Paula Kout

A student and teacher of yoga for 30 years, Paula began her formal training at the Sivananda Ashram in the Laurentian Mountains outside of Val Morin, Quebec, Canada in 1976. She received a credential from Swami Vishnudevananda and began teaching yoga that same year.

After acquiring Light on Yoga by B. K. S. Iyengar and working from it on her own, she began taking classes at the Yoga Circle in 1988 and started teaching there in 1990. During that time, she studied with Manouso Manos, George Purvis, Ramanand Patel, Mary Dunn, Patricia Walden and Roger Cole.

In 1991, she met and began working with Angela Farmer and Victor Van Kooten and subsequently studied with them yearly for the next ten years.

Others she has studied with and/or been influenced by include Barbara Benagh, Arthur Kilmurray, Rodney Yee, Esther Myers, Erich Schiffmann and Vanda Scaravelli.

Moved by the devastation of HIV+ to the lives of so many people, she asked for and received a yoga sequence from Manouso Manos, a senior Iyengar teacher who was working with HIV+ students in the San Francisco area in 1991. She then taught classes at Aids Alternative Health Project and had a write up of the sequence and her experience published in the Journal of the International Association of Yoga Therapists in 1992.

After writing a letter in 1995 to Phil Jackson, head coach of the Chicago Bulls basketball team asking to teach yoga to the team, she was hired by him in 1997. She taught 18 classes to such basketball luminaries as Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and Phil Jackson himself.

I want you to know how much the team, coaches and myself have enjoyed Paula's yoga... mentally, physically and spiritually it has been a helpful tool.

Phil Jackson
Head Coach 1991-98

Paula's teaching background includes a BA in Elementary Education and a Montessori credential for 2 ½ - 6 year olds. She has 10 years of dance study in ballet, modern and jazz.

Paula's mission is to “bring the healing power of yoga to as many people as possible”.