Recognized as the “First Lady of Yoga” since her groundbreaking 1972 PBS television series, Lilias! Yoga and You, Lilias Folan (Swami Kavitananda) is regarded as one of America’s most knowledgeable and respected master yoga teachers. Time magazine calls her the “Julia Child of Yoga” and she was described by Yoga International magazine as one of “four fearless women who changed Yoga’s destiny.”
Steeped in many different yoga traditions, Folan relies strongly on her own personal experience and intuition to guide her teaching. She first became involved with yoga at the age of 30, when her doctor suggested trying the system of simple stretching and breathing techniques to help relieve a variety of ailments that included back pain, sleeping problems, and a general case of the “blahs.” Finding that yoga renewed her vitality and energy, Folan continued her yoga practice in New York City, where she studied and taught with some of the finest teachers from Europe, India, and America. She has since spent more than 40 years helping people learn about the benefits of yoga for the body, mind, and spirit. Her audience includes housewives, athletes, executives, seniors, Olympians, artists, members of Congress, and a former president of the United States.
Lilias Folan is a Yoga Alliance certified teacher with E500 + T500 hours. She is author of Lilias, Yoga and You and Yoga Gets Better with Age, in which she illustrates that yoga is a continually changing, growing, deepening practice that can be learned with ease at mid-life and beyond.
What People are Saying About Lilias Folan
“Lilias is one of the great pioneers of yoga in this country. She has taken the complex and sometimes controversial subject of yoga and made it useful and easily understood for everyone.”
—Rodney Yee, author of Yoga: The Poetry of the Body
“Lilias Folan reminds us that authentic spiritual paths are not a function of age, because genuine wisdom is ageless. This includes the great tradition of yoga, of which Folan has done so much to bring to Western awareness.”
—Larry Dossey, MD, author of The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things and Healing Words