J. Brown, a yoga teacher and founder of Abhyasa Yoga Center, has written for and been featured in Yoga Therapy Today, the International Journal of Yoga Therapy, Elephant Journal, and Yogadork. For more than 15 years, he has been developing techniques to teach people how to practice yoga in a deeper and more fulfilling way.
J. Brown came to yoga by way of his mother’s death. Reconciling that loss, and wanting to be free from the crippling grief and disillusionment that came with it, fueled his passion for learning to make himself well.
First, he gravitated towards an Ashtanga, power vinyasa style. The intensity suited his struggling temperament. After sustaining several injuries, he explored an Iyengar based approach to learn better alignment. But he soon discovered that better alignment alone was not the answer. Despite having achieved proficiency in both the Ashtanga and Iyengar styles, studying with renowned teachers such as Alison West and Richard Freeman, J admits: “I still had chronic pain and was horribly disillusioned and unhappy.” The next phase of his search would be in India.
In Rishikesh, J. found a special teacher in Swami P. Saraswati. who taught J. that yoga practice was not a linear progression toward some “unknown thing,” but rather a process of learning how to take care of yourself. Back in New York, J. stopped going to regular group classes and devoted himself to a self-practice, ultimately finding his way to an entirely therapeutic orientation in the tradition of TKV Desikachar and T Krishnamacharya, the “teacher of teachers.”
In 2007, After more than a decade as a popular teacher at various schools in Manhattan and Brooklyn, J. founded Abhyasa Yoga Center in Brooklyn, New York. which was created to provide a home for yoga practice that adapts to individual needs.