonavala. Possessing a wealth of knowledge about yoga, both culturally and historically, O.P. Tiwari imparted to Rebecca the nuances of the yoga practices and its philosophy. His teacher, the eminent yogi and freedom fighter, Swami Kuvalayananda, established the Kaivalyadhama Institute in 1924-the first institute of its kind in India and the world-to study yoga from a modern scientific perspective. In order to create a "radically inclusive" yoga scene in NYC, Rebecca co-founded the New York Yoga Teachers Association in 1998 with Karen Safire and Cyndi Lee to promote conversation and community across the varied schools of yoga. She was the board chair for the first three years of the organization's operation. She has also been involved in the teaching and training of new yoga teachers, with special emphasis on teaching pranayama.In 2003, Rebecca moved to San Francisco to pursue graduate-level studies in yoga and South Asian philosophy. She holds a Doctorate in Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies (2014) with a concentration in Yoga Studies. In addition to her academic studies, Rebecca has been blessed to study South Asian philosophy and Sanskrit in the traditional way-especially the Yoga S¿tras of Patañjali-with O.P. Tiwari, the late Dr. Ram Karan Sharma, and Shanta and Indira Bulkin of the Yoga Society of San Francisco. She has lectured on the modernization of yoga in New York City, Mumbai, Pune, Lonavala, and San Francisco. Rebecca resides in San Francisco.
