HaChi Yu is an Advanced Certified Jivamukti Yoga® teacher, international teacher training facilitator, and (re)founder of Jivamukti Yoga® New York, which recently opened its new Brooklyn flagship and is the now the only official Jivamukti School in the US. Born and raised on the Lower East Side in the 1980s, she grew up dancing in the city’s parks, sidewalks, and theaters before spending more than twenty years as a professional ballet dancer. That love of movement and music is still very much part of how she teaches. Her classes are thoughtful, vigorous, and joyful, grounded in the teachings of her beloved teachers Sharon Gannon and David Life and the understanding that how we treat others is at the heart of our practice.

After founding LaLaLå! Jivamukti Yoga Los Angeles, which sadly closed during the pandemic, HaChi returned home to NYC, first rebuilding the Collective in Chinatown to help keep the teachings alive in the city where they began. Today, she leads Jivamukti Yoga® New York and is the founder of Sharanam Institute BK, a nonprofit dedicated to making yoga, contemplative education, healing arts, and community development accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds. Sharanam Institute is a school for divinity…and grows from a universal belief: that opportunities to find refuge, learn, and feel supported to grow should be part of everyday life, available to everyone. Whether teaching a class, mentoring teachers, or opening the doors for a creative gathering, HaChi hopes to offer what her own teachers have given her—a place to return to, room to grow, and a refuge for becoming.