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Kool Kino
cover story

KINO MACGREGOR

INSPIRES HEALTH
THROUGH YOGA

By Chad Ruiz

Miami native Kino MacGregor creates a beautiful, successful career from her
passion, love and commitment to the practice of Ashtanga yoga.

oga is introspective. It and yoga studio) and most impressive- the emotional body and high levels of
forces us to look inward, to ly, received her certification to teach awareness in the spiritual body. Each
linger and meditate upon Ashtanga from its founder, teacher Sri. individual posture has documented
our thoughts, emotions, K. Pattabhi Jois at the Ashtanga Yoga positive impacts on overall health and
Yweaknesses and strengths. Research Institute in Mysore, India. well-being and yoga poses can in fact be
And while doing so, our inner radiance “Within a year of Ashtanga yoga used therapeutically.”
glows brighter, eventually mending inter- practice I was traveling to India to MacGregor knows firsthand the
nal and external conflicts. meet Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, Guruji, and it healing power of yoga. “Depression has
When Miami-native Kino MacGregor was really this meeting that changed been my biggest medical roadblock. I’ve
practiced yoga for the first time at 19 the course of my life,” MacGregor said. struggled through periods of depression
years old, something sparked. With less than 100 certified Ashtanga since I was nine years old,” she said.
“When I finished my first yoga class, yoga instructors in the U.S., and even “The practice gave me the foundation of
a deep feeling of peace washed over fewer receiving certifications from Gu- a calm and clear mind. Meditation, yoga,
me. After that I knew I wanted to keep ruji, MacGregor is elite. a good therapist and a daily connection
practicing,” MacGregor said. She dove What’s so special about to God are my keys to healing depres-
head-first into it, reading books and Ashtanga yoga? sion.”
practicing techniques on her own. It According to the Yoga Journal, it’s Yoga for Beginners
wasn’t until several years later, when physically demanding and generates If you’re trying out yoga for the first
she joined her first Ashtanga class, that “an internal heat designed to purify the time, MacGregor says to “start where
MacGregor found her calling. body” as you quickly change between you are” and focus your thoughts “on
“It was out of a period of deep
searching that I decided to dedicate my- poses. Yes, it strengthens the core and the inner experience.” “While the phys-
ical poses of yoga are the foundation,
tones your muscles but MacGregor
self to the practice of yoga,” particularly focuses on the deeper benefits of yoga. they are not, in fact, the goal,” she said.
Ashtanga yoga. Since then, MacGregor “Yoga has the potential to establish “You have to learn to believe in yourself
has authored four yoga books, opened health in the physical body, healing in and your own sense of worthiness. As
the Miami Life Center (a holistic health

I always say that when you practice yoga, you
can change your world one breath at a time.

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