Barrie Risman is widely regarded as one of Canada’s most highly skilled yoga educators, teacher–trainers and mentors. Her best-selling book, Evolving Your Yoga: Ten Principles for Enlightened Practice, is a guide for teachers and continuing students to deepen, expand, and integrate the benefits of yoga in their lives. She's the creator of online classes, courses, and trainings that fuel the inner journey of yoga teachers and students from around the globe.
Barrie is well known for her ability to convey the essence of the wisdom teachings of yoga with exceptional clarity, insight, and relevance to students of all levels and from all walks of life. As unpretentious and down-to-earth as she is wise and inspiring, Barrie teaches with a remarkable combination of rigour and challenge balanced with sensitivity, humour, and compassion.
Barrie was the co-founder and co-director of Shri Yoga, Montreal’s seminal place for the practice of Alignment-based, Heart-centered Hatha Yoga from 2011-2016. A certified Anusara Yoga teacher, she was a Senior Anusara Yoga teacher and teacher trainer from 2003-2012. Barrie led Anusara Yoga events throughout Canada, the US and internationally and served on the Anusara Yoga Teacher Certification Committee from 2006-2012, mentoring new teachers toward certification.
She has been a dedicated student of Iyengar Yoga for more than 25 years. She continues to study regularly with her primary mentor, Kevin Gardiner, a senior Iyengar Yoga teacher and co-founder of the Iyengar Yoga Institute of New York. From 1997-2003, Barrie served as a full-time staff member for the SYDA Foundation in India and the US, immersed in the study and practice of the traditional yogic disciplines.