Sharon has had the joy to teach in Taipei, Taiwan at Space Yoga (www.withinspace.com) March 2006 to April 2007.

Sharon is a Registered Yoga Teacher through Yoga Alliance. She has been a student of yoga for over 30 years. She has trained in the tradition of Paramahansa Yogananda and has been initiated into his Kriya Yoga. She has received KRI International Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training Certification. Sharon first learned Ashtanga yoga from David Swenson and will forever be thankful for this and what she learns everytime she studies with him. She has continued her study of Ashtanga with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, his son Manju Jois and grandson Sharath Rangaswamy. Sharon's practice and teaching are also influenced and inspired by Nancy Gilgoff, Louise Ellis, Mark Darby, Lucy Martorella and Dena Kingsberg. Sharon is deeply grateful to Guruji for the gift of this yoga.

Sharon holds a black belt in Cha Yon Ryu from Grandmaster Kim Soo, President of Cha Yon System, Tae Kwon Karate Association. She has also studied Tai-Chi Chuan with Fang Xiang Liu of Mainland China and Shi Jen Liao of Taiwan. Sharon is a State of Texas Certified Art Instructor. She has also attained the 1st and 2nd degree of the Usui method of Natural Healing, Reiki.

Children
Sharon has worked with children for many years. She taught the children's class at a local martial arts school for eight years. In the summer of 1993 she held a martial arts class for teenage boys at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. She taught yoga at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired for 7 years. Sharon has also taught yoga to teenage girls from the State School for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired. In 1999 at the 2nd Annual Southwest Yoga Conference, along with David Swenson, Thom Birch and George Mumford she taught the Yoga, Youth and Unity class. The class contained at-risk teenagers, blind and sighted children. Sharon enjoys working with special children. Many of her students have challenges such as cerebral palsy, behavioral and learning disabilities.

Locally
Sharon was instrumental in helping to organize local Austin yoga teachers together and creating the Austin Yoga Association in 1999. She helped to organize the first annual Free Day of Yoga and to create a directory of local yoga teachers. She also organized and chaired the Austin yoga teachers meetings the first year of their organization. Sharon organized the dinner hosted by The Austin Yoga Teachers Association for the national teachers at the 2nd Annual Southwest Yoga Conference.

Grants
Sharon was the recipient of a grant from the Southwest Yoga Foundation for her work with Blind and handicapped children. She made a presentation on this work at the Southwest Yoga Conference, November 2003 in Palm Springs, California.

Conferences
Sharon was a presenter at the 3rd Annual Southwest Yoga Conference, at which she taught an Introduction to Ashtanga to participants from around the country.

Retreats and Workshops
In 1998 Sharon began facilitating classes for Skyros Holistic Healing Retreats on the Greek Island of Skyros in the Aegean Sea. Participants come from around the world for these two-week sessions. Skyros is a safe and supportive community and people find a way to be themselves in the presence of others. For two weeks participants lead a holistic approach to life embodied in the Skyros culture that is rooted in the ancient Greek idea of wholeness. Through the use of yoga, tai-chi and watercolor, Sharon has assisted hundreds of people to take steps towards expanding their personal limits beyond anything they had thought possible. Students leave the retreat with a fresh sense of direction and faith in their own potential.

Sharon also teaches classes and workshops in Great Britain. Most recently she spent a month teaching Ashtanga classes in Brighton, England at the Brighton Natural Health Centre.

In September of 2003, Sharon taught hatha and kundalini classes at the Integral Yoga Institute, Coimbatore, India.

Sharon also holds yoga and meditation workshops and retreats around Central Texas.

YogaYoga
Sharon began teaching Ashtanga exclusively for YogaYoga Studios May 2001. She created an Ashtanga program that adheres to the tradition of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. She increased Ashtanga enrollment at YogaYoga, making it the largest student population of yoga disciplines at the three schools.

In her first two years at YogaYoga Sharon participated in Ashtanga Teacher Training and trained teachers in the Ashtanga method. Eight Ashtanga teachers at YogaYoga were trained by Sharon. These and others also teach in the community.

During this time she collaborated on the Ashtanga schedule each semester. She was involved in the hiring of other Ashtanga teachers. Sharon wrote materials used for Ashtanga Teacher Training. She has produced Ashtanga handouts for students and information about Ashtanga for the YogaYoga web site.

Some Personal Comments About Ashtanga Yoga Practice
Yoga is a tool that gives us the ability to focus our minds on one thing: to live in the present moment and to experience the peace and contentment that comes from knowing the true Self. Ashtanga is a very physical practice meant to take us deeper within to that realization of Self. It will create a fire that will burn up our gross...a fire that dispels darkness and creates light. Once we are somewhat accomplished in the postures and the sequence is in memory, then we are free to explore other areas. True yoga springs from intent. We must ask: What is our intent? If we do asanas simply to get fit or flexible then that is what we will get. Ashtanga is a vehicle to lift us from the mundane into the sacred. Regular daily practice cultivates a deeply energetic response. We feel it rather than intellectualize it. In that place we experience joy and ecstasy and union with divine energy.

The practice is not about acquiring more postures or more series. It isn't about hanging out in a posture waiting to finish and go on to the next one. It is about flowing with your breath in each movement. It is about allowing your breath to take you to the sweet place within your heart. Many of us come to Ashtanga for the physical benefits: to build strength or to get more flexible. But eventually if we stay we begin to see the deeper and richer aspects of this dynamic yoga. Our goal is to span the bridge of breath between the body and soul; to follow the breath in each asana so that we might do our practice from Spirit and not just from body and mind. It is from this place that miracles can happen.

There is a golden light in the center of our hearts and it spreads liquid loving light throughout our bodies until it seeps through our skin and spreads out to those we love and know, to those we don't know, to those who have been kind to us and to those who have harmed us.

May we practice yoga and live our lives in love and light and peace.