Brian Cooper adjusting a student in a seated forward fold in an Edinburgh hall

The Long Practice Sage Twenty years of YogaPros

Brian Cooper

Mentoring · two places open for 2026

He was teaching for sixteen years before there was a professional body in Britain to belong to. So he built one.

1970Practising since
1990Teaching since
14,000+Teaching hours
36Years in the room
It is not a formula. It is a way of seeing.

Brian Cooper · Edinburgh

01  Where it began

A boy in 1970, and a room in Rishikesh two years later.

Brian Cooper began practising Hatha Yoga in 1970 — before yoga was an industry, before it was a class you booked, before anyone in Britain thought to certify it. In 1972 he made his first formal studies at Yoga Niketan in Rishikesh. He was there for the practice. There was nothing else to be there for.

Eighteen years later he began teaching full time. That gap matters. It is the interval the whole YogaPros standard is built around — the difference between completing a training and becoming a teacher. Brian did not shorten it, and he has never designed a training that lets anyone else shorten it either.

He holds a doctorate in bio-engineering. He reads bodies the way an engineer reads a structure: load, line, tolerance, failure. That is an unusual instrument to bring into a yoga room, and it is the reason his work on hands-on adjusting became the thing he is known for.

02  The landmark

1990s

He made yoga something a beginner could start.

Before Brian, the way into a yoga room in Britain was to walk into a general class and hope. He built the alternative: a structured beginners' course, with a defined start, a defined end, and a route onward into the next one.

It sounds obvious now because it won. Progression through beginners' courses became the standard way Edinburgh — and then much of the UK — brought new people into the practice. It lifted awareness and it lifted access, and it did so without lowering a single thing about the teaching itself.

Nearly every teacher running a beginners' course in Britain today is working inside a pattern he set, and most of them have never heard his name. That is usually what real influence looks like.

An empty Edinburgh hall laid out with mats and blankets before a class
The room before anybody arrives. The part of the profession nobody photographs.

03  The career

Fifty-six years, in order.

1970
Begins practising

Starts Hatha Yoga. Continuous practice from this point to the present day.

1972
Yoga Niketan, Rishikesh

First formal studies, in India.

1990
Begins teaching full time

Twenty years of practice before a single class of his own. The standard he later wrote into an institution.

1990s
The beginners' course

Originates structured beginners' courses and progression between them — the model that opened yoga to a general public in Edinburgh and across the UK.

—
Co-founds the Edinburgh Yoga Centre

Date to confirm with Brian.

2000
Founds Union Yoga Training

Establishes the teacher training that becomes one of the most respected in Scotland. Director of Union Yoga, Edinburgh.

2006
Co-founds Yoga Alliance UK

With Bruce Mackay, after his own discussions with the then chief executive of Yoga Alliance in the United States. Founded in response to falling standards in teacher training — and to the fitness industry's attempt to take yoga for itself. Becomes Yoga Alliance Professionals, then YogaPros.

—
Publishes Yoga: The Art of Adjusting

Harmony Publishing. In print for years and still the reference on the subject.

—
Founds Shanti Griha

An eco-aware retreat centre in the remote north-west of Scotland.

2026
The Art of Adjusting, as a course

Fifty-six years of practice distilled into a self-paced training for professional teachers — for the ones he trains, and the thousands he never will.

04  A life in the room

The unseen hours.

A worn book, handwritten anatomy notes, reading glasses and cold tea on a desk at night
An older teacher's hands and bare feet at the frayed edge of a well-used mat
The remote north-west coast of Scotland, a turf-roofed croft above a sea loch
Mats and blankets laid out in an empty hall

Five to seven frames. Real photography only — his room, his hands, his hills, his desk. No posed portraits to camera.

05  Authored

He wrote the book on it. Literally.

Harmony Publishing Yoga: The Art of Adjusting Brian Cooper

Hands-on adjustment is the most influential thing a yoga teacher does with a student, and the easiest to get wrong. Brian's book is the long-form articulation of a way of seeing it — when to touch, when not to, and what you are actually reading when you do.

It has been in print for years. In 2026 it becomes a self-paced YogaPros course carrying a CPD certificate — the same material, extended into a structured training for professional teachers anywhere in the world.

  • PublisherHarmony Publishing
  • ISBN9780955241284
  • CourseSummer 2026 · YogaPros CPD certificate
  • Whereartofadjusting.com

06  In print & on air

What he has put on the record.

07  Beyond the mat

The parts that have nothing to do with yoga.

The engineer

A doctorate in bio-engineering

Structures, loads and tolerances. It is why he can tell you not just that an adjustment works, but why — and where it stops working.

The hands

Advanced diploma in Thai massage

A second, older tradition of touch, learned properly. It runs underneath everything he teaches about adjusting.

The place

Shanti Griha, north-west Scotland

An eco-aware retreat centre he founded in one of the emptiest corners of Britain. Weather, water, distance from everything.

The languages

English and German

He teaches in both.

Off the mat

What he does when he is not teaching

Music, walking, building, reading, cooking, something nobody expects — to be filled in Brian's own words. This is the band that makes the page a portrait rather than a record.

One surprise

The detail that reframes him

Every Sage has one. Ask for it directly in the interview — it is usually the first thing readers repeat to someone else.

08  The Six

The same six questions, asked of everyone.

Every Sage answers these six, unchanged, and the answers are kept. Across a hundred careers it becomes the profession's own record of itself — read sideways, not down.

Answer to come from interview. 60–90 words. He began in 1970 — this is the one that dates the whole register, and the detail readers will quote.

Brian Cooper · answering the Six

Answer to come from interview.

Brian Cooper · answering the Six

Answer to come from interview.

Brian Cooper · answering the Six

Answer to come from interview.

Brian Cooper · answering the Six

Answer to come from interview.

Brian Cooper · answering the Six

Answer to come from interview.

Brian Cooper · answering the Six

09  Mentoring

Thirty-six years of answers to the questions you are asking now.

The problem you are three years into, Brian solved thirty years ago. That is the whole of it. Not technique — perspective across a length of time you have not lived yet.

He takes a small number of teachers each year. His time is chargeable, and the terms are below in full. Places are limited by what one person can honestly hold, not by anything manufactured.

One problem

A single session

90 minutes · video, or in Edinburgh

You bring one thing that is stuck — a class that is not working, a decision about your teaching, a student you do not know how to help. One conversation, properly prepared for.

£180per session

The one that changes things

A term

Six sessions across six months

Long enough to change how you teach rather than how you feel about teaching. You work between sessions. He reads what you write and watches what you send. This is the format he recommends.

£950for the term · payable in two

For trainers

Trainer mentoring

Quarterly · includes course review

For Senior Yoga Teachers running their own Foundation training. Your course material read properly by someone who has built and run one for twenty-six years, plus four conversations a year.

£1,800per year

What this is not.

10  Ask Brian

Your question arrives with your record attached.

  1. You ask through YogaProsNot a cold email. The request comes through the professional body, which means it reaches him and it does not get lost.
  2. Your Live CV travels with itHe sees who is asking — your grade, your years, your verified training. A stranger asking is charity. A verified teacher asking is the profession talking to itself.
  3. He decidesBrian answers, offers a place, or declines. There is no obligation on him and no waiting-list theatre. You will hear either way.
  4. Then you agree terms directlyFees are between you and Brian. YogaPros verifies standing on both sides and holds the conduct standard. It does not take a cut of his teaching.

Optional — but it attaches your Live CV to the request, and that is what he reads first.

Handled under the YogaPros member privacy standard. Your question goes to Brian and to nobody else.

It has gone to Brian.

He reads these himself, which is why it is not instant. You will hear back either way — including if the answer is no.

Twenty years of a professional body. Fifty-six years of the practice it was built to protect.

The Long Practice · YogaPros at twenty

Y SageSenior Yoga Teacher · verified

Before you ask — the verified record.

This page is his story. His Live CV is the record: qualifications, verified hours, accredited training, insurance and current standing on the Register — all checked by YogaPros. If you are considering him as a mentor, read it first.

View the Live CV →