Yoga Teachers, Mentors, Business Partners
The co-owners of a studio in Washington, D.C., reflect on how their dynamic has evolved over the years.
Early yoga masters relied on parampara, an oral tradition meant to pass teachings from teachers to students, to ensure that their practices endured.
Today, there are tens of thousands of yoga teachers in North America, and many of them consider themselves to be mentors of a sort, providing physical, mental, and spiritual guidance for their students.
For The Atlantic’s series on mentorship, “On the Shoulders of Giants,” I interviewed two veteran yoga teachers based in Washington, D.C., Betsy Poos and Alyson Shade. Poos, who has taught yoga for 17 years, mentored Shade at the studio she owned. Five years later, the two have decided to go into business together, opening a new yoga studio on Capitol Hill.
I talked with
