{{Short description|American yoga teacher}} '''Shiva Rea''' is a teacher of Vinyasa flow yoga and yoga trance dance. She is the founder of Prana Vinyasa Yoga. She is one of the best-known yoga teachers in America, and around the world.<ref name="Collins 2007">{{cite web |last1=Collins |first1=Amy Fine |date=15 June 2007 |title=Planet Yoga |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/06/Planet-Yoga |publisher=Vanity Fair}}</ref>
{{Infobox sportsperson | name = Shiva Rea | image = 2007-08-24_Hawaii_Shiva_Rea | nationality = American | birth_date = 1967 | birth_place = Hermosa Beach, California | sport = Yoga, trance dance }}
==Life==
Shiva Rea was born in Hermosa Beach, California, in 1967; her father, liking the image of Nataraja, dancing Shiva, named her after that Hindu deity.{{sfn|Gates|2006|pp=120–126}} She started practicing yoga when she was 14 years old, learning from a library book.<ref name="Collins 2007" /> She studied dance anthropology at UCLA, completing her master's thesis in 1997 on "hatha yoga as a practice of embodiment".{{sfn|Gates|2006|pp=120–126}} She studied under yoga and tantra masters including Sivananda Saraswati and Daniel Odier.{{sfn|Gates|2006|pp=120–126}} She practised the vigorous Ashtanga (vinyasa) yoga for ten years, adopting a more restorative style when she became pregnant.{{sfn|Gates|2006|pp=120–126}} She teaches Vinyasa flow yoga, having created her own style called Prana Vinyasa, and yoga trance dance.{{sfn|Gates|2006|pp=120–126}}<ref name="Gaia">{{cite web |title=Shiva Rea |url=https://www.gaia.com/person/shiva-rea |publisher=Gaia |access-date=12 July 2019}}</ref> She teaches in the USA and many countries around the world, touring each year.{{sfn|Gates|2006|pp=120–126}} Teachers are similarly trained in the USA and around the world in 200, 300 and 500 hour courses in her Prana Vinyasa yoga, which claims to combine tantra, yoga, and ayurveda.<ref name="Training">{{cite web |title=Welcome to the Evolutionary Global Prana Vinyasa Teacher Studies Program! |url=http://www.shivarea.com/page/teacher-training |publisher=Shiva Rea |access-date=12 July 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Prana Vinyasa Global Training |url=http://www.shivarea.com/calendar/global-trainings |publisher=Shiva Rea |access-date=12 July 2019}}</ref> She has contributed to publications including ''Yoga Journal''<ref name="YJ">{{cite web |title=Shiva Rea |url=https://www.yogajournal.com/author/shiva-rea |publisher=Yoga Journal |access-date=12 July 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=About Shiva |url=https://yogainternational.com/profile/594 |publisher=Yoga International |access-date=12 July 2019}}</ref> and ''Yoga International''.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Rea |first1=Shiva |title=Introduction to the Dosha Series |url=https://yogainternational.com/article/view/introduction-to-the-dosha-series |publisher=Yoga International |access-date=12 July 2019}}</ref>[[File:1 dancing Hindu god Shiva Nataraja Tanjore, India.jpg|thumb|Rea's father named her after Nataraja (dancing Shiva).{{sfn|Gates|2006|pp=120–126}}|left|267x267px]] In 2014, she wrote the foreword to Mark Stephens' third textbook on teaching yoga, ''Yoga Adjustments: Philosophy, Principles, and Techniques''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Stephens|first=Mark; foreword by Shiva Rea|title=Yoga Adjustments: Philosophy, Principles, and Techniques|year=2014|publisher=North Atlantic Books|isbn=978-1583947708}}</ref>
==Honors and distinctions==
The author and yoga therapist Janice Gates honored Rea with a chapter of her 2006 book on women in yoga, ''Yoginis''.{{sfn|Gates|2006|pp=120–126}} Rea has contributed invited forewords to Mark Stephens's book ''Yoga Adjustments: Philosophy, Principles, and Techniques'',<ref name="Stephens2014">{{cite book |last=Stephens |first=Mark |title=Yoga Adjustments: Philosophy, Principles, and Techniques |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c_5OAgAAQBAJ |date=3 June 2014 |publisher=North Atlantic Books |isbn=978-1-58394-784-5 |at=Foreword}}</ref> to Alanna Kaivalya's book ''Myths of the Asanas: The Stories at the Heart of the Yoga Tradition'',<ref name="Kaivalya2016">{{cite book |last=Kaivalya |first=Alanna |title=Myths of the Asanas: The Stories at the Heart of the Yoga Tradition |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UQAaDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT8 |year=2016 |publisher=Mandala Publishing |isbn=978-1-68383-023-8 |pages=8ff}}</ref> and to Lorin Roche's book ''The Radiance Sutras: 112 Gateways to the Yoga of Wonder and Delight''.<ref name="Roche2014">{{cite book |last=Roche |first=Lorin |title=The Radiance Sutras: 112 Gateways to the Yoga of Wonder and Delight |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=er4dBAAAQBAJ&pg=PP9 |year=2014 |publisher=Sounds True |isbn=978-1-62203-166-5 |pages=9–15}}</ref>
She has been called one of America's leading yoga teachers.<ref>{{cite journal |last=White |first=Barbara Prudhomme |title=The effects of yoga on incarcerated individuals' selfperception of life orientation (optimism/pessimism), perceived stress, and self-efficacy. |journal=International Journal of Yoga and Allied Sciences |date=2015 |volume=2 |issue=2 |page=85 |url=http://indianyoga.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/v2-issue2-article2.pdf |issn=2278-5159}}</ref> ''The Library Journal'' described Rea as a "big name" and a "well-established instructor", whose DVDs embodied the "highest production values".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Shorr |first=Manya |title=Yoga/Pilates DVDs: A Healthy Balance |journal=The Library Journal |date=1 September 2009 |page=29 |url=http://www.yogaforrunners.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/YOGADVDS.pdf}}</ref> In 2009 she created Global Mala Day to coincide with the United Nations International Day of Peace.<ref name="Koch2014">{{cite journal |last=Koch |first=Anne |title=Competitive Charity: A Neoliberal Culture of 'Giving Back' in Global Yoga |journal=Journal of Contemporary Religion |volume=30 |issue=1 |year=2014 |pages=73–88 |issn=1353-7903 |doi=10.1080/13537903.2015.986977|s2cid=144764754 }}</ref> The ''Los Angeles Times'' described her as one of "yoga's rock stars",<ref>{{cite news |last1=Hontz |first1=Jenny |title=Yoga's rock stars |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-aug-21-he-yogistars21-story.html |work=Los Angeles Times |date=21 August 2006}}</ref> and her classes as feeling "more like a multicultural dance session".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Herman |first1=Valli |title=How Shiva Rea found yoga -- and how it changed her life |url=https://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-shiva-rea-20151010-story.html |access-date=1 August 2022 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=11 October 2015}}</ref>
In 2007 ''Vanity Fair'' called her "the Madonna of the yoga world" in a desert photo shoot; the photographer, Michael O'Neill portrayed her in Dancer pose (Natarajasana) wearing bikini briefs and an outsize bead necklace, with two tigers in a featureless flat landscape. The article said she was "the best-known instructor of Vinyasa flow yoga" and famous for "Yoga Trance Dance". It stated that she visits up to thirty-five countries every year on her teaching tours.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Collins |first1=Amy Fine |last2=O'Neill |first2=Michael (photographer) |title=Planet Yoga |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/06/Planet-Yoga |access-date=28 July 2020 |magazine=Vanity Fair |date=15 June 2007}}</ref>
==Controversy==
In 2017, Bizzie Gold of Buti Yoga published "An Open Letter to Shiva Rea", as a rebuttal to Shiva Rea's concerns about using Sanskrit words and yoga concepts for a fitness system claiming to be the "evolution of yoga" criticizing her claim to be teaching traditional yoga.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Gold |first1=Bizzie |title=An Open Letter to Shiva Rea |url=https://butiyoga.com/blogs/news/an-open-letter-to-shiva-rea |publisher=Buti Yoga |access-date=28 July 2020 |date=13 December 2017}}<!--this is the primary source, the actual open letter published by Buti Yoga, so it is reliable on this one matter at least--></ref>
==Works==
===Books===
* 1997 ''Hatha Yoga as a Practice of Embodiment'', UCLA thesis * 2014 ''Tending the Heart Fire: Living in Flow with the Pulse of Life''. Sounds True. {{ISBN|978-1604077094}}
===Videos=== {{Div col|colwidth=24em}} Shiva Rea has released a number of yoga DVDs through Gaiam, Soundstrue and Acacia.
Below is a chronological list of her major video releases:
* ''Prenatal Yoga: Mind • Body • Health'' (2000, Gaiam) * ''Yoga Shakti'' (2004, Soundstrue) * ''Lunar Flow Yoga'' (2005, Soundstrue) * ''Fluid Power – Vinyasa Flow Yoga'' (2006, Acacia) * ''Creative Core Abs'' (2007, Acacia) * ''Yoga Trance Dance'' (2008, Acacia) * ''Flow Yoga for Beginners'' (2008, Acacia) * ''Daily Energy – Vinyasa Flow Yoga'' (2009, Acacia) * ''Creative Core + Upper Body'' (2009, Acacia) * ''Creative Core + Lower Body'' (2009, Acacia) * ''Surf Yoga Soul'' (2010, Acacia) * ''Radiant Heart Yoga'' (2010, Acacia) * ''Yogini'' (2010, Acacia) * ''A.M. Energy'' (2011, Acacia) * ''More Daily Energy – Vinyasa Flow Yoga'' (2011, Acacia) * ''Core Yoga'' (2012, Acacia) * ''Mama and Baby Yoga'' (2012, Gaiam) * ''Postnatal Yoga'' (2013, Acacia) * ''Power Flow Yoga'' (2013, Acacia) * ''Daily Energy Collection'' (2013, Acacia, compilation) * ''Yoga in Greece'' (2013, Acacia)
{{Div col end}}
== References ==
{{Reflist|28em}}
==Sources== * {{cite book |last=Gates |first=Janice |author-link=Janice Gates |title=Yogini: Women Visionaries of the Yoga World |date=2006 |publisher=Mandala |isbn=978-1932771886 }}
==External links== {{Official website|http://www.shivarea.com/}}
{{Yoga as exercise}} {{Modern Yoginis}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rea, Shiva}} Category:American yoga teachers Category:1967 births Category:Living people