Mission: To give comfort, inspire reflection, and ignite movement through the power of yoga and fitness.
Vision: To flourish our reputation as a beacon of excellence in yoga, fitness, and wellness, becoming a national resource for American movement teachers and a trusted authority for students everywhere.
A World Of Yoga Expertise
Down Under offers yogis of all experience levels the expertise of some of the country’s most respected teachers of yoga, meditation, fitness, and Ayurveda.
Classical & Cutting Edge
With 3 generations of teachers, unparalleled credentials, & a plethora of styles, Down Under offers something for every body. Each tradition whispers a different secret, each teacher works a different aspect of your practice.
Daring Greatly
From our ice-plunge meditation, dawn Mysore practice, and racial justice gatherings, Down Under fearlessly embraces possibility in pursuit of authenticity.
Compassionate Community
A warm welcome to our vibrant community of students aged three to ninety-three.
Our students are the lifeblood of our school. As a community, we welcome all ages and identities related to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, body type, ability, status, language diversity and we affirm, defend, and invest in Black lives.
Teacher Led. Teacher Focused.
The only independent school in America offering yoga teachers a faculty-written employment agreement, Teacher Leadership Council, individual checkins, a management team composed of teachers, and full employment benefits (healthcare, matching retirement, sick days, parental and unemployment benefits).
Teacher Led. Teacher Focused.
The only independent school in America offering yoga teachers a faculty-written employment agreement, Teacher Leadership Council, individual checkins, a management team composed of teachers, and full employment benefits (healthcare, matching retirement, sick days, parental and unemployment benefits).
Based on Friendship
Nearly two decades ago, after yoga class with Patricia Walden in Cambridge, four young teachers named Nadja, Carin, Tristan, and Justine would head next door to Life Alive and talk yoga.
They began teaching in an old parish hall with a handful of beloved students and decades later, those friends are still teaching together, doing what they love, and now opening new studios with their friends at Life Alive. Down Under is a personal place, a latticework of relationships that span three generations of yoga teachers. The Creative Director began as a seva ten years ago, the Founder's kids work the front desk and many of the school's celebrated leads have called the studio home for more than a decade.
Industry Disruptor
Yoga’s dirty little secret is that it is hard to make a living.
Most small, independent studios in America employ teachers illegally as contractors, with no employment benefits, sick days, healthcare, retirement, maternity/paternity, or unemployment benefits.
At the other end of the spectrum, large fitness chains dumb down and dress up ‘gym yoga’, masking shareholder profit with slick marketing. Pandemic decision-making lifted that veil, revealing the soul of corporate fitness and how dispensable yoga teachers and philosophy can be.
When the going got tough in 2020’s covid crisis, national chains such as Corepower, Lifetime, Yogaworks, and others let their people go. Yoga teachers across the country were fired or furloughed, many with a mass email after years of service. Down Under refused to lay off a single of its 70 teachers and 15 managers, pivoting overnight to a virtual platform that attracted students from Europe and Asia. Through a two-year pandemic, the school expanded its class offerings, creating Fitness and Meditation programming to employ teachers laid off elsewhere and added two new studios.
Down Under is proudly a disruptor in our industry, actively seeking to shift the typical American yoga paradigm. We strive to co-create a faculty-focused model where yoga teachers can enjoy a sustainable income and a teaching home to grow their personal and professional practice. All faculty, whether they teach one class or full time, enjoy employee benefits, a teacher-written contract, and a one-of-a-kind Teacher Leadership Council, prompting Yoga Journal to write “one studio sets a new standard”.
Racial Justice
Down Under’s dedication to racial justice work is ongoing, guided by Down Under’s Faculty Director and Faculty Collaborator, who ensure that teacher training focuses on the evolution of the yoga industry. Our programming includes the monthly Accomplice Circle, Yoga in Spanish, VivaOm, and the Ascension dialogues around wholeness, race, and collective possibility.
The Down Under Invitation
Down Under’s invitation is to practice everything under our roof—both what is heavenly and what is hardest for you. Those who love to sweat often struggle with stillness. Those who enjoy precision grow when asked to flow with the rhythm of their body and breath. When you step out of the way and let the poses breathe you, powerful questions about your relationship to intensity, softness and self-care arise. We invite your curiosity.
What We Value
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We elevate the standards in all we do: our quality of teaching, our offerings, the cleanliness of our studios, and our personal attention to students, teachers, and managers.
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We create the possibility for greatness in people. It is through this greatness that we cultivate the courage of action to try our best regardless of the outcome.
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We believe we are all in this together. Our human compassion binds us to one another as equals, not in pity or condescension, but in a shared recognition that everyone we meet knows the taste of struggle.
