Beryl Bender Birch has been a student of yoga since 1971 and has been teaching Ashtanga yoga for most of that time. Birch graduated from Syracuse University with a B.A. in philosophy and comparative religion and has lived on the West Coast, the East Coast, and in the high middle (Colorado's Rocky Mountains). She and her husband, Thom, are co-directors of The Hard & The Soft Astanga Yoga Institute in New York City and East Hampton.