Living Anatomy, Living Service: Highlighting Loren Mahaffey as the Creator of AOO & President of Board of the Namaspa Foundation

When Loren Mahaffey speaks about anatomy, her eyes light up. It’s not the dry, textbook kind of anatomy most of us encountered in high school — memorizing Latin names or drawing bones on worksheets. Her approach, through the Art of Opposition (AOO): Yoga Anatomy, Physiology, and Biomechanics training, is alive and consistently inspires others to be curious explorers in the terrain of their own bodies.

“It’s living anatomy,” Loren says. “We learn intellectually, yes — from books, visual images, and lecture — but we also learn through our own bodies, and by observing others in motion. It’s a threefold process: intellectual, visual, and somatic. And when you integrate all three, the knowledge begins to live inside you.”

For Loren, AOO is the result of more than 25 years of deep study, experience, and service — in yoga, in bodywork, in trauma-informed practice, and in leadership in diverse settings. It’s also a reflection of her own learning journey, which has taken her from Tucson, Arizona and the US Virgin Islands to Bend, Oregon… from esoteric yogic traditions to hot yoga … from Asian bodywork therapy in Zen Shiatsu to CranioSacral therapy, Visceral Manipulation, Lymphatic Drainage and Brain Therapy… and from her own personal healing to living a life dedicated to guiding others toward healing, empowerment, and resilience.

Now, based part time in Bend and part time in the Virgin Islands – where she has thriving bodywork practices in both – Loren leads her Art of Opposition training once per year as both a stand-alone training, and as a core part of Namaspa’s 200-hour yoga teacher training program curriculum. Loren, who has been on the Namaspa Foundation Board of Directors since 2022, is also currently serving as the Foundation Board President. 

We are excited to share more about her story, passions, why she’s chosen the path of service she’s chosen.

Loren’s teaching journey began in 1999, with two yoga teacher trainings — one strongly Anusara-inspired, the other in hot yoga. And it was then in 2000, when she began formal studies in Asian Bodywork Therapy, that things really started to shift.

“I was at a school in Tucson that integrated yoga and bodywork,” she says. “I studied there, worked in their clinic, eventually became a teaching assistant in the Shiatsu program, and later a teacher. That early blend — movement, anatomy, energy — planted formative seeds.”

Over the years, those seeds grew. She completed additional YTTs through the Kriyananda School of Yoga and the Shivananda Ashram. She studied CranioSacral therapy and Visceral Manipulation, deepening her awareness of subtle systems and how the body holds memory and tension. In 2008, she opened a yoga and bodywork studio in the US Virgin Islands, offering yoga classes, bodywork therapy  and trainings in both to the community there, and to those who came from abroad.

A big turning point came in 2011, when she hosted and participated in a 200-hour Dynamic Yoga Method teacher training.

“I had already learned a lot,” she recalls, “but that training both changed how I viewed the practice of yoga and also inspired questions like: Why? And what’s really happening inside the body? I realized I had a hunger to understand anatomy on a deeper level.”

That same year, she encountered the work of Amy Matthews and Leslie Kaminoff, whose now-seminal book Yoga Anatomy helped launch a movement to bring more functional, evidence-based approaches to yoga instruction. She studied with them, then became a teacher trainer in their program, teaching for them for several years. Eventually, Loren created her own training: AOO – and there’s three main things she (and we!) wants you to know about it:

1. First, Loren knows that “learning anatomy” can be intimidating. It often brings up old education-based anxiety — test stress, memorization fatigue, or a sense of not being “science-y” enough. And that’s why she brings so much grace to her teaching. She shares: “Most aspiring yoga teachers, bodyworkers, and movement instructors want to learn anatomy,  they know it’s important. But it’s also challenging. So I continue to adapt AOO over the years in a way that incorporates different learning styles. You don’t need to memorize everything. The goal is integration — and it happens through repetition, movement, observation, and inquiry.

   
   

2. AOO is an invitation into a layered perspective of anatomy, physiology, and biomechanics. Loren explains: “Understanding the body isn’t just anatomy. It’s also nervous system patterns, emotional layers, breath patterns, subtle anatomy, and energy. It’s about how a body moves, why it compensates, and how to create more efficient alignment and support capacity and resilience.”

   
   

3. The “living anatomy” aspect, which includes theory/bookwork, somatic (self) observation, and visual observation of others. In AOO, yes, you’ll study anatomical images. And yes, you’ll learn about anatomical structures. But you’ll also learn to feel these systems in yourself — to somatically recognize where breath gets stuck, where the pelvis tips off-center, where habitual tension resides. And then you’ll also engage in the visual part of the training: learning to see bodies in both stillness and in motion. For example, you’ll study and explore the posture of tadasana from the perspective of both traditional yogic teachings and what’s happening anatomically. Then, you’ll learn to see and use tadasana not just as a posture, but as a diagnostic. “Tadasna is our  postural neutral, and therefore, how we consistently meet gravity,” Loren says. “ How we practice posture, the various shapes we create in yoga should, in essence, support how we live in postural neutral so that we become more efficient and effortless with how our bodies interact with gravity and how we breath.”

   
   

On the Namaspa Foundation side of things, Loren returned to Bend mostly full time in 2022 and began teaching AOO at Namaspa. Soon after, Namaspa founder Suzie Newcome invited Loren to join the Namaspa Foundation Board of Directors.

“I said yes immediately,” Loren recalls. “Because yoga and bodywork have been so healing in my own life and lives of those I work with — and I’ve also seen firsthand how powerful they are in communities in crisis.”

Loren has a long history of participating in and leading trauma-informed outreach efforts: volunteering in women’s rehab centers, organizing free bodywork for students affected by violence at the University of Arizona, and supporting teachers in the aftermath of hurricanes in the Virgin Islands.

“I’ve always believed in providing healing tools — especially to populations that wouldn’t otherwise have access. That’s what the Namaspa Foundation does. And the fact that it’s run by such a small team — with a small budget — yet reaches so many.. It’s incredible.”

As President of the Board, Loren brings not just passion, but deep respect — for the teachers, the board members, and the communities served.

“It’s interesting — I work primarily one-on-one  with people in my private practice. So being part of a team again, on a peer level, has been beautiful. I’ve learned so much about collaboration. And I’m proud of how we’re growing.”

Loren is particularly proud of how, at a time in the world where so many are learning about trauma sensitivity, not only is the Board and Foundation at-large learning and putting into practice the best ways for Foundation teachers to support the populations and communities and individuals they serve, that exploration is also happening on the level of how the Foundation also support the teachers who teach in those settings.

“I and we as a Board have so much respect for the teachers out there teaching week after week – and many of them, who have been with the Foundation for a long time, year after year.”

For new yoga teachers thinking about signing up for Namaspa’s 200-hour yoga teacher training program, think of AOO as a huge BONUS! Not every 200-hour teacher training provides as in-depth of anatomy training as you’ll get from Loren and AOO.

For seasoned yoga instructors, bodywork practitioners, or other movement guides, AOO is a refinement — a space to (re)discover your own body and apply it to and with those you serve.

And for anyone who’s ever said “I want to learn anatomy” (and then felt daunted), AOO is a refreshing reframe: a chance to learn in new, experiential ways, with curiosity, and in community.

You can learn more about AOO training dates and details on our website here – but don’t wait, as the training starts on 10/4! 

Whether you're on the teaching path, the healing path, or simply the human path — this training will meet you where you are and walk with you toward greater clarity, embodiment, and purpose.

And through this blog, we celebrate Loren and the ways she skillfully and gracefully brings a unique blend of clarity, humility, and fierce compassion to all of her endeavors – those on the mat, in her 1:1 sessions with others, and in her involvement in the Foundation’s mission and activities.

Thank you for your contributions, Loren!