Minnie Jardine first discovered Forrest Yoga in 2001, studying in Portland, Oregon with Alice Martin. She continued her education with other teachers over the next three years, and then, in 2004, spent a month in Seattle where she completed the Forrest Yoga Foundation Teacher Training with Ana Forrest and Jonathan Bowra, as well as twenty hours of Yoga and Anatomy with Chiara Guerrieri. Certification as a Forrest Yoga teacher requires not only the initial course of study, but also an exhaustive list of additional requirements, including hundreds of pages of reading on a broad range of subjects and writing on what was read, hours of additional classes from different teachers, community service work teaching yoga to an underprivileged group, and to have begun teaching on one’s own. Minnie spent a year working to meet these goals, and succeeded; in 2005 she received her certification.
Later that year, Minnie began teaching in her new home in upstate New York. In 2005, she took the Forrest Yoga Advanced Teacher Training Course, in West Hartford, Connecticut. Since then, she has assisted Ana Forrest several times at workshops around the country, in New York, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, and at the Kripalu Center in Lenox, Massachusetts. Additionally, she has studied with Dharma Mittra and Andre Lappa, and in 2007 she completed the 20-hour Functional Anatomy for Yoga Teachers course with Ellen Heed. In this past year, she has studied meditation with Jonathan Bowra, as well as taking his Forrest Yoga Continuing Education for Teachers course, in Chichester, New York. Minnie taught Forrest Yoga at Cornell University Fitness Center from 2006-20011 and was awarded the 2008 Fitness Instructor of the Year for her teaching.
She now teaches at her own studio near Ithaca, New York, as well as at Fine Spirit Studio in the Fall Creek nieghborhood of Ithaca NY. Her study of yoga and other forms of bodywork is ongoing.
I’d like to express my love and appreciation to all my teachers: Sarah, my first; Alice Martin and Anya Shepelavey who introduced me to Forrest Yoga; Orion Kooistra, who encouraged me to go further; Dharma Mittra; Andre Lappa, who taught me to keep both feet on one path; and of course, Ana Forrest and Jonathan Bowra.