Founded in 1973, Pierce Yoga Program is Atlanta's oldest yoga center.

Margaret Pierce and the late Martin Pierce, authors of Yoga For Your Life and founders of the Pierce Yoga Program, spent many years studying yoga with T.K.V. Desikachar in India, Europe, and the U.S. Our teachers have studied directly with Desikachar and continue to study with Margaret.

Margaret Pierce, Director and co-founder of the Pierce Yoga Program, started practicing yoga in college. In 1974-75, she spent nine months in India; the first of many journeys to India and across Europe to study with T.K.V. Desikachar.

Margaret began to teach yoga in Atlanta in 1975 and founded the Pierce Pregnancy Program. She also developed a popular strength training program incorporating yoga and free weights for both Traditional and Pregnancy Yoga. The yoga she practices, adapts, and teaches comes from an ancient tradition, which focuses on the needs of the individual.

Margaret continues to study in the tradition of T.K.V. Desikachar and his father, T. Krishnamacharya, still travels to India, and was a founding member of Viniyoga America in 1986. She has taught widely in the U.S. and has attracted a worldwide audience with the publication of Yoga for Your Life.

 Martin Pierce, (March 30, 1935 - August 19, 2000). Martin's greatest interest was in the spiritual and philosophical aspects of yoga and meditation. He began practicing yoga in 1968 when he taught political science at New York University.

He traveled to India in 1970 to seek a spiritual teacher and to study Gandhian non-violent change. There, he met the yoga master T.K.V. Desikachar, who became his teacher. He continued to travel to India and study with T.K.V. Desikachar over the next 30 years.

During the 1950's, Martin went with the American Friends Service Committee to Mexico and Cuba. He was also active in the civil rights and peace movements in the 1950's and 60's. Beginning in 1983, Martin taught yoga for the Emory University Health and Physical Education Department.

In August of 2000, Martin Pierce - author, teacher, linguist, outdoorsman, and founder of the Pierce Yoga Program, died while hiking in a mountain preserve near Kodiakanal, India.

Teaching yoga was Martin's life work and continues to be Margaret's.