38
august/september 2015yogajournal.com.auBryan
the life of
Bryan Kest’s
unconventional
approach to yoga
has helped bring
yoga to the Western
world and shape
a generation of
teachersBY KAREN FARRELL
IF YOU HAVEN’T HEARD OF BRYAN
KEST, you could be accused of living
under a large stack of yoga bolsters.
Kest is one of the West’s most coveted
international yoga teachers whose
presence in the yoga spotlight spans
three decades. Each year, he criss-
crosses the globe visiting 100 cities to
teach sell-out master classes, teacher
trainings and workshops at studios
heaving with yoga teachers and
students, all ears for his knowledge.
Having taught an estimated 18,400
yoga classes during his career, this
master teacher has seen a staggering
amount of bodies on the mat. Just
don’t call him a Guru.
Kest’s throaty voice resonates
down the phone from Santa Monica,
Los Angeles, home to his successful
Power Yoga studios. “You ask any
question you want, and I’ll answer
it.” It is this honest, self-assured
manner; coupled with a frank,
accessible and inimitable discourse,
which provides some of the most
powerful attributes in Kest’s teaching
arsenal.
At age 15 and living in Hawaii,
Kest found himself in the position of
being in the fi rst Ashtanga yoga class
outside of India. Fellow Island
resident, David Williams - the
Western pioneer of Ashtanga yoga to
America - became Kest’s fi rst yoga
teacher, at the behest of his father.
Kest Senior insisted that his children
practice yoga or, as Kest recalls it,
“get out of the house.” Perhaps
somewhat ironically, Kest’s father –
a former paratrooper - found in yogarelief for a bad back; although it was
what yoga did for his mind that he
came to value most highly. Bryan
also found himself with back injury
due to a car accident and sought
solace in a deepened meditation
practice.
Kest isn’t the archetypal yoga
teacher. He never cues classes to
start or end with ‘Om’ and considers
stringent postural alignment akin to
dogma. Discussion on alignment,
which he prefers to refer to as
“creating space”, might prompt Kest
to request a copy of the “Yoga Rule
Book.” As a student and former
Teacher Trainee of Kest’s, I can also
attest that he’s especially good at
dropping the f-bomb during class;
which grabs an easy headline
wherever he travels.
At the very outset, as Kest recalls
it, he didn’t have a jot of interest in
creating another yoga ‘system’:
“There is really no such thing as
Power Yoga. Baptiste yoga,
Jivamukti, Bikram and Ashtanga
Yoga – these are all systems. Power
Yoga is not a system.
You can take a ‘Power’ class
anywhere in the world and it’s going
to be different because there is no
system. When you take my class, I’m
really trying to encourage the whole
mental side of things.”
During the 1990’s and outfi tted
with shoulder-length black hair and
oodles of swag, Kest cut a path as
somewhat of a yogi rock star,
keeping busy as Madonna and Steven
Spielberg’s wife’s yoga instructor. He