About Shala Rain

Shala is a senior teacher at the Asheville Yoga Center and has been teaching there since 1999. An Asheville favorite, she consistently packs the house during her weekly Dynamic Vinyasa Flow Yoga classes and seasonal workshops. She was voted the “Best Yoga Instructor in Western Carolina” by Mountain Xpress readers. Since 2004, Shala’s been a cornerstone of the Asheville Yoga Center 200-hour Yoga Alliance Approved Teacher Training Program, instructing many of the program’s key components. She teaches up to 6 teacher training groups a year, through AYC’s 9-month and 23-day Intensive programs in Asheville and other cities. Shala also contributes workshops to AYC’s Advanced Teacher Training (500-hr YA Approved): Yin Yoga; Mindfulness Practices; Adjusting and Sequencing. Yoga studios nation-wide invite her to teach these and other workshops, covering topics such as: Experiential Yoga Sutras, Yoga and Ayurveda Purification, Pranayama, Chakras, and Seasonal Vinyasa Flow Yoga.

Shala’s Yoga Roots

The seed of yoga was planted early in Shala’s life as close family friends introduced her to the power of yoga asana, mindfulness practices, and bhavana (visualization). This spurred a life-long interest in svadyaya, self-awareness, which she’s most recently pursued through a three year intensive study of symbols, archetypes, and the process of Individuation with world-renowned Jungian analyst and teacher, Dr. Bud Harris, and four years of Inner Vision, a course developed by Zen Buddhist monks Nancy Spence and Cheri Huber. Shala finds it a natural extension of her interests to weave these teachings into her classes and workshops, inspiring her students in their own process of self-discovery. For example, in 2003 she developed and facilitated a 150-hour year-long yoga study program for women called Nurturing the Teacher Within, a course in introspection and empowerment. In that year, she led eighteen women through 10 weekend workshops, each one based on one of the ethics of yoga (yama and niyama), a powerful and transformative experience.

Yoga Teaching Style:

In teaching, Shala embodies a balance of grace, delicate flow, and attention to detail. Her students enjoy an exciting blend of the diverse traditions that make up her yogic background: Kripalu, Iyengar, Vinyasa Flow, and Yin Yoga. Her intention for every class is to create a space for people to release the outermost layer of stress and tension, tap deep inner knowing, and bring that forth into their yoga practice and off the mat into the rest of their lives. She incorporates pranayama, meditation, world music with tribal beats, therapeutic and yin yoga, as well as, yoga philosophy into each class.

Education:

The path from student to teacher Shala graduated with Honors in Anthropology from Wesleyan University in 1996, and then moved to Asheville to study massage and yoga. She became a licensed massage therapist in 1998, built her massage practice and taught Shiatsu in Western North Carolinla. When massage students raved about her incorporation of yoga asana and meditation into the Shiatsu weekends, Shala sensed her next step: to design and implement a 675-hour curriculum in massage and bodywork therapy. The result was a 6 month certification program emphasizing rigorous academic standards, experiential learning, personal growth and development, self-care, and YOGA. In 2005 she opened the Asheville School of Massage & Yoga. Every year Shala continues to be amazed by the quality of students that come to the school and is inspired by their dedication and sense of purpose.