ABBIE GALVIN

Everything I have accomplished, explored, loved, conquered, failed at, dipped into, and ran from in my life up until now compelled me to open The Studio. I did not plan to become a studio owner; but, the trajectory was an organic result of my urge to honor and teach this practice wherever it took me.

I had a chemical reaction to the first Katonah Yoga class I took some 25 years ago. So much so that I changed my career, my mothering, my friends, my analyst, my diet, and the way that I saw myself. That implicit but powerful shift led me deeper into the atmosphere of my spirit, planting the seed of insight for how I would work and live.

I knew early on that having a physical yoga practice would become one of the major aspects of my life, giving it meaning, virtue, and pleasure. When I conceived of and opened The Studio, my mission was to have a school where students and teachers could explore the very nature of what it is to practice yoga, that is, how to use a yoga community and its practice to live a richer, more informed, satisfying life.

The principles that guide me as a teacher, practitioner, and studio owner are informed by my close association with Nevine Michaan, with whom I have been studying, teaching, and creating for over two decades. Nevine introduced me to a different way of seeing myself in the world and helped me find my voice as I entered into this practice with her, for her, behind her, next to her.

My study of classical psychoanalysis led me into the somewhat archeological odyssey of making the unconscious conscious, my first foray into the fruits of the interior life. My first career as a filmmaker taught me to articulate abstract ideas and to develop ways to envision them. Having been born a twin and being a mother of three informs every inch of what and how I live and teach, and my personal longevity practice feeds, focuses, and fuels my daily teaching.

My comfort zone has always been to work in community - with Nevine in yoga, with my twin sister for the long haul, and now with other teachers as peers and aspiring teachers as a mentor.  Teaching, for me, has become an act of loving. And while this does not come up as part of my classroom rap, it underpins all that I do.

It is my intention as a teacher, mentor, mother, and confidant to rouse and cajole each student in that most rigorous effort to be grounded, to grow voluminously, to develop a generous heart and an arresting soul as I continue to work on my own.