In 1997 Joe experienced his first ten yoga classes, learning one-on-one, in silence, during sunrise at Wat Suan Mokh, a Buddhist Monastery in Southern Thailand where he was taking a silent meditation course. He followed the movements of his good friend Troy McFadden, from the School of Sacred Arts in Bali, through various asana sequences, guided only by breath, subtle gestures, and an occasional hand adjustment. Meditation permeated deeply into his yoga practice from the beginning, and later became the main focus of his teaching. He encourages yoga practitioners to move beyond struggle into oneness, rather than concentrating on merely accomplishing a posture. He helps students to “get out their own way”, in order to allow each pose to serve them, where they are, in the moment. 
Dedicating his life to fitness and activity, Joe’s physical pursuits have included ice hockey, bicycling, swimming, personal training, golf and tai chi. Following these, he studied Thai massage on Koh Chang, an island in Southeastern Thailand. In 1999 he attended Bikram’s Yoga College of India teacher training in Los Angeles. At a time when Yoga College trainings could still be relatively small, Bikram Choudhury focused on physical hand corrections, sharing the wisdom of yoga therapy gleaned from his time with Bishnu Ghosh. These therapeutic adjustments supplemented Joe’s knowledge of Thai massage, and inspired him to study them more deeply at the Kabir Baug Yoga Therapy Hospital in Pune, India. It was during this two month intensive, under the guidance of Acharya Yoganand Karandikar, a long time disciple of B.K.S. Iyengar, where he realized it is possible to heal anything through yoga. 
Many yoga and meditation teachers followed these initial few, and Joe has been fortunate to attend classes, retreats, and/or intensives and highly recommends spending time with Ram Dass, Krishna Das, Shibendu Lahiri, Conrad Zevely, Ana Forrest, David Life, Sharron Gannon, David Swenson, Terri Huggett, SaraJoy Marsh, John Friend, Georg Feuerstein, Liisa O’Maley, Patricia Walden, Brian Page Bauerle, Mark Whitwell, Tina James, and Dada Muktesh. He has completed ten-day meditation retreats with Ruth Denison, Rosemary and Steve Weissman, and Parthasarathi Rajagopalachar. He has sat often with Ajahn Po of Wat Suan Mokh and is constantly inspired by the 
Aj
ahn’s unwavering stillness. Joe opened Yoga Union Community Wellness Center, his first yoga project, in 2000, in Portland, Oregon. It offered two
practice studios and a treatment room hosting an array of yoga, meditation and movement classes, as well as healing therapies. Next, in 2001, he designed and created the yoga shala and dormitory at The Sanctuary in Southern Thailand—specifically engineered for training teachers. He founded Creston Park Community Yoga in 2002, a smaller neighborhood studio offering primarily vinyasa practices. Joe has devoted the last few years to meditation, karmic yoga and travel. He enjoys the excitement of spreading yoga to anyone he can and tries to make himself available to those planning, opening, or operating yoga spaces for teaching, consultation, encouragement, and workshops. His latest teaching outposts have included New Zealand's North Island, Boston, Massachusetts and Northern California. He currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia.Yoga photography by yoga teacher Sophia at... sophia.ha@gmail.com
