Erica Morton Magill is the co-founder of Los Angeles Yoga Club and Ardor Apothecary in Downtown Los Angeles. She has been practicing yoga since she was a teenager; the practice acting as a thread that has stitched together her adult years. She is trained as a social scientist in Medical Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley; and spent over a decade at the intersection of yoga and social justice teaching yoga, mindfulness, meditation, writing and art to incarcerated and at-risk teenage girls in the San Francisco Bay Area. Erica has written a guidebook on teaching trauma-informed yoga; and in collaboration with neuroscientists, artists, teachers and activists has crafted an extensive curriculum on teaching yoga in prisons and schools. She has had the great privilege to study with and continue to learn from Johnny Smith, Paramaguru R. Sharath Jois, and his mother Saraswati Jois.
“Supporting Yoga Gives Back, an organization that uplifts women and children in India, is a simple and full-hearted way to serve my fellow humans, and to care for humankind. I believe that education is a form of revolution and that an empowered, educated woman is a woman who can effect change not only for herself but also for her community. I am honored to be able to support YGB, giving back to India and its people, who have illuminated my own life and path in deep and meaningful ways.”