Tara Stiles

Tara Stiles is a yoga teacher, author and co-founder of Strala Yoga. For over 20 years she has helped millions accomplish more with less tension through movement, writing and practical wellbeing. Her approach is to use less force, drop the extra tension and move with ease. She is also the creator of Living Softly, built around the question of whether the strongest version of you might be soft.

She grew up in rural Illinois, in a passive solar home her parents built. As a teenager she studied ballet in Chicago, where her teacher, Rory Foster of American Ballet Theatre, brought a hatha yoga teacher into the program for stress relief and relaxation. She was hooked. She later moved to New York City to dance, and worked in projects ranging from Matthew Barney's film Cremaster 3 to commercials and campaigns. Wherever she went, she was getting people to do yoga, backstage and in rehearsals.

That led to blogging for magazines and making YouTube videos. It also led to a small studio in her boyfriend's living room, which grew into Strala Yoga. Strala is now practiced in more than 100 countries, with over a thousand Guides leading classes around the world.

Her aim has been to help people practice yoga and the healing arts in a way that feels like themselves, rather than like becoming someone else. She has said she disliked the dogma and rigidity she saw in some systems, and she set out to create a better way. She is the author of several books, and her work has been profiled by The New York Times, The Times (UK) and Times of India. She now lives in rural Illinois with her family.