Amy Pastore

Amy’s Yoga story began after years studying fitness and martial Arts. She stepped into her first yoga class at the gym looking for a good stretch and found that it wasn’t exactly love at first down dog. The postural practice was physically challenging but the biggest suprise was required mental steadiness and attention to detail that yoga entailed. Never backing down from a challenge, Amy kept up with her practice. It wasn’t until she became more familiar with the asanas and their connection to the breath that she began to experience how profound the practice of yoga could be. “When I started linking the movement with the breath, the practice became magical. I had an ‘a-ha’ moment and it quickly became apparent that this practice was much bigger than anything I had done in the gym. I was learning how to pause and flow, cultivating an awareness and concentration that would not only serve me on my mat but gave me the tools to act elsewhere in my life in a way that was life affirming.”

Amy traded in her boxing gloves for a yoga mat, her gym membership for class packages at her favorite Yoga Studio, Yoga Synthesis where she found her first and most influential teacher, Raji Thron. She took her first Yoga Teacher Training in 2006 and has since continued to grow and feed her insatiable desire to learn more from the multitude of yoga styles and teachers in the world. Amy has over 3,000 teacher training hours from various schools of yoga.

Amy’s teaching draws from her many influences. Her classes are powerful, dynamic and spiritual, incorporating meditation, pranayama and classical yogic teachings, combining it all in a way that is relatable to students in modern times. She values intelligent alignment and infuses her classes with dharmic theme from her years of teaching Anusara. She adds a fluid meditative quality from studying breath centered vinyasa, but counters that with the occasional long hold to cultivate power and control. She loves creating interesting unorthodox postures and flows that progressively take students to places they never knew existed.

In 2011 Amy founded iflow Yoga LLC and established her home studio, the Down Dog House. iflow Yoga is modern Vinyasa style that draws upon Amy’s extensive study of the yoga sciences. Amy maintains a regular teaching schedule in Northern New Jersey. She also has led workshops and classes in Thailand and has led 200 hour Yoga Teacher Trainings Programs in Ubud, Bali and at her home studio in Ramsey, NJ.

Amy generously shares with her students what has been valuable and what has worked for her from her vast experiences. Her most important message to her students: “This practice is a metaphor for life, the mat is a mirror. Each time we come to the mat, it’s an opportunity to learn something about ourselves. Everything we learn on the mat we can take and apply to life.” Amy is widely recognized and respected by her peers as a teacher dedicated to her practice and the love of sharing it with others.