Beryl Bender Birch, spiritual teacher, yoga therapist, and author of Power Yoga, Beyond Power Yoga, and Boomer Yoga (Sellers Publishing), has been an avid student of yoga and the study of consciousness since l971. With degrees in philosophy and comparative religion, Beryl has traveled extensively in India, has been teaching the classical system of ashtanga yoga for 33 years, and training yoga teachers as "spiritual revolutionaries" since l980. In 2000 she was named by Yoga Journal as one of only seven American women in their "Innovators Shaping Yoga Today" issue. She is the director-founder of The Hard & The Soft Yoga Institute and a founder of The Give Back Yoga Foundation.