Tara Stiles

Tara Stiles grew up in rural Illinois and trained as a dancer. She met hatha yoga as a teenager, when a teacher was brought into her ballet programme in Chicago, and after moving to New York to dance she began leading friends and fellow performers through simple practice backstage and between rehearsals. That informal teaching became Strala Yoga, the approach she co-founded with her husband, Mike Taylor, which began as a Manhattan studio and is now taught by trained guides in many countries.

Strala rests on the idea of moving with ease rather than force. Instead of holding fixed shapes, students are encouraged to follow the breath, keep the body soft and let each movement flow from the centre, with clear influences from tai chi and qigong. Her books include Strala Yoga, Guiding Strala for teachers, and Living Softly, due in March 2027, on getting more done with less tension. Her YouTube channel holds hundreds of short home practices, and she leads online home retreats and teacher trainings with Mike, in-person workshops in North America and Europe, and a weekend retreat at Kripalu. She also writes weekly essays on Substack and hosts the podcast Feel Better with Tara Stiles.