http://eomega.org/omega/faculty/viewProfile/86b45e9a2b761a658573c335baea76a0/ Gary Kraftsow is founder of the American Viniyoga Institute (AVI) and is America's leading teacher of Viniyoga. He conducts yoga seminars and retreats throughout the United States and Europe for yoga practitioners, yoga teachers, and therapists. A student of T.K.V. Desikachar since 1974, Kraftsow opened the Maui School of Yoga Therapy in 1983. In 1999, he founded AVI. He has designed the protocol for a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant on yoga therapy for low back pain. He has also been invited to consult on the yoga portion of an NIH study on developing programs to teach complementary and alternative medical modalities in medical schools, and has been asked to take part in a research project with Harvard University on yoga therapy for chronic anxiety. Currently the director and senior teacher of AVI, he is the author of Yoga for Wellness and Yoga for Transformation. Less