Mary Chan Yoga
My yoga journey began on a hot summer day around 1995 when I took my first yoga class at Jivamukti on 2nd Avenue, New York City. Moving my body to Sharon Gannon’s vigorous vinyasa sequence on the wet purple sticky mat, listening to her intermittent spiritual teachings set against the backdrop of Bhagavan Das’s Sanskrit chanting, inhaling the incense-infused heated air and exhaling Ujjai-breaths in unison with 50 sweaty yogis sardine-packed in an old East Village loft - I remember coming out of my first class, having an out of body experience - feeling a deep physical, emotional and spiritual connection to something bigger than anything I’d ever experienced.
After getting certified at Sivananda and Jivamukti, for a decade between the mid 90’s to mid 2000’s, I was actively teaching a 30-40-hour week schedule at yoga centers, gyms, corporate settings and private homes.
2001 marked a turning point in my yoga career. I was hired to film a series of yoga therapy videos Yoga System in India, where I would meet my future husband. In 2004, we were married and soon after we started a family. Pregnancy prompted me to get certified in Pre-natal Yoga, this and my exposure to yoga therapy sparked an interest in me to explore the adaptation of the practice in order to serve the specific needs of different demographic groups. Since then I had branched out from vinyasa to teaching chair yoga at a senior center in Chinatown and accepted the challenge to work with a paraplegic client for years.
Having turned 50 and stepping into my mid-life years, I was confronted with the reality of aging and injuries within my peer group and the need to further adapt the yoga practice to benefit a more mature audience. This resulted in a certification process in the Three’s Physiyoga method in 2019 where I deepened my knowledge in anatomy and physiology, and learned to integrate physical therapy principles of injury prevention and recovery in my teaching and practice. My husband (a Physical Therapist) and I co-created the Baseline Method and started teaching mobility and strengthening workshops to patients in his PT clinic in Manhattan.
In early 2026 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. From processing the shocking news to enduring series of invasive treatments, I was grateful that everything I had learnt from yoga had prepared me exactly for this monumental challenge in my life. Three decades later, after I stepped foot at Jivamukti for the first time, I feel deeply grateful for my countless teachers from all lineages and backgrounds, for the way they have all shaped my ever-evolving yoga practice. As I am on the road to full recovery and healing, my next endeavor is to dig deeper into the therapeutic aspects of yoga, and explore ways to bring my empathy and skills to include cancer patients and survivors.