TIAS LITTLE

BIOGRAPHY

Tias combines the techniques of yoga that stem from the teaching of B.K.S Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. He specializes in yoga and anatomy, blending both Western and Eastern perspectives. He is also is a licensed massage therapist and his somatic studies have include in depth training in cranial-sacral therapy. His practice and teaching is influenced by the work of Ida Rolf, Moshe Feldenkreis and Thomas Hanna. Tias is a long time student of Tsoknyi Rinpoche in the Dzogchen practice of Tibetan Buddhism. He is trained in Vipassana meditation and Zen meditation. Tias earned a Masters degree in Eastern Philosophy from St. John’s College Santa Fe in 1998.

Tias Little was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Throughout his growing years, he was an athlete playing competitive soccer. He graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts with a BA in English and was elected an All-American Division III soccer player. At Amherst Tias was a student of Robert Thurman taking courses in Buddhist psychology. Upon graduation in 1988, Tias was an active member of a modern dance troupe in Tucson, Arizona.

In 1985, he began practicing yoga in the Iyengar method. In 1989, he went to Mysore South India to study Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga for six months with K. Pattabhi Jois. He returned to Mysore in 1995 completing primary, intermediate and half of the advanced series of Ashtanga Yoga.

Tias moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1990 and completed massage training in 1996 from the New Mexico Academy of Healing Arts. In 1998, he earned a Masters in Eastern Philosophy from St. John’s College. Tias has trained extensively in manual therapy within cranial-sacral (Michael Shea and the Upledger Institute), somatics (Thomas Hanna’s work). He is influenced by the work of Ida Rolf (studying with Jan Sultan and Tom Myers), and he is also a student of Peter Levine’s work in trauma and healing.

Since 1992, Tias has been a long time student of Buddhist practice studying Vipassana meditation and Zen (Upaya Zen Center and Roshi Joan Halifax). He began studying Dzogchen and Mahamudra within Tibetan Buddhism in 2003 under the guidance of Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Tias currently is a student of koan study in the Rinzai school of Zen practice studying with Roshi Joan Sutherland. In 2000, Tias and his wife, Surya, founded and directed the Yoga Source studio in Santa Fe. They sold the studio in 2006, and currently they both continue to offer public classes there. Tias is author of two books: The Thread of Breath and Meditations on a Dewdrop.