About Beth
Astrology * Poem * Massage Therapy
Beth Rigby is an internationally-known leader and trainer in the combination of yoga and dance, a gifted teacher, and a spiritual mystic with extensive training in the holistic healing arts. She is Founder and Director of Yoga Meets Dance, Healing Retreat Adventures, Dancing Into Stillness Retreats, and Movement & Manifestation Workshops, and has been involved in the movement arts for 41 years. Beth directed filled-to-capacity programs at the world-renowned Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, in Lenox, MA where she was trained and certified to teach in 1995. She has studied many forms of yoga and Soto Zen meditation in Buddhist monastaries and yoga ashrams throughout the U.S., Canada and India, and is also a highly trained massage therapist, energy healer and astrologer. She has worked with adults of all levels, children, teens and with those in wheelchairs. Her classes are deeply transformational, warm-hearted, and welcoming of beginners. She has been teaching for 16 years, and resides in sunny Arizona.
More background, from Beth:
I began moving at age 7, and was a cheerleader and gymnast throughout my youth in Atlanta. I participated in my first yoga class at a community college in 1982, and had an incredibly blissful experience. Amazed by the immediate benefits, I studied many forms of yoga, including Ashtanga, Kundalini, Kripalu Hatha, and Integral yoga.
In 1992, I attended massage therapy school at night while working as a legal secretary by day. Having worked in fast-paced lawfirms, I understand firsthand work-related stress and it’s effect on one’s health. I received certification in Neuromuscular, Swedish and Sports massage therapy at the Academy of Somatic Healing Arts in Atlanta, and also studied several forms of energy healing. I created a successful massage therapy practice at physical therapy clinics and spas in Atlanta.
In 1994, I discovered Soto Zen meditation through Dr. Jon Kabbot-Zin (an internationally-known meditation teacher, author, researcher, and clinician in the fields of mind/body medicine, and integrative medicine). I soon attended my first silent zen meditation retreat with Cheri Huber for 5 days at the Southern Dharma Retreat Center in North Carolina. I had deeply profound experience on the last day of the retreat, seeing the inter-connectedness of all life.
At a yoga retreat later that year, I experienced deep bliss doing yoga in nature in Jamaica. The experience of opening up to nature with yoga was extraordinarily joyful, and I wanted to share this experience with others.
In 1995, I moved to Massachusetts for formal yoga certification training at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Lenox, MA. I worked in their health services department, and at other spas in the Berkshires, as a massage therapist, and completed 4 yoga-based training certifications.
After training, I became a staff instructor at Kripalu, created many workshops in Boston and New York City, and received invites to teach throughout the U.S.
While attending the work scholar program at the Esalen Institute 
in Big Sur, CA, in late 1995, I was profoundly inspired by Gabrielle Roth’s 5Rhythms dance work through Ellen Watson. The ecstatic experience of dancing freely there was life-changing.
In 1997, I explored the Native American traditions of the southwest, and participated in numerous sweat lodge ceremonies with Hopi and Yacqui Indians. I wanted to share this experience with my students back east so I created Healing Retreat Adventures, and manifested my vision of sharing yoga in beautiful nature.
I’ve shared movement at the Beth-Abraham Hospital in New York City for wheelchair patients, at the Valleyhead Treatment Center for teenage trauma survivors in Lenox, MA, and on the Inner Voyage Cruises in the Caribbean. I enjoy intuitively adapting classes for a wide variety of populations from children and teens to adults of all levels.
In 2000, after receiving requests from my students, I created Yoga Meets Dance Teacher Trainings to further spread the joy of movement.
My first love is meditation, and I return to the stillness of zen meditation in my free time.
A Buddhist Metta Meditation:
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be free from suffering.
May all beings experience the kindness of others.
Massage Therapy * Astrological Counseling * Poem
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