Ep. 148: Charlotte Bell

Artifice

Charlotte Bell has been practicing yoga since 1982, and began teaching in 1986. She has established and taught regular classes along Utah’s Wasatch Front, and in California and Hawaii. She also teaches workshops, teacher trainings, and yoga for cancer patients and their families at Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City. She has taught at national yoga conferences and international yoga teacher trainings and on women’s river trips on the Green and Colorado rivers. Certified by B.K.S. Iyengar in 1989, she enjoys learning from teachers of many different yogic perspectives. Charlotte’s asana teaching has been most influenced by her two guiding teachers, Donna Farhi and Judith Hanson Lasater. She received her 500-hour certification from Yoga Alliance in 2000, and is currently registered at the organization's highest level, E-RYT-500. Vipassana meditation practice has had the most profound influence on Charlotte's work. She began her practice in 1986, and has attended many 10-and 30-day meditation retreats since then. Her practice has been guided by her spiritual mentors, Pujari and Abhilasha Keays of the Last Resort in Cedar Breaks, Utah, since 1985. In recent years, she has made an annual trip to Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California, to sit an 18-day combined metta (kindness) and insight meditation retreat. Charlotte teaches mindfulness classes online, and at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and Red Butte Garden. All these influences combine to form an evolving style of yoga that acknowledges the alignment principles of the Iyengar system while applying mindful attention to gain insight into the truth of each individual's asana practice rather than striving for preconceived goals. She encourages students to explore and trust their own experience in their asana practice, and enjoys learning new perspectives from her students. In addition to teaching yoga and meditation, Charlotte writes feature stories for several publications, including Catalyst Magazine, Yoga U Online and the Hugger Mugger Yoga blog. Her articles have appeared in Yoga Journal and Yoga International. She has written feature articles for the Telluride Bluegrass Festival’s program since the early 1990s, and has participated in research and writing for a book about the festival’s history. In 2007 Rodmell Press (now a part of Shambhala Publications) published her first book, Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life: A Guide for Everyday Practice.The book blends the principles of mindfulness with the practice of Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga. Her second book, Yoga for Meditators, was published by Rodmell Press in 2012 and was one of 10 books recommended in Yoga Journal magazine's “Yoga Books of 2012” list. Her most recent book, Hip-Healthy Asana: A Yoga Practitioner’s Guide to Protecting the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Pain, was published in 2018 by Shambhala Publications. Charlotte plays oboe and English horn in the Salt Lake Symphony; the woodwind quintet, Scherzando Winds; the chamber folk ensemble, blue haiku; and with blue haiku, Kate MacLeod and Hal Cannon in the folk sextet, Red Rock Rondo. Red Rock Rondo’s 2009 DVD has won two Emmy awards and an award from the National Educational Television Association.