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 breathing slow left and right. Wait…. what? Why?

Every morning he wakes around 3:00 a.m. and begins a long practice of Left Right 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.

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 “insight” or something like that 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 rose at 4 am with a group of dedicated yogis, practicing 24 minutes of Alternate Nostril Breathing every morning without interruption, following the traditional method of sitting cross legged and floating the arm. 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 breathing practice. Years later they were roommates for three months in India while studying at Lakulish Yoga University with Rajarshi Muni. Gitanand showed Tom the living example of what decades of disciplined traditional 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, breathing slow left and right every morning, and sharing what he continues to discover.

He teaches online every day, by donation.

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