Leza Lowitz was born in San Francisco and grew up in Berkeley, California and later, New York City. After graduating from U.C. Berkeley and getting an M.A. in Creative Writing/Japanese Literature, Lowitz 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 and university lecturer. She taught writing at Tokyo University and wrote for The Japan Times, The Asahi Evening News, NHK and others. When she 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 1989, she took her first yoga class. In 1994, she began to study seriously with Veera Wibaux, an Iyengar-trained French mime, and in 1996, she began to study intensively with Jill Minye, a powerful Kripalu teacher in Sebastopol, California.
In 2000, Lowitz 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. She has also completed teacher trainings with Ted Lafferty in Tibetan Heart Yoga, Shiva Rea and Srivatsa Ramaswami in Vinyasa Krama, and Paul and Suzee Grilley in Yin Yoga. In the 1990s, Lowitz was Director of the Dillon Beach Yoga Circle and Manager of the Yoga Research and Education Center and studied yoga philosophy, history and scripture with scholar Georg Feuerstein. She 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). For more information about Yoga Poems, click here.
Leza began meditation and the study of Buddhism as a teenager. She maintains her decades-long interest in Buddhism and continues 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, she took many Master courses with Roselight and graduated from the Light Body Training to learn to work with the subtle energies of the body. Lowitz is also a certified Level II Reiki practitioner and studied Qi Gong with Master Xi Jing Li. In 2003, she brought Yin Yoga and Restorative Yoga to Japan for the first time ever. She leads teacher trainings in Restorative Yoga and directs Sun and Moon’s 100-hour Teacher Training Program.
She is continually seeking to grow, learn and expand from her practice, as well as from the practice of teaching, which is a yoga itself. She has taught yoga privately to Academy-award winning actors, Grammy-award winning musicians, corporate executives, artists, salarymen, office ladies, kids, octogenarians, and everyone in between.
When Lowitz 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 of 2003. 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 we practice, and which means “Sun/Moon.” Through the practice of yoga postures, breathing, meditation and awareness, we balance the opposite energies of the body/mind (sun and moon, male and female, light and dark, left and right, heaven and earth) and create a sanctuary for the soul.
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For more information about Leza Lowitz and Sun & Moon Yoga Studio, please see the following:
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