Yoga-based Movement | Alisonalstrom.com

about

Hello.

I'm Alison. I've been teaching yoga since 2004. In 2022, I took a hiatus from full-time teaching when I moved to my hometown of San Francisco to support my family and rededicate myself to my work as an artist. I still teach Myths & Methods (online) and lead the Mexico retreats.

I limped into my first yoga class all those years ago with an injured body and a broken heart. After weeping my way through that first savasana, I thought to myself, "THIS is what I want to do with my WHOLE LIFE. And I have, although what that means to me continues to evolve.

All of my classes blend physical alignment cues with guided inquiry into the metaphorical nature of the body—a combination I find to be both powerful and deeply humanizing. Participants explore various aspects of asana practice (postures) including breath-based movement, strengthening holds, and strategies for pose improvement. Expect to work hard and learn, and to laugh, too! While irreligious by nature, I have a love and reverence for the myth, philosophy, and history of Hinduism, in particular, the South Indian Sri Vidya traditions, which inform all of my classes to some degree. You can read about my yoga training and background here, as well as student testimonials.

Before I was a yoga teacher, I was a painter. Images were the instinctive language thorugh which I made sense of myself and the world. There came a time when life's constraints drove me to redirect that part of myself to writing, something I could squeeze into any space big enough to curl up with a laptop. Unexpectedly (at least to me) I now also perform with my father's Jazz sextet.