Shosita Chia

Born in the lineage of many spiritual leaders and practitioners, Sita began having questions about self, consciousness, and what is one’s purpose in life from an early age. Moving from country to country and living in the Middle East as a child amplified her quest for answers about humanity and a higher power.

Sita’s yoga foundation began in Jnana Yoga (Yoga of knowledge and philosophy) as her late father was a Buddhist monk and Pali-Sanskrit scholar. 

When she was 19, she had her first experience of Yoga Asana (yoga poses) in a small Hatha yoga school of Krishna Association in Thailand. It set off a lifelong exploration and practice of yoga, in the physical, spiritual and mental planes. 

An anthropologist and photojournalist by training, she has traveled around India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka doing photography works while studying yoga and Ayurveda in several well-known yoga schools. 

She is a certified Ayurvedic alternative medicine practitioner, as well as a Sivananda-certified teacher. Sita has spent many years teaching and leading yoga retreats of Hatha yoga in Kutir (an ashram in northern India), Singapore, Bali and Thailand. 

She is a certified senior intermediate level 2 Iyengar teacher under Geeta Iyengar and Rajiv Chanchani, and gained certification in 500-hour teacher training from YogaWorks San Francisco. Sita practiced both Hatha and Iyengar for a long time before finding her love in the Ashtanga yoga method with her first Mysore Teacher Chuck Miller. 

Sita is grateful to yoga for turning her life around from her earlier years of illness and addiction. The practice purified and cleansed both her mind and body, and she feels blessed to have this opportunity to practice and to teach.

She has completed both the Ashtanga Primary and Intermediate series with her teacher Sri R. Sharath Jois, and continues in-depth study of the practice at KPJAYI (K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute) with him in Mysore, India. She is currently practicing the Ashtanga Advanced series, with Jois’ blessing.

Her personal practice is in Ashtanga Mysore, in the lineage of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, but she is also well-versed in other practices, including Yin, Restorative, Pranayama and Kriya, Yoga Therapy, Prenatal, the Hot Yoga system, Reiki master level and crystal healing. She has a diploma in wellness and nutrition both in plant-based and non-plant based diet, and is a certified neuromuscular therapist.

In her free time, Sita loves cats, street photography, painting, detox and internal cleansing, as well as cooking and baking (look out for her Gluten-free muffins around the shala!). 

While she believes the practice of asana is an extremely useful mind-body tool, the true benefits of yoga are gained when all facets of yoga are applied to daily life.