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Demian McKinley

Having spent a good part of his youth in the outdoors and mountains of the Pacific Northwest in the United States, Demian pursued the study of environmental science and botany while at the University of Vermont. Also a rock climber, his initial contact with yoga and the healing arts was to condition for this sport, in the form of a three month gym class while in college. Having been an athlete, the movement and postures of yoga captivated him, and served as the doorway toward eventually learning the more subtle practices of hatha yoga. It wasn’t until well after college, while serving as a marine biologist in the North Pacific fishing industry in 2000, that he decided to take an extended stay at a yoga retreat to heal a bad back, and from that experience, began a more indepth inquiry into yoga practice.

Drawn to bodywork and body therapeutics, he traveled to Thailand to study Thai Massage in Chang Mai in 2002, and subsequently began studying with Yamuna Zake in New York City, a master bodywork therapist and creator of the Yamuna Body Rolling system and Body Logic bodywork. He learned about the gross and subtle order of the body, and how to awaken the innate intelligence and energies of the body's structure through bodywork, and feels like he's taken an amazing trip into a vast mystery of the body's capacity for wholeness and healing. He apprenticed Yamuna Zake in New York City for 3 years, after which, exhausted from life there, he renewed his practice of yoga in earnest during his travels abroad to Asia.

His love of Kirtan and singing brought him to study with David Stringer in Los Angeles, and often uses the harmonium in his yoga classes and workshops.

Ultimately he is fascinated with and seeks to transmit to his students how the practice of yoga is designed to harmonize and awaken the different aspects and potentials of a person and how health and healing are an inevitable result of dedicated and informed yoga practice.

He currently lives in Kauai, Hawaii where he teaches regular yoga classes and does body logic bodywork sessions, swims, snorkels, hikes, and spends as much time as he can adventuring in the outdoors.

He has immense gratitude for his teachers who include Emil Wendel, Julie Martin, Gopala at Hridaya Hermitage, Clive Sheridan, Shiva Rea, Mark Whitwell, Suzin Green, Yamuna Zake, Sundara Duplan, Godfrey Devereux, and the Acroyoga kula in New York City and around the world.

Demian McKinley