
RJ "Johnny" Backus
[email protected], @the_yogi_sailor on IG
RJ has been passionate about yoga ever since he discovered it here in Canton back in the summer of 2007 with Sarah's Yoga in the Park and is excited to give back to the community here for the seed that was planted . Being a passionate yogi he pursued any kind of yoga available as he travelled the world.
The pandemic brought personal tragedy to RJ and his family when he lost his mum in 2020 and was unable to travel back to the states at the time due to all the restrictions. In 2021, he put his life of travel on hold and returned to NY to spend time with his father in western NY and help his father overcome his loss and transition into a stable new life of his own, a new life on his own terms with which to live out his remaining years as his own man.
Coming out of his own losses (including his second divorce), RJ found stability and healing with a yoga studio in Rochester, NY, working there at first as café staff with the desire for a "simple life of serving people espresso" that also came with unlimited yoga and meditation practice. Healing through yoga quickly built a new hunger within RJ and he decided quickly that it was time to deepen his own practice in the best way he knew how, to teach it. Having taught in various parts of the world had taught RJ the benefit of students to help you in your own path of being a student of life.
RJ does all of his training with Arhanta Yoga Studios who have ashrams in India and Holland. He prefers the classical training offered by Ram and his staff as well as Ram's very classical but adaptive mentality and philosophy in Yog. He also enjoys chasing down the Sanskrit meanings and philosophies and digging deeply into everything that Yog has to offer in one's life, not as a way of life, but as a tool in it. He is driven to focus on the practical applications of what others consider mystical, bringing things like Chakr and Kundalini Shakti out of the mystery and into the everyday life that we live in this reality.
RJ teaches a wide variety of classes, from "Power Vinyasa"/Yang Yog to Yin Yoga to Restorative Yoga to Meditation and Yoga Nidra style Meditation and Chakr and Kundalini Shakti as well as classical Hath Yog and "open yoga classes", following the tenets of Ashtang and Hath, seeing the entirety of the full Raj Yog as the mere one of four paths of Yog that it is. RJ encourages and guides all of his students to have vision in their own paths and to use Yog to meet their own individual goals and dreams in life.
Namaste (Sanskrit for "I bow to you / I acknowledge you / I respect you") .
[email protected], @the_yogi_sailor on IG
RJ has been passionate about yoga ever since he discovered it here in Canton back in the summer of 2007 with Sarah's Yoga in the Park and is excited to give back to the community here for the seed that was planted . Being a passionate yogi he pursued any kind of yoga available as he travelled the world.
The pandemic brought personal tragedy to RJ and his family when he lost his mum in 2020 and was unable to travel back to the states at the time due to all the restrictions. In 2021, he put his life of travel on hold and returned to NY to spend time with his father in western NY and help his father overcome his loss and transition into a stable new life of his own, a new life on his own terms with which to live out his remaining years as his own man.
Coming out of his own losses (including his second divorce), RJ found stability and healing with a yoga studio in Rochester, NY, working there at first as café staff with the desire for a "simple life of serving people espresso" that also came with unlimited yoga and meditation practice. Healing through yoga quickly built a new hunger within RJ and he decided quickly that it was time to deepen his own practice in the best way he knew how, to teach it. Having taught in various parts of the world had taught RJ the benefit of students to help you in your own path of being a student of life.
RJ does all of his training with Arhanta Yoga Studios who have ashrams in India and Holland. He prefers the classical training offered by Ram and his staff as well as Ram's very classical but adaptive mentality and philosophy in Yog. He also enjoys chasing down the Sanskrit meanings and philosophies and digging deeply into everything that Yog has to offer in one's life, not as a way of life, but as a tool in it. He is driven to focus on the practical applications of what others consider mystical, bringing things like Chakr and Kundalini Shakti out of the mystery and into the everyday life that we live in this reality.
RJ teaches a wide variety of classes, from "Power Vinyasa"/Yang Yog to Yin Yoga to Restorative Yoga to Meditation and Yoga Nidra style Meditation and Chakr and Kundalini Shakti as well as classical Hath Yog and "open yoga classes", following the tenets of Ashtang and Hath, seeing the entirety of the full Raj Yog as the mere one of four paths of Yog that it is. RJ encourages and guides all of his students to have vision in their own paths and to use Yog to meet their own individual goals and dreams in life.
Namaste (Sanskrit for "I bow to you / I acknowledge you / I respect you") .