Tom Gillette has spent many decades studying and teaching yoga. During that time he has taught thousands of classes, owned four yoga centers, directed 34 yoga teacher trainings, and led more than ninety programs at Kripalu Center.

Today, his practice is completely focused on alternating the breath left and right. Wait…. what? Why?

Every morning he wakes around 3:00 a.m. and begins a long practice of Alternate Nostril Breathing (Anuloma Viloma). At 6:00 a.m. he teaches the practice live online in a donation-supported broadcast that has continued almost every day since 2020.

Most people—including many experienced yoga practitioners—have never practiced Left right breathing, Anuloma Viloma long enough, or comfortably enough, to discover what happens with sustained, uninterrupted daily left and right focus of the breath.

Traditional instruction often asks practitioners to sit cross-legged while holding one arm in the air for extended periods. This classic posture quickly becomes uncomfortable and extremely difficult to sustain, long before the profound results show up. Hip pain, back strain, shoulder fatigue, and neck tension become the limiting factors rather than the alternation of the breath.

In 2020, Tom began experimenting with a different approach.

By supporting the elbows, removing unnecessary muscular effort, and making the practice comfortable enough to sustain for twenty-four minutes as a minimum, every day, an entirely different experience began to emerge. The practice became easier to maintain, more consistent, and opened the door to observations that simply don't appear during fifteen minute sessions.

Tom believes that Anuloma Viloma is the least explored and most underestimated practice in yoga — not because it is obscure, “everyone knows all about it,” but because few people have accumulated enough hours of consistent practice to receive the benefits of its long-term effects.

His own journey began at Colgate University in 1976, where he was first introduced to yoga postures in the Desikachar tradition.

In 1986 he met Yogi Amrit Desai (Gurudev), whose teaching profoundly shaped his understanding of yoga and especially the importance of Anuloma Viloma. While living in St Croix, Tom hung out with Gurudev, who was spending much of his time on island. Tom received a difficult to explain transmission of “knowledge” or something from Gurudev at that time.

In 1989, Tom moved into Kripalu Ashram, in Lenox MA and then later Sumneytown PA, where he lived for six years. In 1991 Tom became one of the directors of Kripalu Yoga Teacher Training.

When he moved into the ashram, Anuloma Viloma was the central practice. For two and a quarter years, Tom was there at 4 am with a group of dedicated yogis, practicing Alternate Nostril Breathing every morning without fail, following the traditional method of sitting cross legged and floating the arm. The practice touched him deeply. It was there that he found his mentor Gitanand Grey Ward, a tenured physics professor from MIT. Tom credits Gitanand's patient guidance as one of the great influences on his practice. Years later they were roommates for three months in India while studying at Lakulish Yoga University with Rajarshi Muni, providing Tom another opportunity to witness what decades of disciplined left right breathing can produce.

Like many long-time teachers, Tom’s education eventually extended well beyond a single lineage. His work has been influenced by the Kripalu, Vipassana, Tantra, Iyengar, Bikram, Lakulish, and Ashtanga traditions.

Since 2009 Tom has also been a yoga consultant for many NIH-funded yoga research in collaborations with Dr. Lisa Uebelacker at Butler Hospital and Dr. Geoff Tremont at Rhode Island Hospital. These studies have sought to examine traditional yogic practices using modern scientific methods and have contributed to a growing body of peer-reviewed research on yoga and mental health.

In 2015 Tom stepped away from operating yoga centers to focus entirely on breathing left and right. He created the online programs Next Breath 1 and Next Breath 2, and when the COVID pandemic arrived in 2020, the daily online broadcasts began.

In many ways he has returned to where his journey started: rising before dawn, practicing breath every morning, and sharing what he continues to discover.

He teaches online every day, by donation.

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