RAMA PATELLA R.Y.T., Former Director of World Yoga Center for 23 years, Rama's expertise spans several decades. She began her yoga training in the early 70's where she tasted Hatha Yoga in Katmandu and Delhi. Her formal training began throughout the '70's and early '80's with the Shivananda Style. She delved more deeply into yoga practice with Iyengar Yoga, and subsequently studied with B.K.S. Iyengar in Pune, India, becoming a Certified Iyengar teacher. Upon meeting her meditation teacher, Muktananda Paramahamsa, in 1974, Rama began a committed Siddha Yoga practice. Rama founded the Executive Stress Management Center in 1986, teaching for thirteen years at the American Stock Exchange as part of the program to bring Yoga to the corporate world. In 1994 she was introduced to John Friend and was trained by him in his uniquely integrated approach of Anusara yoga. Drawn to its simplicity, clarity and joyful spirituality, she became a Certified Anusara teacher. She has taught at Mary Mount College and Mount Sinai Hospital. Presently Rama teaches at Manhattan Physical Medicine and Rehabiliation and Yoga schools throughout New York City. She is a teacher trainer in the Yoga Works Professional Teacher Training Certification Program. She serves in the Hatha Yoga department in Siddha Yoga Ashrams. Rama's newest project is Baby Boomer Yoga. She continues her training in teaching seniors, young and old, at Duke University. Rama sees teaching as a way to share love and joy with students and as a vehicle for mutual transformation.

Rama currently specializes in teaching the 50+ student who wants to be appropriately challenged and Therapeutic Yoga. (See William Broad's glowing description of Rama's therapeutic teaching in The Science of Yoga)