Sarah (Siri Partap) Sullivan

Originally from the small town of Kankakee, Ill., Sarah felt right at home in Austin with its river cutting through the city, just like in her hometown. Sarah lived in Santa Monica, California, for 20 years doing film production, acting and healing work (massage and yoga), before teaching yoga and meditation full-time for the past 5 years to 7th-11th graders at The Archer School for Girls in Brentwood, California.

Sarah was introduced to yoga when she got fired from a waitressing job. Disgruntled, Sarah realized that she couldn’t just go out and get another job, so she found this little yoga studio called Yogi John’s and studied there for a month instead. She remembers her first class as being very difficult, particularly attempting to relax in the postures. But once Sarah experienced her first sivasana, she realized that a very peaceful place existed inside of her. In the beginning, Sarah only went to yoga so she could get more sivasana!

Sarah’s first teacher training, a combined Hatha and Kundalini training, was in 1999 at Santa Monica Yoga, followed by a second training at the same studio with Julian Walker and Rick Gould. Sarah then earned 650 hours in the healing arts, including massage therapy at the California Healing Arts College, integrative healing arts at The Shiatsu School of Massage and Visionary Craniosacral work with the Milne Institute. She also completed a “Yoga Ed” teacher training, learning to teach children in 1st-8th grade at Esalen.

Most of Sarah’s classes are in the Hatha Flow style, inspired by the lineages of Krishnamacharya, Iyengar, Patabhi Jois (Ashtanga) and Yogi Bhajan (Kundalini). She teaches students to listen to their inner teacher, while building strength and flexibility, increasing mobility and energy, and enhancing relaxation and discipline. She also uses the breath as a tool for transformation, relaxing the nervous system and oxygenating the blood.

Sarah’s biggest influences have been her many teachers: Misty Carey, Katherine McNamara, Guru Singh, Max Strom, Erich Schiffmann, John Friend, Deepak Chopra, Dr. Kaneko, Dr. Sankey, Dr. Medici, Louise Hay and Julian Walker. Sarah loves taking as many classes as she can from different teachers and in a variety of styles of yoga. She loves experiencing a pose she already knows, taught in a slightly different way, that brings more understanding to it.

“Yoga makes everything better. I feel like I am able to see the world with clearer vision—a more accurate view of life that comes from having my heart open, and I am able to notice when my ego is driving.”

When she is not teaching or studying yoga, you can find Sarah singing and harmonizing, talents she acquired performing in two different bands in Santa Monica, or journalling at her favorite Austin haunts, Flipnotics and Pacha Coffee House. If you see her there, ask her about how her sister has Sarah’s left kidney, which inspired her career in the healing arts, or what it was like to stand in for Rene Russo on six of her films!