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Mary Johnston-Coursey
Mary Johnston-Coursey began dancing at age 9, and meditating at age 15. In 1980, while studying Anthropology and Dance at Stanford, she was invited to participate for a year in a daily Astanga yoga practice. The teacher was passionate and her enthusiasm, contagious. Mary had no idea what she was in for, never having done or even seen yoga before, but she would follow her favorite teacher to the ends of the earth... and so began a lifelong journey with yoga. That year of Astanga hooked her, so she did a year's teacher training in Iyengar yoga. While she began teaching yoga then, she also dove back into dance, got her MFA , and became a professional dancer, choreographer, and dance teacher. Although dance has often been her most visible occupation, her yoga practice has proven to be the underlying foundation of all of her work.
Having children in the mid-90's changed not only her perspective on life in general, but on dance in particular. She became less enamored of the theater, and more drawn to pure dance, dance without critique, children dancing, dance as an expression of passion, of delight, of the divine. One day, at a yoga retreat in Canada, she turned a corner and understood that all her years of dancing had been part of her yoga training. Everything that is expressed outwardly in dance is expressed inwardly in yoga. It has been a rich journey of the spirit which continues to unfold.
Since 1980, Mary has taught yoga to a variety of populations. She loves the clarity and simplicity of yoga. Working concretely through the body can affect profound transformations for the person inside that body, and the physical practice leads to a spiritual practice. Over the past thirty years, Mary has studied with many remarkable teachers (yogis, dancers, spiritual teachers) and her teaching style has evolved as she continues to learn. Within the yoga studio, Mary’s classes reflect the fluidity of Astanga and the precise alignment of Iyengar, combined with deeply focused breath work. She emphasizes strength in connecting to the ground and to the core. She emphasizes release and ease in following the breath and drawing energy through the pose.
Mary enjoys applying her yoga practice to the arts: she sings in a Celtic band, teaches art to children, still choreographs, and performs with Rippletales, a storytelling duo which invites audience participation through music and movement. While she is most delighted by her husband and two daughters, she also thoroughly enjoys the cats, bunny, tortoise, and hermit crabs that crawl, slink, pounce, hop, and push their way through the house.
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