(Bonnie Pariser)
RYT-500, E-RYT-500, SYT
Bonnie Pariser (AmarJyothi) is the founder, director and senior instructor at Yoga Loka in Frenchtown. She has practiced Yoga for more than 20 years and has taught Yoga for more then a decade. Bonnie completed her initial Yoga Teacher Training and her first Therapeutic Yoga Teacher Training at Saraswati River Yoga with Parvathi Nanda Nath Saraswati (Kirin Mishra). She currently is enrolled in Parvathi’s Tantric Immersion program and has completed the level 1 Bhairavi Training. Bonnie was certified as a Structural Yoga Therapist under the direction of Mukunda Stiles, a world-wide leader in the field of Therapeutic Yoga, and the author of the seminal book, "Structural Yoga Therapy" and “Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy”. Bonnie has led more than 10 training and immersion programs at Yoga Loka and is a guest teacher in other training programs offering both Structural Yoga Therapy and Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy. She is one of two of the east coast assistants to Mukunda Stiles and has presented SYT and AYT in Kripalu, Integral Yoga and the NYC Open Center.
Bonnie took her first yoga class as a gym requirement at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC where she studied Fashion Design in 1985. A field trip to The Sivananda Ashram on 24th street, where her gym teacher studied, sealed her interest in the practice. It was at this Ashram that AmarJyothi met her future karate teacher, and delved into that discipline for the next 10 years. Though a regular yoga practice took a back seat as she studied to earn her second-degree black belt, it never left her heart. “I incorporated much of the breath work and conscious movement techniques that I learned in yoga into my karate practice and teaching.” AmarJyothi had studied Tai Chi several years before; so the mixture of soft and hard and consciousness in motion were not new concepts.
AmarJyothi moved to the Delaware Valley region in 1996 where she met Parvathi Nanda Nath Saraswati. The whole concept of how the physical aspects of yoga were intertwined with the spiritual aspects became clear thru her continuing studies with Parvathi. She began teaching Yoga in 1998 and has taught in the Frenchtown area since 1999. AmarJyothi has been interested from a young age in finding out how the body moved, and what the implications of restricted movement was. Through her work with Parvathi and Mukunda Stiles her investigation of how the body stores emotions, trauma and joy went on to a deeper level. AmarJyothi's teaching combines precision, playfulness, and down to earth philosophy, all extracted from the ancient lineage of her teachers and her own insights as a mother, student, teacher, and practioner .
Yoga Loka was opened in 2003 with the intention of providing a space for practices to be presented that can enhance the potential for self investigation and healing, on the physical, emotional and spiritual level.
AmarJyothi lives in Frenchtown New Jersey and is the mother of Dominique, and Zachary, who are also very excited about Yoga.
