Abigayle Lawrence

Abigayle was reluctant to go to her first yoga class. As a personal trainer and competitive body builder, she was very athletic, but not flexible. She had injured her rotator cuff during a bad bench press, and nothing seemed to be helping. Physical Therapy wasn’t working, and Abigayle was in constant pain. When her friend, a yoga teacher, suggested she try one of her classes, Abigayle declined the invitation, saying her body couldn’t do “all that pretzel stuff!”. Her friend laughed and insisted that it would not be a problem.

When Abigayle heard the opening chant, the Anusara invocation, she knew she had wandered into something special. “I knew my heart was waking up again after a long winter in the gym.” It was July 4th, 2001, and it was Abigayle’s personal Independence Day.

Within two weeks she had joined a special training class, and after four months her shoulder was healed. She continues to improve on the pretzel stuff.

Since she began teaching in 2004, Abigayle has logged over 700 hours of training. She has no plans to stop, as there is always more to learn. “I’m a lifetime student,” is how she puts it. Over 100 of her teacher training hours have been with John Friend, the innovator of the Anusara tradition. She is a Registered Yoga Teacher, and an Anusara Inspired teacher, which is the certification that teachers receive after extensive study of the Anusara method. This summer, her first as a teacher at Yoga Yoga, will be her 7th year of Anusara training. She has also studied with Martin and Jordan Kirk, Desiree Rumbaugh, Christy Burnette, Meg Byerlein, Sianna Sherman, and others, too numerous to name.

Abigayle describes what students can expect in her classes this way:

My basic Hatha classes work intensively with Anusara's Universal Principles of Alignment. The emphasis is on building strength endurance and flexibility with optimal alignment for each individual.

We work on the floor and wall, use blocks, straps and sometimes chairs. I also include partner poses in basics. It's a great way to open the body and to gain understanding for what the pose should feel like in your body and your partners'.

My Flow classes build on the basics and incorporate more challenging poses as the class becomes a practice. Flow classes are like a beautiful dance synchronizing breath and movement from beginning to end. Technique at this level has become more innate so the student can move from the heart and sprit as well as the body. In all classes we work hard and laugh and play too.

Abigayle’s biggest inspiration in yoga is working with other teachers. As a musician she loves jamming and learning from other folks. In yoga she uses this same principle of practicing together to keep ideas and insights flowing.

An Austin native, Abigayle recently returned to the city after living in Arizona. As a musician and yoga teacher, she finds Austin a fruitful environment for her work. Abigayle also works as a psychologist, and maintains her license as a personal trainer. She spends her spare time playing music, riding, hiking, camping and canoeing. She lives with two cats, Sunny and Moon, who might be old yogis who reincarnated as cats just for fun. She takes advantage of Austin’s thriving music scene, and hopes to continue playing music and teaching yoga for the foreseeable future. Abigayle loves our yogi tea, and encourages a liberal imbibing after every class.