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Izumi Sato is a lifelong adventurer and practitioner of yoga, who loves to explore the art of sharing happiness and freedom with others. She is dedicated to empowering her students to find their potential and grow their abilities to learn from their own experiences. She believes by looking into the body, mind, and heart, we can develop in expressing joy and love.
Izumi brings many years of studying devotional classical dance in India, learning Bharatanatyam under Padma Bhushan Guru Saroja Vaidyanathan, into her teachings. Her studies in classical dance and music in India, her M.A. in Dance Education from the University of Hawaii, and an additional B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Kyoto, Japan, make Izumi deeply practiced in her offerings. After over 20 years of performing and teaching dance, Izumi specializes in the energetic arts of mudra (hand gestures), the flow of movement and stillness, and cultivating the space to be nonjudgmental when exploring the body-mind.
Her yogic journey started in 2000 at a conference near the sacred waters in Himachal Pradesh, India. In 2013, she began diving into yoga teaching and offers flow-based yoga classes, ranging from gentle to power, creating meditative classes for everyone. Her devotion and wide research into the Ramayana led her to be a part of Mount Madonna’s Ramayana production as a choreographer, and she has taught Bharatanatyam there since 2018.
Izumi pours love into various communities throughout the United States, visiting schools and juvenile detention centers to educate and empower children to accept and celebrate differences. She knows that planting seeds of appreciation toward all world cultures is how we will live harmoniously and shape a world that rejoices in our interconnection.
What have you learned through your practice?
In my background of performing Indian classical dance, I’ve trained to cultivate the expression of heart, mind, and body as offerings to the Divine and connecting people with the Divine. As yoga and dance of India share the same root, I hold the same values in both disciplines as my prayer for peace.
What does yoga mean to you?
I believe everything we experience in life contributes to our awareness and becomes a part of the yoga practice: a journey of learning and awakening.
What aspects of practice do you look forward to steeping yourself in more deeply?
I am exploring deeper into connections with nature recently. During this changing time, I became very aware that nature healed me. Air and water, as we receive from nature and as they become one within us, that is how we are all connected.
