Telling the Truth of Transformation
Peter Sterios is a fierce truth-teller as well as an author, architect, visionary yoga teacher, Manduka creator, and philanthropist. I have known him for two years now and his humor and incredible candor come through on every page of Gravity & Grace. Here Peter reveals the truths of his path in yoga with love, laughter, and the elegant wisdom befitting a teacher who knows how to share his own lessons so that we may learn.
Noted teacher Eoin Finn says, “Gravity & Grace is precisely the direction in which modern yoga needs to move. There are plenty of books that teach the technique of each asana: ‘Move the ribs this way; make the leg straight.’ But learning the language of the subtle body so that yoga is no longer one size fits all, but instead unique to the needs of every body, is something that yoga practitioners are thirsting for. Even the ones who don’t yet know they are thirsting for it will be when they read these insights.”
Exploring Effort and Ease
In Gravity & Grace, Peter crafts the stories of how his life and work, his practice and his study, his meetings with teachers and even his own injuries helped him to develop the unique style of yoga he teaches. His approach is an elegant marriage of softening into gravity with the delicate grace found in the breath. “Hatha Yoga is a discipline of effort and challenge interwoven with non-effort and ease.” This is the dynamic nature of practice with the subtle body. As Peter says within Gravity & Grace, his goal is to “access the transformative grace of a practice tuned to present-moment experience and learn to use the natural gift of subtle energies that we are all born with in service of our growth and healing.”
An experience that affected Peter’s explorations of his dharmic path was when a student literally fell on him. Peter saw a man in handstand about to take a tumble and leapt into action. He broke the fall but hurt himself. For healing, Peter Sterios accessed the principles of gravity and grace in his personal practice to inspire an approach thoughtfully outlined in Gravity & Grace, designed to “awaken in the practitioner the self-authority for creating movement safely and efficiently in each practice.”
Desi Bartlett MS, CPT, has been teaching health and wellness for more than 20 years. Originally from Chicago, she has a degree in kinesiology and her master’s degree in corporate fitness. Desi holds advanced certifications in Yoga, personal training, group fitness, and is a certified pre- and post-natal fitness specialist.