Ruth Lauer-Manenti

Ruth started practicing yoga in 1989 as a way of healing from a bad car accident. She has made numerous trips to India where she has had many lessons from great masters as well as from the local people. She is currently helping to fund the building and running of an orphanage in downtown Mysore, a bustling city in India, where Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and his family live.

Ruth's strength as a teacher comes from her gurus: David-ji and Sharon-ji, their courage and perseverance; Sri K. Pattabhi Jois who is perfect in every way; her Sanskrit teacher Jaya Shree who has pushed the Yoga Sutras into me; her husband, the gentle nurse and humble tai chi master and from her own practice and studies which are never ending.

Ruth's growth as a teacher has also come about through the exchange that she has had with her students who are the best students a teacher could hope for. As a teacher, she hopes to be a link on the chain of all teachers who have inspired all students to be kind.

She is also an artist and has an MFA from Yale where she taught painting and printmaking. She currently teaches painting and drawing one semester/year at Dartmouth College.

For many years at the Jivamukti Yoga School in New York City and throughout the country, popular and highly regarded yoga teacher Ruth Lauer-Manenti (affectionately known as “Lady Ruth”) has been offering her students “dharma talks”—stories from her life that accompany her classes and represent the yogic commitments to ahimsa (non-violence), compassion, and service. Some of these talks have now been collected in her book, An Offering of Leaves.