Gillian Baudo

Gillian is an experienced and passionate yoga instructor with more than 25 years of practice and over ten years of yoga teaching experience to students of all ages and levels. Committed to providing quality, curriculum-driven instruction, Gillian motivates students to find their strongest and healthiest selves. Adept in powerful teaching methods that aim to support and benefit each and every student's yoga journey, she is committed to creating strength, stability, and mobility for all.

“Most people don’t know how good they can feel in their own bodies,” says Gillian. “The potential for a pain-free existence is the motivation for my own practice and why I teach yoga to others.”

Gillian approaches yoga as a form of physical therapy and mental centering. As a child, she developed tendonitis in both her knees and hips from ballet. These injuries prevented her from being able to do vigorous athletic activities without pain for many years. In her early twenties, she discovered Iyengar-style yoga at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, taking classes with Michael Gilbert. She discovered that with regular practice strengthening her body and stabilizing her joints, she was able to enjoy hiking, skiing, and dancing again.

Striving to pass this wisdom to her students, Gillian uses props and hands-on adjustments to encourage optimal physical engagement. She believes that teaching and helping her students is a rewarding enhancement to her own practice. As a life-long learner, Gillian both teaches and learns from every student.

Promoting the use of the body as the meditation, Gillian uses breathwork and physical challenge to help move herself and her students deeper into their own strength and consciousness. Blending Iyengar, Forrest, and Prana Vinyasa styles, her engaging, fun classes teach awareness and demand focus. Her teaching style is direct, yet soft. She is serious about assisting her students in achieving their full potential, and her lengthy personal practice has given her an eye for precise alignment. Yet, because of the limitations and injuries she has dealt with in her own body, she respects where each person is and never pushes beyond a student’s boundaries.

Over the past 10 years, Gillian has been teaching workshops, group and private classes, and 200-hour Yoga Teacher Trainings/Continuing Education. She received her Advanced Teacher Certification from Jason Crandall, is a Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider, and has continued a focused education in Anatomy, Kinesiology, Yoga Philosphy, and Asana studies. Influenced by the lineages of Jason Crandall, Ana Forrest, Shiva Rea, and many others, Gillian seeks to create physical and mental confidence in her students through a bio-mechanical, anatomy-based approach to yoga. Merging an alignment-based practice with movement and breath, she teaches classes that can heal the body and mind. Gillian empowers her students to take these lessons off their mats and into their daily lives for a healthier, more fulfilling existence. "Yoga is this wonderful system that creates the ability to move through the world with strength and ease."

Involved in her community, Gillian has taught Chair Yoga for the Jewish Federation of El Paso and Mindfulness and Movement for several years in the Ruidoso Public Municipal School District. She currently teaches at Blue Lotus Day Spa & Yoga, Presbyterian Healthcare Systems, and Yoga with Gillian in Ruidoso, New Mexico.