BIO FOR IDA UNGER, M.ED. CERTIFIED IYENGAR YOGA INSTRUCTOR Ida Unger is an Iyengar yoga instructor with over fifteen years experience in guiding students to understand and practice the art of yoga. She opened her own studio the Yoga Garden in 1987, offering just two classes a week. The "Garden" is now a vibrant facility with over twenty classes per week, and a dedicated staff of teachers who each maintain an independent yoga practice of their own. Ida Unger began studying yoga in 1978 and received her Iyengar Teaching Certificate in 1989.

Iyengar Yoga, a school of hatha yoga practice as researched and taught by B.K.S. Iyengar, is extremely dynamic and transformational. The poses are taught with body alignment as a focus, so that muscles reform and bones realign, offering freedom of movement and strength, as well as the possibility of deep relaxation and rejuvenated health. Ida, as well as the other teachers at Yoga Garden, are involved in continuing education, as part of the worldwide efforts of B.K.S. Iyengar's dedication to yoga as a healing art, and his inspiration to continue our own growth and expand our knowledge.

Ida has worked with pre and post natal students, seniors, children and teens, as well as people who come to yoga because of back issues. Her ability to meet the needs of students with special needs has been a foundation of her career. She has trained numerous new teachers, and has a precise and enthusiastic teaching style. She has been on staff at Santa Monica College since 1993, where she was instrumental in the expansion and updating the yoga program throughout the college: in the Physical Education Department, Continuing Education and the Emeritus Programs.

Ida has studied with numerous international masters including B.K.S. Iyengar, Aadil Pahlkavali, Faeq Beria, and Manouso Manos. In 1998, she spent time in Pune India, studying with the Iyengar family. While pregnant, she studied with Sandra Jordon, certified Iyengar yoga instructor and author of Yoga During Pregnancy. She continues to study advanced yoga and therapeutics via the BKS Iyengar Yoga Institute in West Hollywood. In addition to Santa Monica College and the Yoga Garden, she has taught at The Sports Connection and the BKS Iyengar Yoga Institute.

Ida holds a Master's Degree in Education and a B.A. in English, both from UCLA. Prior to teaching yoga, she taught for the Los Angeles Unified School District. She also had employment with the Olympics, Tom Hayden then State Assemblyman, CNN, and The Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament. Ida was born in Los Angeles to parents who were survivors of the Holocaust. She grew up with a strong Jewish identity, has a yeshiva education, and has spent time in Israel and in the former Soviet Union visiting with Jews who were unable to leave.

In 1996, as a result of a miraculous series of coincidences, Ida began to connect her Jewish "roots" with her "spiritual wings", yoga. She has developed an expansive curriculum that examines the connections and similarities between the two traditions, as an enhancement, a deepening to both. She has taught her "Yoga and Judaism" course to hundreds of people, via Temple Beth Shir Shalom, the Chavurah movement, the 1999 & 2001 Alef Kallah, among others. Additionally, she is honored to teach the Rabbis of the Spirituality Institute of Metiftah, and has been part of a lecture/panel discussion at The Museum of Tolerance, about Yoga and Judaism. Her work is motivated by her own deep yoga and meditation practice and a belief that she is guided to share this work. She studies Torah and Kabbalah in numerous formats, and is searching for the perfect vegetarian "chulent". She lives in Santa Monica with her teenage son, Harley, who has been heard to say, "My mom did yoga before it was popular".

She can be reached at E-mail: iunger@yogagardenstudios.com
Phone: (818) 353-8050