Karuna Lynne presents a family event at Cando Fitness on Saturday, September 28, at 11:30 a.m. Children ages 4 to 10 and their families can practice breathing exercises, asanas, and silly songs with the author of “Swami Cat: Wisdom to Purr By.” A booksigning follows the reading. No yoga experience required.
“My book has been helping parents get their children interested in yoga. Many Americans believe that yoga is just an exercise, but it is also a way of life that promotes peace, joy, and mindfulness,” she says. “That is what I am hoping to teach my students on and off the mat this year.” A yoga instructor at Cando Fitness, Karuna Lynne, also known as Lynne Elson, is a teacher in a public school during the day.
Raised in Freehold, Elson began her yoga training at Freehold Yoga Center in the Sivananda style. She continued training in meditation and healing through yoga with her guru, Reverend Jaganath Carrera, the founder and spiritual head of the Yoga Life Society. She has taught yoga in East Brunswick’s Wow Gym, Freehold’s The Yoga Loft, Freehold Yoga Center, and outdoor yoga at Mercer County Park, and is a long-time member of the Yoga Life Society.
“Unlike most yoga books for children, this one addresses the philosophy and spiritual side of yoga,” she says. “It’s a great inspiration for the young and young-at-heart to relax, meditate, and practice hatha yoga.” The characters of Swami Cat and Yoga Girl were created several years ago and have been incorporated into Elson’s works ever since.
Elson has been writing and performing since she was 10 years old, when she directed the neighborhood kids in variety shows which garnered rave reviews and thrown coins — enough to buy her and her actors a pizza. Though she is still writing and performing she no longer pays her actors in pizza.
Elson is a founding member of the Passage Theater Playwrights Unit, through which many of her plays are workshopped. Her plays include “Crazy, Crazy on You,” “Holiday Shmoliday,” and her one-act play, “Stolen Glorie,” is now the full-length “Stolen.” Her plays have been produced in New York, New Jersey, and Nebraska, as well as Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
She received a graduate degree in playwriting from University of Southern California. She teaches theater arts at Churchill Junior High School in East Brunswick. She also directs the drama club show each year. As the artistic director of NOW Theater Company, a new group in central New Jersey, she coordinated a playwriting series at West Windsor Arts Council in 2012.
She lives in East Windsor with her husband, singer-songwriter Anker, and their four-legged furry child, Harrison. You can hear Anker perform with Matt Wong, a young guitarist from West Windsor, on Saturday, September 28, from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. at Small World Coffee at 14 Witherspoon Street in Princeton.
When she’s not working she is combining her passion for writing and yoga into comedy she hopes helps even the most yoga-phobic learn how to have inner peace — or at least a few good laughs. Visit adventuresofyogagirl.blogspot.com to see her videos and musings.
“I love sharing the healing, peaceful benefits of yoga practice with adults, and I’m looking forward to sharing it more with a whole new generation,” she says.
Family Fun Yoga, Can Do Fitness Club, 121 Main Street, Forrestal Village, Plainsboro. Saturday, September 28, 11:30 a.m. Meet Swami Cat, the yoga puppet who reminds us that life is for purring. Register. 609-514-0500. www.candofitness.com.
