Early life , Lasater took her honeymoon at the
Sivananda Yoga Ashram in the Bahamas. Lasater gained her bachelor's degree in physical therapy, and a doctorate in East-West psychology from the
California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco. In 1970, while still a student, she developed
arthritis and, feeling debilitated, began yoga at the
YMCA in
Austin, Texas. She stated that she instantly felt better, and has not suffered from arthritis since then. She began teaching yoga in 1971 when the YMCA instructor left, and she took over the class. She was an early disciple of
B.K.S. Iyengar. To widen their knowledge, she and her husband Ike took their honeymoon in the Bahamas to attend
Vishnudevananda's
yoga teacher training course at the International
Sivananda Yoga Ashram there.
Yoga teacher She taught her yoga classes in the 1970s in a simple rented room, hanging a photograph of Iyengar on the wall. The journalist and historian of yoga in America,
Stefanie Syman, writes that the key was doing away with all religious elements in her yoga teaching. In this way, she helped to popularize
Iyengar Yoga in America, and was instrumental in creating the slow, gentle
Restorative Yoga based on Iyengar-style asanas. She co-founded The California Yoga Teachers Association (CYTA) in 1974, and later became its president.
Founder of yoga institutions Lasater co-founded the Iyengar Yoga Institute in San Francisco (it had been the CYTA's
teacher training institute) and
Yoga Journal magazine. With her husband and William Staniger, she published the 300 copies of the first issue of the journal, becoming its copy editor and later associate editor. She helped to make the journal accurate, technical, and with a strong emphasis on
yoga's therapeutic value, continuing a tradition started by
Indra Devi. In so doing, Lasater helped to bring about what Syman describes as a revolution, "wresting [yoga] back from the swamis", something that in Syman's view was possible only because of her teacher Iyengar's stubbornness, determination and knowledge. Syman states that Lasater went on to argue that
physical yoga was sufficient, able in Lasater's words to absorb "elements of the other Yogas, such as
Mental (Jnana) and
Devotional (Bhakti) Yoga". She continues to serve on
Yoga Journal advisory boards, and is a regular presenter at its annual conference.
Leader of yoga in America Lasater has been called "One of the [USA's] foremost [yoga] instructors", and a "yoga teaching star", having led workshops in 44 American states as well as in Australia, Bolivia, Canada, China, England, France, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, and Russia. She has written numerous books on yoga; they have been translated into Chinese, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish. The yoga therapist and teacher
Janice Gates devoted a chapter of her book about
women in yoga to her. Gates quotes Lasater as saying that the problem is always practitioners' attitude, not the practice itself; people in the West often seek an austere yoga in the hope of controlling their bodies, but, Lasater notes, "When the Buddha sought
enlightenment, the 'austerity stage' is the first one he tried and the first one he dropped".
Family life Lasater is married with three grown children. == Works ==