Yoga Educator feels balanced and energized after just moments

Categories: Stories Mar 22, 2016

Meet Don Stapleton from the Nosara Yoga Institute in beautiful Costa Rica.

Original Strength (OS) movements are a breath of fresh air. I have a long history of incorporating the developmental movements of early childhood through adulthood into
my yoga practice and teaching. What I enjoy so much about the OS approach is its simplicity and its accessibility to people of all physical conditions and ages. The movements are easy to learn and even easier to practice, because the benefits of overall strength and toning occur from the very beginning of the practice. I have found that the OS system is complementary to any form of Hatha Yoga practice. Another valuable dimension of the OS method is that it is framed in user-friendly language—not a whole lot of overly analyzed technical or clinical anatomical jargon. Just a few moments of practice leave me feeling balanced and energized. And, most importantly, OS movements are fun.

Amba and I are so grateful for the opportunity to introduce OS to all our friends and teachers who are always looking for fresh inspiration and easy-to-incorporate experiences that keep the inquiry-based, yoga-learning process fresh and alive.

Don Stapleton, Ph.D.
Co-Director and Dean of Professional Yoga Education
Nosara Yoga Institute
Nosara, Costa Rica

A little more about Don Stapleton- 

Don and his wife, Amba, have been inventing and refining ways that stimulate self-development and creative fulfillment. Twenty years ago, they began to combine their efforts into founding Nosara Yoga Institute as a place to guide others in discovering their own way of practicing and teaching yoga with skillfulness and satisfaction. Before founding the Nosara Yoga Institute in 1994 with Amba, Don was the CEO and Dean of Yoga Education at the largest residential yoga center in the United States. As yoga students, both Don and Amba lived an ashram lifestyle for many years. From their own immersion in Hatha Yoga practices, and lifelong dedication to the service of teaching, Don and Amba provide a depth of knowledge drawn from personal experience.

As co-founders and directors of Nosara Yoga Institute in Costa Rica, their lives are centered around developing professional yoga educators who are not only capable of teaching, but have the capacity to evolve yoga into forms that nurture culture at its growing edge.

Early on Don Stapleton felt a calling for the inner journey. He was awarded a full scholarship in painting to Pepperdine University, which transplanted him into the crossroads of California at a time when discoveries in the fields of creativity, humanistic psychology and spiritual consciousness were transforming culture. He studied early childhood development and the educational climates that either fostered or thwarted creative self-expression and individuation. Pennsylvania State University granted Don an NDEA Fellowship to continue his development as both an artist and an educator. His doctoral studies in the creative learning process earned him a doctorate degree in 1976. In his career as a professor at the University of South Florida and the Philadelphia College of Art, he had the opportunity to prepare teachers for innovative approaches to education.

While teaching in Florida, Don had a "heart-opening" experience with Yogi Amrit Desai. His passion for the creative process was soon rerouted from the arena of fine arts to that of consciousness. Leaving his paints, brushes and canvas behind, he moved to Kripalu Ashram in 1977 to practice another form of art. Don taught thousands of practitioners and yoga teachers to look within their own experience for wisdom and guidance for their journey.

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