Creating Inclusive Spaces: How Queer Yoga Club Is Changing the Practice

Russell Altice Case began painting professionally in 1991. However, as a person who wandered from place to place for over a decade, he didn't establish a permanent studio space until settling in San Francisco. In 2016 he has relocated his studio space to Calgary, Canada, where he resides and continues to create stunning works of art.

Russell has been practicing and teaching Ashtanga yoga for more than 25 years. An Authorized level II teacher through Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, a humble and refined teacher, Case is known for his joking spirit, and his perpetual eye toward social justice work. When Pattabhi Jois invited him to his pranayama class in 2007 he considered this distinction to be the highest grade.

First and foremost his work is convincing cynical skeptics to the efficacy of mindfulness practice, and his art work is distinctly post-structuralist as it weaves a range of intertextual connections and cultural motifs through its field of view.

That is to say..
Who are we looking at all these things?
Where does the seer reside?
Who is the one doing the looking at all of these things?

Harmony Slater is a Spiritual Wellness Coach whose mission is to support spiritually-curious entrepreneurs with “science-backed woo” to create a deeply fulfilling life and a business they love.

She's a National Board Certified Health Coach, Certified in both Quantum Coaching and in the Mastery Coaching Methods. She's also Certified Ashtanga Yoga Teacher, one of less than 20 women in the world to hold this honour, after training in India for 15 years.

She began travelling to East Asia in 2002 to study Buddhism, after completing two degrees in Philosophy and Eastern Religious Studies. In 2004, I began a life-long love affair with India, spending the next 15 years living there for extended periods of time immerse in Yoga practice, Vipassana meditation, Ayurveda, and Philosophy.

For the past 20+ years Harmony's been focused on sharing these deeper teachings + practices of multidimensional wellness to support women around the world in eliminating midlife burnout + restoring joy, to create a life and wellness business that nourishes both their soul and bank account. She's taught workshops and retreats in over 30 different countries.

She’s the host of the Finding Harmony Podcast, an active Board Member for the non-profit organization Yoga Gives Back, and has been featured in two anthologies on yoga, pregnancy, and motherhood in: ‘Yoga Sadhana for Mothers’ and ‘Strength and Grace: A collection of Essays by Women of Ashtanga Yoga.’

Joseph Armstrong teaches yoga with feet planted firmly in tradition and gaze turned towards the future.

His search for a more present and peaceful life first led him to the practice in 2008 and soon after he was studying in India. After finally overcoming a years long struggle with addiction, Joseph began experimenting with Ashtanga Yoga. He is Authorized Level 2 by his teacher, the late Sharath Jois. He and his husband Edgar are co-owners of Miami Life Center and teach workshops worldwide.

Joseph teaches yoga because attempts to do any and everything else ended disastrously. But when he finally devoted himself to his passion, he became an asset to himself and others. His teaching is rooted in the hope that practice helps us become more loving, more awake, and, ultimately, able to exist gently.