Leza Lowitz was born in San Francisco and grew up in Berkeley, California, and later in New York City. Leza took her first yoga class in 1989. After graduating from U.C. Berkeley with an M.A. in creative writing and Japanese literature, Leza lived in Tokyo in the early 1990s, drawn by an early interest in Buddhism, which she first studied as a teenager at Berkeley High School. In Tokyo, she worked as a freelance journalist, writing for The Japan Times, The Asahi Evening News, NHK, and others, and she taught writing at Tokyo University. When Leza returned to her native California, she was still reeling from the pace of Tokyo and found she was an expat in her very own skin.
In 1994, Leza studied seriously with Veera Wibaux, an Iyengar-trained French mime, and in 1996, she studied intensively with Jill Minye, a powerful Kripalu teacher in Sebastopol, California. During the 1990s, Leza was director of the Dillon Beach Yoga Circle and manager of the Yoga Research and Education Center. She studied yoga philosophy, history, and scripture with scholar Georg Feuerstein. Leza also taught at Asana Yoga and wrote for Yoga Journal. She has published a dozen books, including the best-selling book, “Yoga Poems: Lines to Unfold By” and “Sacred Sanskrit Words” (with Reema Datta).
In 2000, Leza became certified to teach yoga at the White Lotus Foundation. Among her main influences are Ganga White and Tracey Rich—who pioneered the art of Yoga Vinyasa Flow in the 1970s—Jill Minye, Max Thomas, Steve North, Simone Simon, Gaye Abbott, Shiva Rea, Georg Feuerstein, and Dharma teacher Amy Skezas of Roselight. Leza has also completed teacher trainings with Ted Lafferty in Tibetan Heart Yoga, with Shiva Rea and Srivatsa Ramaswami in Vinyasa Krama, and with Paul and Suzee Grilley in Yin Yoga.
Leza began meditation and the study of Buddhism as a teenager, and she maintains her decades-long interest in Buddhism by continuing to study and practice yoga and meditation daily. Her interest in self-healing and serving others led her to study more about the subtle energetic body. To this end, Leza took many Master courses with Roselight and graduated from the Light Body Training to learn to work with the subtle energies of the body. Leza is also a certified Level II Reiki practitioner and studied qigong with Master Xi Jing Li.
When Leza relocated to Japan in 2002, she wanted to bring a California sense of relaxation to Tokyo. She opened her yoga studio, Sun & Moon Yoga, in December 2003, bringing Yin Yoga and restorative yoga to Japan for the first time ever. Sun & Moon is honored to have a great team of dedicated, experienced, kind, creative, and mindful teachers from all over the world. The studio’s name is taken from the Sanskrit word “Hatha,” which is the type of yoga practiced there, and which means “Sun/Moon.” Through the practice of yoga postures, breathing, meditation, and awareness, the opposite energies of the body and mind (sun and moon; male and female; light and dark; left and right; heaven and earth) are balanced and create a sanctuary for the soul. Leza leads teacher trainings in restorative yoga and directs Sun & Moon’s one-hundred-hour teacher training program.
Leza is continually seeking to grow, learn, and expand from her practice, as well as from the practice of teaching, which is yoga itself. She has taught yoga privately to Academy Award-winning actors, Grammy Award-winning musicians, corporate executives, artists, office men and women, kids, octogenarians, and everyone in between.
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