Christy Brown

Curator & Leader of Yoga & Meditation Retreats

Teaching yoga since the year 2000, Christy has studied in India with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois (Ashtanga Yoga) and S.N. Goenka (Vipassana Meditation) and in the U.S. with Sarah Powers and Paul Grilley (Yin Yoga), T.K.V. Desikachar (Viniyoga) and H.H. the Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhism).
 
Christy has been designing, curating and leading yoga and meditation retreats and yoga teacher trainings in the U.S. and internationally for over two decades.

Emphasizing mindfulness, breath, safety and alignment, Christy draws on Yogic, Buddhist and Taoist philosophies, sacred ecology and indigenous wisdom traditions to weave a creatively flowing, invigorating yet calming, centering yet expanding, level-appropriate exploration of Self through Asana—dedicated to highest wellbeing of the Earth and all beings, for the next seven generations and beyond.

Christy has volunteered time to guest teach with Prison Yoga Project at San Quentin Prison in California, is a Yoga Works certified teacher trainer and has written a self-published book entitled Yin Yoga & The Art of Letting Go.

Prior to teaching yoga, Christy graduated from University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1993, with a B.A. in Latin American & Iberian Studies and a Political Science Certificate in Global Peace & Securities.  Intending at the time to become an Anthropologist, she subsequently studied Mayan Archeology in the highlands of Honduras with Harvard University before leaving to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bolivia where she lived and worked 2+ years with indigenous Guaraní basket weavers in a region located midway between the high Andes Mountains and the Amazon Basin.  It was during her time in Bolivia that Christy discovered yoga and started practicing on her own from a book she'd picked up at a used bookstore on Haight Street in San Francisco.  
 
The profound insights and physical healing she experienced from yoga and meditation led her to shift career plans. Ever since, she's been professionally and personally dedicated to a path of teaching yoga and sharing its transformative physical, mental and emotional healing potential with others.

In her earlier life, Christy was a high school exchange student for a year in Brazil where her host mother became a spiritual teacher. During that year Christy stopped going to school and instead stayed home to help her host mother, Hilda, with household responsibilities while she would ask question after question about spirituality. Hilda, an elder of a local spiritual community, would offer explanations and guide Christy to helpful readings. Meanwhile, Christy had been struggling with a message in her mind that she intuitively knew wasn't true but that told her "if it can't be proven, it doesn't exist." Over the course of the year, she managed to deconstruct what felt like a brick wall around her mind until she finally felt free of this constrictive mental conditioning. This spiritual awakening was where Christy's journey in yoga and spirituality really began. And the journey continues.
 
Christy's greatest joy is combining her love of travel and study of cultures with helping others discover how the ancient science, philosophy and practice of yoga can lengthen life-span, optimize health-span and uncover the inner peace, happiness and unlimited potential that is, according to many wisdom traditions, our inherent true nature.
 
Christy speaks Spanish and Portuguese and has extensively studied French, Italian, GuaranÍ (an indigenous Amazonian language) and Sanskrit (an ancient and sacred language of India).