Hawaii Yoga Retreat, February 2010
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Karl Straub is the European Regional Executive Director for the Yoga Studies Institute. He was introduced to meditation in 1976 at age 11, and has been involved in spiritual pursuits ever since. Before devoting his time fully to yoga practice and teaching, he was a competitive swimmer, dolphin communication researcher, resident manager of a retreat center, actor, business owner, and school teacher. He is known for his inspirational classes full of humor, compassion, hands-on assists, and wonderful surprises like overtone chant. He is a graduate of Duke University, studied cognitive science at Columbia University, and his yoga-related certifications include Jivamukti Yoga, Tibetan Heart Yoga, and Thai Yoga Massage. Karl currently leads courses, retreats, and teacher trainings in about half a dozen countries each year.
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How I came to yoga: After several years of long hours of sitting at a desk typing on a computer my girlfriend at the time introduced me to yoga. At first I just watched. I commented “hey, that’s a nice pose, do that one again!” She said, “No, YOU do that pose”. She is a very determined person, and she helped me overcome my initial resistance. I wouldn’t have done it alone. Almost immediately it was clear to me that the asana practice was beneficial for my body and mind. I felt new sensations and range of motion in my hips and shoulders, reduced mental stress, more expansive breathing. This yoga thing was actually useful. I attended classes almost daily at a local gym that offered yoga 6 days a week. After about a year and a half there I moved to NYC and enjoyed studying with great teachers.
A common question I receive is “What kind of yoga do you teach?” Whenever I hear this I remember the way Swami Bua answered this question. He said, “I do not teach ‘yoga’, I teach how to get to heaven!” This was a bit of a shock. My friend and I had expected something else. Some kind of a label we could use to categorize this teacher. Instead he gave us a peek into the invisible infrastructure of all yoga practice, consistent with the goal of all classical yoga traditions: to be free of selfishness, to stop causing suffering, to stop hurting others, to treat others as we wish to be treated, to discover one’s true purpose, to be at one with the divine, to love and serve everone with equal intensity and joy. This, of course, sounds a lot like any spiritual discipline. And that’s what it is. It’s not merely a set of excercises to get strong, limber, and lithe, although that may happen along the way. It is a highly developed system of using both physical (outer) and subtle (inner) methods synergystically in our development toward our highest potential and real happiness. I’m incredibly fortunate to benefit from the world’s greatest teachers, and it’s a joy to share their wisdom.
Click on “workshop descriptions” above to see more on what kinds of courses Karl teaches.
Did you know Karl is in a recent Yoga Journal article? View here.
