Shifting times...
Inner Bright Yoga School came into being as a result of various global & life shifts; as the world fell into 'Covid times' Nischala (Cassandra) was forced to make the difficult decision to close her once flourishing yoga center, Gilbert Yoga.
In this time of letting go & clearing, & as the energetic space opened, Nischala felt the call to share her heart with a broader audience . . . & Here We Are! She now offers yoga retreats and teacher trainings around the world, at beautiful indoor/outdoor retreat destination centers. Through her experience of leading 26 Yoga Alliance approved teacher trainings over the course of twelve years, she has mentored hundreds of student teachers on their journey of deepening their practice & in taking their seat as the teacher, & now enjoys this offering at an international level. You can find her co-facilitating yoga retreats in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Sedona, and wherever you'd like to have one!
Cassandra's yoga journey began in 1998, shortly after the birth of her second child. As she searched the Yellow Pages (yes, those huge paper phone books!) for a yoga studio near her home in Long Beach California, she was blessed to find an instructor who studied in the Ashtanga Mysore tradition in India twice each year with his teacher Sri K Pattabhi Jois, a student of Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, known as the father of modern yoga. (More about Cassandra's yoga education below.)
That first class...her little ones she could hear crying from the childcare center...the completely new-to-her yoga that was kicking her physical butt! & still . . . she felt she had found her way 'home'. . . & the tears of gratitude flowed. It wasn't until many years later when she realized that the 'home' she felt she was returning to was her own heart, her own center of Being. Soon, life led Cassandra to Arizona, where she enrolled in her first 200 hour yoga teacher training program in late 1999. By the year 2001 she was teaching in a handful of local gyms, & with students asking her for more classes, she started renting spaces at dance studios to fill the need. By 2003 she had a 'following' of enough students & classes to open Gilbert Yoga.
Gilbert Yoga, over the course of 17 years, with great care & tending by Cassandra along with a loving & heart-oriented family of additional instructors, served well over 15,000 people in the community; offering yoga classes, yoga retreats, workshops, yoga trainings, & kirtans with Girish, Larissa Stow, David Newman, & so many more! Known as the studio with 'heart', & with Cassandra's 'Ma' energy as its pulsing heartbeat, Gilbert Yoga became a sacred vortex - a space where one would feel at Home upon walking through the door. Cassandra recalls many a new student walking in to inquire about yoga, & soon, as a tear came to their eye, they would say, 'I don't know why I'm crying!' . . . but Cassandra knew . . . when one senses that it is safe to let down their guard & to allow themselves to feel, when one's heart is in the midst of a reflective loving heart . . . often a tear will appear.
We invite you to join us for a time of diving deep into yoga & Self together.
We welcome you . . . Home.