Benjamin Finnerty is dedicated to serve the Yoga Community in and around Shanghai as well as greater China. He is the director of the Jayarasa Yoga Kula. He first moved to Hangzhou China to teach at a Yoga Studio next to the ancient and famous West Lake. For more than half a year he walked the same paths that numerous Chinese Emperors have enjoyed. This began Benjamin’s immersion into the ancient history of the Chinese civilization. Now the seeds of yoga are being planted in this ancient country as Benjamin travels to many cities all over China. Anusara Yoga is a yoga school that has influenced Benjamin’s teaching deeply.

Benjamin’s yoga journey began as a child with his mother and ‘Yoga with Lilias.’ Throughout his childhood he practiced Bhakti yoga singing the songs of praise in various churches. After practicing as a child, Yoga was a part of Benjamin’s life in the background until the late 1990’s. While taking graduate school preparation classes at Central Michigan University, Benjamin returned to the practice as he participated in some Hatha Yoga classes which were calming, as well as physically opening. At this point he recognized the benefits of Yoga Practice, and he started to seek a yoga book trying to find a way to begin practicing yoga on his own. After searching at a few bookstores in this small town, he found The Sivananda Companion to Yoga, which he spent the next few years with going cover to cover many times.

Benjamin’s studies continue to take him all over the world to follow the way of yoga, as he teaches teachers and spreads yoga. He has participated in more than 2000 hours of certification training for Yoga Teachers, holding certifications from several schools of yoga. Recently he has also begun an in depth study of the teachings of Douglas Brooks, a professor at the University of Rochester in New York who teaches in the Rajanaka yoga tradition.

Since beginning teaching in 2002, Benjamin has taught many thousands of hours of public and private yoga classes, as well as more than 1000 of hours of training teachers in the USA, Canada, China, Taiwan, Brunei, the Phillipines and Australia.