Full Name Bryan Kest Website poweryoga.com Nationality American Name Bryan Kest | Occupation yogi Movies Bryan Kest's Power Yoga Years active 1985–present | |
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Born 1964 (age 51–52) Detroit, Michigan, U.S. | ||
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Bryan Kest is a prominent American yoga teacher. He is recognized as a creator of Power Yoga, and is the founder of Santa Monica Power Yoga, based in Santa Monica, California. He has led yoga classes, retreats and workshops worldwide, and has been credited with pioneering the practice of donation-based yoga in the United States.
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Kest was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1964. He began practicing yoga in 1979, at the insistence of his father, a physician. While still a teenager, Kest studied in Hawaii with David Williams, who brought Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga from India to the United States.
In 1983, Kest traveled to Mysore, India, to study with K. Pattabhi Jois, the founder of the Ashtanga system of yoga. Kest remained in Mysore for a year before he returned to the United States, moving to Los Angeles, California, where he studied holistic health and nutrition at Ryokan College. Additionally, Kest was a yoga therapist at Esteem, a Santa Monica treatment center for people with eating disorders.
Kest began teaching in Los Angeles in 1985, and founded Santa Monica Power Yoga in 1995.
Kest incorporates meditation into his teaching and his teacher training, and has studied Vipassanā meditation with S.N. Goenka. Kest’s philosophy regarding donation-based classes is based partially on the principles of Vipassana meditation.