Doris Schwartz is the creator and alter ego behind Yoga Yenta, a self-appointed, sassy commentator on all things yoga, and a management and fundraising consultant based in Los Angeles with more than a dozen years of practice. Her go-to styles are Power and Vinyasa Flow, though she’s dabbled in Kundalini, Bikram, Iyengar, Anusara, and Yoga Booty Ballet; her favorite pose is flying pigeon, and she avoids twisting triangle at all costs.
Profiling Bryan Kest
Her profile of Power Yoga pioneer Bryan Kest traces his path from beginning yoga at 14 in Detroit, to studying under David Williams in Hawaii and later K. Pattabhi Jois in Mysore, India, to building the donation-based Power Yoga practice in Santa Monica that helped reshape modern American yoga. She has also written a lighter piece, “Yogis Gone Wild,” a tongue-in-cheek look at the more adventurous side of yoga retreat culture.
Writing under her Yoga Yenta persona, Doris brings a real, distinctive voice to both pieces, willing to be irreverent about a practice she clearly takes seriously, a balance that comes through in how candidly she profiles Kest without losing sight of what actually made his donation-based model so influential. That personality-driven approach sets her apart from more strictly journalistic yoga writers.
