Sam Malloy

Sam Malloy (he/him; they/them—oh ffs, whatever! just nothing mean…)

“I was stumbling right by, Like a wreck I came to you.” (Bernard Fanning, musician) That pretty much describes my arrival to the yoga mat. The lyrics come from the song “Burn your name” celebrating the singer’s rescue... Yoga has most assuredly been my rescue. I first came to yoga by way of Tony Horton and p90X. There was one yoga disc...like many folx before and after me, I was skeptical, almost scornful of this “yoga” thing (‘it’s just stretching’ ‘who needs a teacher?’ ‘I am flexible enough’ ‘bunch of holding still’) And then… I was more profoundly challenged than I had ever anticipated!! Sweating, short of breath and barely able to keep up, I was hooked! 

Gushing to a friend about the amazing experience, I learned she was a yoga teacher… say whaaat?? She invited me to an early morning class at a camping event that left me wiped out and exhilarated! I left that practice with a lightness that was unbelievable, determined to make yoga a regular part of the rest of my life.13 months later, still working off p90X and a deck of yoga cards, I finally found my way to a classroom and regular instruction. 

The difference was unbelievable! That experience drives my love of yoga and of teaching to this day. I completed my teacher training in Vinyasa (with heavy Ashtanga influences) in 2015, and in Unnata (aerial)Yoga in 2016. In 2018 I completed Y12SR Leader training, a program that unites yogic physical practice and philosophy in support of active recovery, and in 2020, right before the Pandemic shut-down, I completed an Ashtanga apprenticeship program. 

I have been teaching since April 2015, with brief pauses for travel, and a longer one to join my partner in Charlotte, NC right at the start of the Pandemic shut-down (timing is everything)! Along the way I have had the privilege of teaching for (the) Gaa-zagaskwaajimekaag (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe) in Minnesota; to non-Indian rural and urban communities in Minnesota; and at Medieval Historical re-enactment events in both the US and Australia. When I teach I strive to bring both challenge and release—strengthening, stretching and balancing—offering pose options that encourage each person to meet themselves where they are, finding joy at discovering their deeper strengths as they go, releasing all that which no longer serves along the way. Meet me on the mat!! 

“Practice and all is coming.” (K. Pattabhi Jois, founder/director Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute)