Mar­ty Yura was born in New York City, immi­grat­ed to Israel after grad­u­at­ing from UCLA, and served as a field psy­chol­o­gist in an infantry brigade dur­ing the 1973 Yom Kip­pur War. He returned to the U.S. in 1975, earned an MA in psy­chol­o­gy at Cal State U, co-found­ed Vista Yoga in Atlanta, and teach­es yoga for vet­er­ans with PTSD at Emory Healthcare.