09/07/2026
We have been teaching yoga in Athens for fourteen years. And this practice did not begin with us.
Evergreen was built through long years of study, practice, transmission, education, and relationship. Behind the teachers is our head teacher Panos, and before him his teachers and their teachers before him, people who carried the practice before us, lived it seriously, and passed it on.
As with ours, many of the dynamic yoga traditions practiced today trace their roots back to Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, often called the father of modern yoga. Born in 1888, he taught almost until the end of his life and died at the age of one hundred. Among his students were Pattabhi Jois, B.K.S. Iyengar, T.K.V. Desikachar, Indra Devi, and Srivatsa Ramaswami : teachers whose work shaped much of modern yoga.
At the heart of Krishnamacharya’s teaching was the idea that yoga must be adapted to the person. The right practice, for the right student, at the right moment. Step by step. Breath by breath. That is what he called Vinyasa Krama, and that is where what we call our practice comes from. Not as something we own or invented, but as a way of acknowledging the root and honoring the great teacher: intelligent progression, conscious sequencing, and practice that respects the human being.
One of the strongest influences on Panos and on the way we teach is Shiva Rea. A student of Patabhi Jois, Desicachar, Mati Ezraty, Tim Miller and Richard Freeman among others, carrying directly the vinyasa krama principles. Through her work, vinyasa became more than a sequence. It became a living thing like breath moving through form. It explores the practice as moving meditation, the body as prayer, music and philosophy put into movement.
From Petros Haffenrichter, senior Jivamukti teacher, came a deeper connection to scripture, devotion, kirtan, and the understanding that what happens on the mat can never be separated from the way we live.
From Yiannis Andritsos, who studied for ten years with Sri Dharma Mittra in New York, came the classical structure of the practice : the eight limbs from theory to something lived, the body as a vehicle for something greater.
From Patrick Fullan, a long-time Ashtanga practitioner and teacher in Athens, came the handstand practice that became a defining part of the Evergreen identity, present in our handstands classes, our teacher trainings and the way we approach strength, courage, and play.
Petros and Patrick both studied with Cliff Barber, an American yogi who left behind a conventional life, travelled to Mysore, studied Ashtanga Yoga with the great masters, and later lived very simply by a river in Greece, teaching those who found their way to him. He lived the ascetic life. Still, his practice continues through the people he touched.
We name our teachers because yoga has always moved this way. From person to person. Carried by those who practiced seriously, received honestly, and passed it on with care.
This is the lineage behind Evergreen. A gesture of gratitude. And a responsibility we continue to hold to this day.
