More About Joshua Michaell

I teach Sanskrit, Yoga Philosophy & Meditation, and lead workshops and Teacher Trainings throughout the US and abroad. I’ve been practicing Ashtanga Yoga since 1993 and studying Sanskrit and Yoga Philosophy with Vyaas Houston since 1997. I am a senior teacher for the American Sanskrit Institute, and on the faculty at the Iyengar Institute of San Francisco, teaching Yoga Philosophy for the 500 hour Teacher Training curriculum.

I am also a licensed M.A., MFT, with a Transpersonal and Yoga Psychology-inspired counseling practice in San Francisco and Marin County, CA. In addition to in-person sessions, I work extensively with clients around the world via Skype.

I have been involved with metaphysics and daily meditation for 29 years; this profoundly informing my world view and my ability to work with people using a counseling setting as a catalyst for deep, personal transformation.

I worked in the music business for the better part of 15 years, producing CDs of Folk, Appalachian and World Music. The crown jewel of those was a two volume set of the Anne and Frank Warner Collection of traditional American music; Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still, and Nothing Seems Better To Me, released on Appleseed Recordings. I still produce the occasional CD from time to time. I recorded my own music on a spoken word CD in 2008 called Buddhist Stories of Awakening, done in collaboration with my friends, Henry Kaiser and the inimitable Rev. Heng Sure. That CD is available on iTunes. I was also a contributing editor for Kyoto Journal’s (Issue #71) special issue on tea.

In my free time, I play old-time banjo, guitar, and a 7-string Chinese “zither” called the Guqin. You might also find me chanting my way  through various Sanskrit texts such as the īśa upaniṣad and the dakṣiṇamūrti stotram or hunting through the dusty record bins of my local Bay Area music stores hoping to unearth rare gems of mostly-forgotten music. To the delight of my friends and loved ones, I’ve been taking Thai cooking classes from Kasma Loha-unchit for the past eight years and can now whip up authentic, fiery Thai curries from scratch.