My yoga journey began with a copy of Richard Hittleman’s book Yoga for Health, in 1971, the year that it was published. I was in recovery following a stroke I had sustained due to “a fatal illness” that I had miraculously survived, but barely. I knew very little about yoga, other than the fact that it sounded “exotic,” that it was developed in India, and that its name began appearing in lots of print. Directed neither by my mind (which was still quite jostled), nor by my feet (which were not yet very fleet), I took direction from a deep inner knowing that brought the book to me. I began exploring the readings and several of the poses, pictured in black and white, that were feasible for me to embody. This became a secret practice, hidden from view, that brought me newfound strength and the joy of deep accomplishment, as the rest of my life beleaguered  me. 

The same way Hittleman’s book came to me, my first Yoga teacher manifested, and I became a devoted student of hers from 1975 until her death several years later. Ever garbed in white during practice, graceful, lyrical, soft-spoken, yet deliberate, Gambi Maier, became one of my spiritual mothers. She had been a long-time student of Vishnudevenanda in India,  and had been blessed by him to bring the stamp of his yoga to America.

 A few years after Gambi’s death, I met Paula (Renuka) Heitzner,  the yoga master who grounded my practice with an elemental foundation of wisdom and experience. I once wrote to Paula that each one of her classes is “a workshop,” “a study.” I remain grateful for her important presence in my life. 

Aligning with my continuing quest into the depth and inherent potency of yoga, I trained and became certified in a variety of dance and movement arts. I was drawn, particularly, to the therapeutic potential of conscious movement work that had developed in the United States and in other parts of the globe, like Israel and Japan. I began to intuit coherent alignments between them and formulated the basis of my professional practice, which I named Vital Movement™.  More can be learned about my work on my website http://www.judithroseVM.com. 

I have been granted a wild and wide mind that continually looks for congruency within diversity, that is fascinated by the concept of the Zeitgeist, and celebrates synchronicities and other manifestations of Divine Choreography. I seek connections between things that, at first glance, do not seem similar. I love finding correspondences and “conversations” between the work of artists in totally different genres, locations, and time periods. This innate urge eventually led me to the writings, teachings, and drawings of Dr. C.G. Jung (1875-1961), whose psychological understandings spill into the worlds of science, art, music, movement, anthropology, and mysticism. I spent 10 consecutive summers in one-week immersions in Jungian work that bonded me intensely with Jung’s teachings, including his theories relating to Archetypes. Over the course of time, I sought archetypal parallels in the worlds of yoga and movement, and I began to categorize them and link them in choreographic flows that I named “Body Chants.”

we slipped into the body of Shakti as she peers into the mirror of creation, and thrilled to becoming Shiva as he launches his lightning bolt. We became magical moons traveling in the night sky, radiant Avatars illuminating the way home, and many other wild and wonderful embodiments.

Join us for Judith's workshop on March 8!