Elliott is a powerhouse: brilliant, kind, and grounded. Renowned as a masterful teacher and trainer in the Ashtanga lineage for two decades, Elliott has trained many of Boston’s better teachers including some of our own.

After studying with the Jois family and the early Ashtanga generation / David Swenson, Beryl Bender Birch, and David Williams- Elliott spent nearly 20 years as a senior Ashtanga teacher at O2 Yoga. Leading trainings and retreats internationally, and as a teacher at Tufts University, Elliott brings academic rigor to the set sequence that is tempered with compassion from decades on the mat. “When I structure a yoga class, I’m writing an essay, an argument, about how to build a posture or refine your understanding of the breath, how to enter or exit a pose consistently, about how to learn to pay attention. One reason some students respond to me is my relationship with language. I aim to be clear and clean and direct. I try not to waste words or use too many. And while I take the practice very seriously, I don’t take myself too seriously. There’s always time to play, to laugh when the jump back fails spectacularly, beautifully, and when you get stuck rolling around in garbha pindasana.”

After 7 years in grad school (where he studied American literature and critical theory), focusing on his intellect, as opposed to his body, Elliott ended up in his first yoga class. It was the hardest thing he had ever done. The sweat, the work, being in his physical body- it had him hooked. Gravitating to vigorous vinyasa classes, Elliott discovered that Ashtanga gave a structure to what he had been seeing in classes but was not able to piece it together. He saw how the postures progress, how they respond and counter each other, how heat gets built, and how to cool down. There was nothing extra and nothing wasted. While physical adjustments were a key part of teaching Ashtanga, Covid pushed him to build other skills, to be even more precise with his language and sequencing, and to articulate everything he could see anatomically. “The change in the larger culture around consent has created more understanding around the issues surrounding touch. For me, touch has always been anchoring and healing, and I bring that approach to my adjustments.” Elliott will teach Mysore, Led primary, and drop-in Ashtanga classes at Down Under. Off the mat, Elliott is a serious bread baker (with a decade of sourdough and croissants as his specialty) and spends time with his 2 rescue huskies, Yoshi and Obie.