Willow Street Founder and Director, Suzie Hurley

Suzie's CD is here! Listen to sample tracks and purchase it online here. You can also find it at our stores.

Suzie Hurley is a frequent presenter at the Kripalu center for yoga and health in the Berkshires. Please check out the Kripalu website for Suzie's latest offerings there.

Suzie Hurley is the Founder of Willow Street Yoga Center in Takoma Park and Silver Spring, MD, which serves nearly 2000 students, and is now owned and directed by her son and daughter-in-law, Joe and Natalie Miller. Suzie has been a Certified Anusara Yoga Teacher since 1999, has practiced yoga since 1977, and has taught yoga since 1981. She is one of only twelve individuals serving on the Anusara Yoga Curriculum Committee. She has studied extensively with John Friend, the founder of Anusara Yoga, since 1994 and she was one of the first certified Anusara teachers. Suzie also holds an Advanced 500 hour Kripalu teaching certificate, as well as a E-500 RYT hour Certificate from Yoga Alliance. Her 34 years of yoga practice also include 16 years of Iyengar study.

She is a certified Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapist, maintains an active professional practice, and is a former member of the Phoenix Rising teaching faculty. Suzie holds a B.S. in English, Health and Physical Education, and taught Physical Education at Stone Ridge Country Day School in Bethesda for five years. Suzie has also been trained in Polarity and Bio-Energy work. Suzie gives private yoga therapeutic sessions as well as privates to tailor a home yoga practice to student's needs. She continues to be devoted to her own personal growth and creates a safe atmosphere where others may seek the same.

Suzie's teaching is enthusiastic and inspirational. Her clear and precise teaching style is balanced with fun and authenticity. Suzie's devotion to inspiring others toward discovering their own greatness will find its way straight to your heart.

Suzie guest teaches Anusara Yoga Teacher Trainings and Workshops nationwide and leads annual Yoga vacations and retreats in beautiful natural settings outside the US.

Being in the Maine woods is a time of remembrance, a time of reflection, a time of introspection and a time for deep connection. I come to this same little cabin called Mt. Spruce every other year or so, and have for the last 15 years. It is where some of my best thinking, meditating, and writing happens. I am presently sitting on the top of Maidenhead Cliff overlooking Lake Mecunticook in the Camden Hills, and checking in on my feelings as I prepare to give over the reins of Willow Street Yoga Center to my son Joe and his wife Natalie, come January 1, 2012. Surprisingly, I feel very little contraction, no big gulps, as I let go of WSYC in the capacity I have known for 18 years. A sign that I am ready to let go, to trust, to know Joe and Natalie will continue to serve our students fully.

Gratitude is what immediately arises as I remember the early days of opening Willow Street when it was actually on Willow Street, on the DC side of Takoma Park. We began with one small studio that had windows that we could actually open with lace curtains that blew with gentle breezes. That was in January of 1994. We had 160 students, just enough to pay the rent, but not much for myself or the three other teachers we had at the time. Not much “staff” in those days either, Joanne Klick (some of you “oldies” may remember her) and I did it all: the registration by hand, flyers, scheduling of classes, the newsletter, marketing and teaching. Jenny Otto was on the teaching faculty from the start and still is!

As we grew, Rachel Greene was our first workstudy, and eventually became the Office Manager, and went on to become a fine teacher in her right, bringing the first yoga program to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Rachel passed away during heart surgery a few years ago, and it is with great fondness I remember all she brought to her students and Willow Street.

Immense gratitude arises for my primary teacher and founder of Anusara Yoga, John Friend, who I met in 1994, a very auspicious year. John saw something in me I didn’t yet see in myself, and encouraged and inspired me. He eventually gave me the push I needed to teach nationally which I did intensely for five or more years, and continue to a lesser extent today. I am still blown away by the vision John had and continues to hold to this day. By 1997, we had grown to 500 students and moved to our present location in Takoma Park. This was also the year that John formalized the school of Anusara Yoga. By 1999, I was the 11th person to be Anusara Certified, and I was committed to making Willow Street an Anusara Center.

In 1998, we were busting at the seams again and rented the space on the second floor, now Studio 2. We were computerized by now, and we owe much to Phil Bender, who is still our favorite computer geek (although he’s becoming such a good yoga teacher, I fear he will want to switch jobs!) Denise Lyons came on board about that time, as our Receptionist, and continues to welcome our Takoma Park students each day with her bright smile.

I’m ever grateful to all of the managers and staff we’ve had over the years, culminating with our present Studio Manager, Joy Kirstin, an extraordinarily dedicated person who serves with her whole heart. Through the years, I noticed WSYC ran most smoothly, when our manager and key staff had committed yoga and meditation practices, for it is regularly dipping into that deep stillness, that creativity and efficiency spring. Joy is a testimony to that practice.

It was in May of 2000 that we had the honor of hosting the very first Anusara Certified Teachers Gathering in the second floor studio. There were about 20 of us! Now there are nearly 300 Certified Anusara teachers and over 900 Anusara Inspired teachers. In 2001, we acquired our much needed office space and 3rd studio in Takoma Park.

I formally began the Willow Street Yoga Teacher Training Program in 2002, and some of your favorite teachers, such as Maria, Susana, and Lucy are graduates of that first program. My heart overflows when I think of the dedication of all of our teachers. They are first and foremost dedicated to giving their best to you and to their own continued study with John Friend and other senior Anusara teachers, as well as to their own personal growth.

I am ever grateful to my daughter Kate, certified in 2001, who started our first Anusara Immersion Program in 2003 and ran it until May 2010 with Moses. Kate was an early member of the faculty and my Assistant. Director for a time, and is now back on faculty after giving birth to my beautiful granddaughter, Ruby. And so many thanks to my son Joe and his extraordinary wife Natalie, who have shared my vision and implementation of many of our current programs and policies. Joe, Moses, and Maria now currently teach our Immersion Program, and Natalie has held every staff position one can at Willow Street except for Manager. Both Natalie and Joe are incredible teachers dedicated to helping their students and keeping the high standards we hold at WSYC.

In 2003, we opened our second location in Silver Spring, and I hold immense gratitude for my husband John, who oversaw the entire build-out, and made sure we opened on time. In fact we held our Open House the same day Hurricane Isabel blew into town, and we still had a good turn out! I also feel so fortunate in having a partner who has supported me 100% throughout the years, and admire his personal commitment to his own spiritual practice.

There are so many people to thank that have helped make WSYC what it is today. So many teachers and staff and friends, the list is way too long to write here. But where my heart wells up the most is when I think of you, dear students, past, present, and future. You who have been in my classes over the years, you who I’ve gotten to know more on a personal level, and you that have enjoyed others' classes that I’ve never had the opportunity to meet. Without each of you, there would be no Willow Street. You have spread the word based on your own personal experience, of the changes you have seen in your body and mind, of your deepening connection to Spirit. Because of you, we’ve grown from 160 to almost 2000 students.

In 1987, during an Advanced Teacher Training at Kripalu Holistic Health Center, we were asked, after being led through a deep Yoga Nidra practice, where we saw ourselves in ten years. We wrote in a “stream of consciousness” immediately after coming out of the experience. Many years later, I found what I had written and stuck in my notebook—that I wanted to bring yoga to as many people as possible. I wrote that I wanted to open a fully equipped yoga studio, have the very best teachers and staff possible, and help others deepen their connection to the Divine as I had been helped by the practice of Yoga and my teachers.

Grace supported my intention more than I could have ever imagined, She brought each one of you to Willow Street.

Namaste, Suzie

Have you been in a class at Willow Street where your teacher set the theme of the class as "change"? In our practice of yoga, we experience change in many ways, from the mat to what we take from the mat into our daily lives. Whether planned or unexpected, change permeates the flow of life. Change is the one thing we can count on.

It was early in January 1994 when I opened the doors of Willow Street Yoga Center. We were actually on Willow Street back then, on the DC side of Takoma Park—on the second floor of the long sand-colored building where Arise used to be, across from CVS. We crammed as many as 25 students into our one small studio on the second floor. There were just four other teachers beside myself. My office was the size of a small closet! Two of my favorite things about that first location were our windows with breezy lace curtains that you could open, and our neighbors directly below us—a French bakery and chocolate shop that sold fresh croissants and other delights. I used to teach on Saturday mornings back then, and what a treat it was to smell the wafting aroma of rich chocolate all the way up those rather dingy stairs! My husband John gave me a surprise 50th birthday party in that studio in October of our first year which almost knocked my yoga socks off. Perhaps some of you remember it.

In the 10+ years that I had been in Maryland before opening Willow Street, I taught in several places. I began with small classes in my home in Silver Spring, and taught my first "public" classes in the mid-80’s at Spa Lady on Georgia Ave. I taught in churches, schools and students’ homes. I even introduced yoga classes to my 6th and 8th grade girls, and the nuns as well, at Stone Ridge Country Day School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, where I taught Physical Education and coached for five years. (WSYC teacher, Susana Crespo, was one of my students.) The cliché about time flying is more than true. It seems the older I get, the faster it flies. By the time you read this, I will have celebrated my "Medicare birthday". I am reminded of the yogic truth that everything changes, all is temporal, nothing is permanent—except of course the unchanging, eternal aspect of Consciousness, which in yogic terminology we call Being. I’ve seen Willow Street grow from 160 students that first Winter Session in 1994, to almost 2000 students. How did this happen, I ask? I worked hard, yes, but for the most part, it didn’t seem like work. Somehow the most amazing teachers and staff found us, and most of the time it was a "fit." I had great support from family, friends and students.

It was a joy to have two of my four children become Anusara Certified teachers. My son Joe came to Maryland for a visit, in 1999 in a beat up old VW van on his way to the Florida Keys and never left! He had already completed his Kripalu Yoga Certification and soon began teaching at Willow Street. Before long, he began studying Anusara and subsequently earned his Anusara Certification in 2004. In 2001, my daughter Kate moved here from NYC, joined our faculty and earned her Anusara Certification. Kate created our very popular current Anusara Immersion Program and contributed to Willow Street's growth in many important ways. I feel immensely proud and doubly blessed that both Joe and Kate have made such a difference in so many students' lives through their ability to teach from their hearts and sincere desire to help others.

This universal support continues to be truly never ending. Consciousness speaks and flows and remembers Itself in each other, you and me, just for the joy of it. Isn't that the wildest and most beautiful thing ever? I know a major part of our growth was finding Anusara Yoga soon after we opened and the great dedication and devotion of John Friend in helping me blossom as a teacher. He remains my great friend and mentor today, and continues to be the main inspiration for all of our teachers. My decision to make Willow Street an Anusara-specialized studio was, I have no doubt, a pivotal factor in our success.

I've seen extraordinary changes in so many of my students, as well as profound changes in my own consciousness through the transformative power of Anusara Yoga. It's been a journey with nothing short of Grace accompanying me all the way. From the time I taught my first yoga class in 1981 on an Air Force Base in Fayetteville, NC, I knew then as I know now that this was my dharma, and Grace has blessed my path to love, serve and remember.

And so now I stand on the threshold of yet another transition. The yoga scriptures tell us there are four stages of life. Each of these is divided into 21-25 years. They are: Student (Brahmacharya), Householder (Grahasta), Forest dweller or Hermit (Vanaprastha) and Renunciate (Sanyasa).

My student and householder phases have overlapped for much of my life. I was certainly a formal student for a long time, getting married after two years of college, having babies, and finally finishing college a few years after most of my friends. And I have continued in my studentship in my practice of yoga for all these years.

I continue to be a householder, with a wonderful partner of nearly 23 years, four children from my first husband, and two cats. As a householder, I have all the responsibilities and challenges we all meet in daily life. This phase is said to be a time of giving, living, learning and serving in family and community. Spiritual practices are done often in service to others.

Now the forest dweller or Hermitage phase is another story! Although I totally love nature in all Her forms, and have done a vision quest or two, and many, many spiritual retreats, I wouldn't quite consider myself a "forest dweller". However, I do think it corresponds to the Wisdom Traditions which tell us that as we evolve, we learn in ways of the heart and intuition rather than from books and other teachers. Our center of "seeing" is opened and we wake up and grow in Spirit. It is a time of more inward focus and deeper spiritual practices. Relationships with grown children and community are more in the role of a mentor—hopefully with wisdom to share. Lifestyle is simplified, and the partners may retreat to a quieter place (often known as retirement!)

In the last phase, (Renunciate or Sanyasa), the elder retreats from active involvement in all worldly goals and seeks only spiritual goals in this final phase—goes to the "cave" so to speak! I can't quite imagine this last phase, and in our Tantric tradition, I'm not sure it exists except as a metaphor for an increase in awareness of the Divine permeating all of life. Personally, I like people too much and I can't imagine ever not teaching yoga, even if it means "walker" yoga. But, the time is certainly coming when I do want to have more time for some deeper practice, to release more responsibility in order to enjoy nature and other pursuits I have put on hold, and to share some trips and adventures with John.

So here's what we've decided. By January of 2012, my son Joe Miller, and his awesome wife Natalie Miller, will take over the ownership and directorship of Willow Street Yoga Center. I have all the faith in the world in Joe's amazing visionary ideas, his ability to reach out to students, and his talents as an extraordinary teacher. Natalie is also an amazingly gifted teacher, with an art and skill for language and communication. She has a great "business head" and has done an outstanding job as our registrar, marketing liaison, workshop scheduler and assisting me with many and various duties. Between now and then, they will each take on increasing responsibilities at Willow Street, preparing them for the day when they fully take the reins.
I am confident that their combined abilities will continue to grow and expand Willow Street, providing a strong, safe, committed, powerful, and loving community for all who walk through our doors. I know Joe and Natalie both hold the same fundamental vision for what the Willow Street community should be that I have held for all these years. I am delighted it will remain a "family business". I hope you're as excited by our decision as we are.

I won't be disappearing into the forest or cave. I plan to still teach four or five classes a week, do some workshops, and remain Director of the Yoga Teacher Training Program. John and I eventually plan to move to Oxford on the Eastern Shore for our "forest dweller stage". We have no hard and fast timeline for this, and we trust that all will unfold as is meant to.

So please, welcome this change as it unfolds over the next couple of years, and give all your support and love to Joe and Natalie. I'll still be here and will do my best to continue to pass on the great traditions of Anusara Yoga at Willow Street as smoothly and effectively as possible.

With Great Love and Thanks for everything each of you brings to Willow Street,

Namaste, Suzie