Cyndi Lee

Cyndi Lee founded OM yoga center in New York City in 1998. She took her first yoga class at college in 1972. After completing her graduate thesis on Women, Spirituality, and Indian Dance at the University of California, Irvine, Lee arrived in New York City as a recipient of an Art History Fellowship to the Whitney Museum of American Art. This was a wonderful opportunity to learn, but it didn’t provide enough cash so Lee began teaching yoga in Greenwich Village.

Soon, Lee became a fixture in New York City’s downtown modern dance scene. She also choreographed more than 20 music videos, including Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” which won the 1983 MTV Best Female Video of the Year award.

After meeting her root guru, Gelek Rinpoche, in the late 1980s, Lee’s practice of yoga and Buddhism merged with her work as a choreographer. In 1994, she choreographed her last concert, “Dharma Dances,” which featured Allen Ginsberg singing his own songs and accompanying himself on harmonium.

Lee teaches classes, teacher trainings, and special workshops at OM yoga center and leads retreats worldwide. She is the author and artist of OM Yoga: A Guide to Daily Practice; Yoga Body, Buddha Mind; OM Yoga Today; OM at Home: A Yoga Journal; and the OM Yoga in a Box series. She has written for multiple magazines, has authored the yoga column in the Shambhala Sun magazine, and originated Yoga Journal’s Vinyasa/Home Practice column.

What People are Saying About Cyndi Lee

“Cyndi Lee is a brilliant yoga teacher because she blends the knowledge and experience of life itself into her exquisite teaching of yoga. She leaves her students content and open to the abundance of the moment.”
—Rodney Yee, author of Yoga: The Poetry of the Body