Good Morning Yoga with Karen Mills
By Amber Ward

Karen Mills, center, leads the Good Morning Yoga Class at the Julian Library. Photo by Amber Ward

Every Friday morning, Karen Mills teaches the Good Morning Yoga class at the Julian Library. This free yoga class is open to all ages, and encourages a greater flexibility, range of motion and postural alignment.

Mills is a certified yoga instructor and a licensed massage therapist. Mills' 20 years of experience with a combination of Ashtanga yoga, Iyengar-Hatha yoga

and Thai yoga provides energizing and rejuvenating yoga postures.

The class is taught at a beginner level, but Mills can easily alter postures for those with yoga experience.

Originally from Geary, Ind., Mills moved to Glendora, Calif., in high school. After receiving her degree in geography, she experienced an injury in 1987 that changed her direction in life.

"I had become distracted from my career work," says Mills, who really did not want to be sitting in an office job for the rest of her life. As part of her rehabilitation, she began practicing yoga. She had moved to Encinitas and was learning yoga from teachers who later became some of yoga's original "gurus."

"Yoga pulled me away from that hold your breath and go mentality," says Mills. "I was not only healing my injury through yoga, but I was healing my career as well." She embarked on a 10-year transition from her original career choice as a cartographer to a holistic health practitioner.

Mills began integrating yoga and massage into her healing process. The goal is alignment through a massage/yoga combination, and aligning the body allows for an individual to "come back to health." A combination of yoga and massage can not only heal a specific injury, but also help to alleviate some chronic pain.

Mills has experience with a variety of massage styles, including Swedish and deep tissue massage. She is practicing a form of Thai massage, that works with other Oriental massage methods like reflexology and a form of light acupressure.

Karen moved to Julian in 2000, and was "received very well by the community, she says. "I was surprised to find such an immediate clientele base."

She provides in-home massage services and private yoga instruction for those who are interested in making yoga a daily part of their lives. Mills has found that she has been very fortunate in having a choice in working with both the tourists and with the locals, but no matter the clientele, the goals are the same, healing through alignment and relaxation.

Sunset Massage is the name of Mills' business. For more information, call 760-525-1119.