Leslie Wright
Hometown: Troy, Vermont. More a village really.
Sun Sign: Taurus
Favorite Word: zip-a-dee-doo-dah
I wish for....that all people began their day with a foot massage.
The practice would transform the universe.
I am thankful for.....family, friends, hot coffee, and knee slapping stories.
What gives you peace? Watching my children safely asleep in their beds.
Why Yoga? Yoga is spacious and roomy. It is a practice that is always intriguing, often humbling, frequently surprising, endlessly unfolding.
3 words to describe you: inventive, resourceful, a stickler for details.
What / who inspires you? A sassy eighty-year-old who can (and still does) apply her own toe nail polish.
What you can’t live without? Wonderment
Favorite yoga pose and why ? Any and all twists. They reward us for exploring different points of view.
Favorite foods? Hot fudge sundaes with sprinkled salted peanuts. Such a satisfying concoction of contrasts.
Best advice you’ve ever received (from who?): “If you don’t stick out your neck, no one can put a necklace on it. (J. Alison James’ grandmother).
Words to describe your teaching style? welcoming, playful, thought-provoking
What do you love to do for FUN? Yoga, gardening, reading, bookmaking
When/where/with who was your first yoga class? The JCC in Pittsburgh. I was in an exhausted daze after the birth of my second child, and I found tremendous relief on the mat.
Local escape: The library and a nearby coffee shop.
 Other
Teachers & Subs:
Joanne
Spence, Renee Aukeman,
Aleta Howard, Amy
Burleson, Katrina Woodworth,
Leslie Wright, Jennifer
Chaparro, Mariangela
Mancuso, Jennifer Sylves,
Anne Brownlee, Cathie
Sunderman, Maga Sanchez-Dahl,
Heidi Zellie, Michaelene
Stanko, Greg Karas, Jayna
Bonfini, Leanne Santiago, Cara Bessko, Dawn Penney
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When Leslie first began to practice yoga, she experienced such a rapid and profound improvement in her own well-being that she soon realized she wanted to pursue yoga in a formal way; and she knew early on that she wanted to pass this knowledge along to others.
Leslie’s academic training is in teaching literature--and because so many years of Leslie’s life have been spent wandering around in her mind and imagination, as well as the minds and imaginations of writers, her understanding of the body was sketchy at best. Finally, facing her physical self, Leslie wrangled with the demands of an anatomy and physiology course and was amazed to discover that the human body is every bit as intriguing as the human mind and that yoga provides a vehicle for exploring both.
Because of Leslie’s love of anatomy, she fills her lessons with intense inquiry of anatomical structures and functions. She tempers hard science, however, with imaginative play and metaphor. Her students, for example, will hear the names and locations of all four quadriceps muscles; but then Leslie might personify them all, describing that their interactions with each other are not unlike the interactions of squabbling members of a typical P.T.O. Or that we must approach the stretching of hip flexors as gingerly as we would approach a lost and frightened dog that we have found cowering under a shrub. Leslie believes that just as yoga can unite body and mind, yoga class can unite serious inquiry with serious fun.
Leslie has completed Yogafit traingings 1-5, Yogafit Seniors, YogafitKids and Anatomy. She is a certified Yogaed teacher for grades K-8 and 9-12.
She has also completed specialized training for teaching yoga for MS. Contributing her sense of play, Leslie is currently part of a lively team of instructors who are bringing yoga three days a week to a public school in Pittsburgh.
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