Yoga Teacher Training Nanaimo

This anatomy course is curated specifically for yoga teachers. You can expect to leave the weekend with a functional understanding of anatomy and how to directly apply it to teaching yoga and to help inform your own personal movement practice. We will cover the major bones, joint segments, muscle groups, fasical lines. We will dive deep into why this understanding is critically important for teaching and how you can use this knowledge to help sequence and plan well-rounded yoga classes.

With well over 1,500 hours of teacher trainings combined with a decade-plus of teaching, studio ownership and curriculum development, Stephanie brings a wealth of knowledge and experience into every teacher training she facilitates.  Her enthusiasm for learning is infectious and she believes in creatively offering material so that it is digestible and readily applicable for all learners. 

“Kundalini is the Yoga of Awareness. It is a dynamic, powerful tool that is designed to give you an experience of your soul. In Kundalini Yoga we harness the mental, physical, and nervous energies of the body and put them under the domain of the will, which is the instrument of the soul. This technology precisely and consciously combines breath, mudra, eye-focus, mantra, body locks, and postures to balance the glandular system, strengthen the nervous system, expand lung capacity, and purify the blood. It brings balance to the body, mind, and soul.”- 3ho organization

The practice of yoga asana prepares our body to sit in meditation.

• We’ll learn the posture and foundation of sitting meditation.
• We’ll explore the four foundations of mindful meditation.
• We’ll dive into our three functional minds.
• We’ll get inspired by yoga science, human habits, duration and time of meditation and work to create a daily sustainable practice.

About Laura Jesson:

A natural born yogi, from philosophy to physical activity, breath and body, movement and stillness, Laura is always striving for balance in her life and empowering the same in others. After five years of personal practice, she took her first training in Moksha Yoga, followed by PreNatal Yoga with Janice Clarfield, and Yin Yoga with Bernie Clark. One strong source of inspiration and teachings woven throughout continues to be the influence of Michael Stone, who was a Psychotherapist, Yoga, Buddhist and Mindful Meditation teacher, author, activist, mentor and friend.

Laura is currently finding more peace through stillness in Meditation, Relaxation and deepening her practice of Kundalini Yoga. When not on her mat Laura takes all she learns being mom to two beautiful boys, creating more love in life and cycling lots!!

E-RYT 500+, Moksha 500 hours, Prenatal Yoga, Yin Yoga, Trauma Sensitive Training, Mindfulness Meditation Training. BA Degree in Psychology. Post Graduate Diploma in Wellness and Lifestyle Management. Kundalini Yoga Aquarian Teacher Training Level One and Two Lifecycles and Lifestyles — Instructor (Foundations) 

Class description:

Iyengar yoga is a practice founded by B.K.S Iyengar who is known as the father of modern yoga. Iyengar yoga offers a thorough teaching methodology that introduces poses, and specific actions within poses progressively such that a student learn and build their understanding of pose work, alignment, and themselves, safely and systemically. Many associate props with this practice. Props are part of the practice but are used in many creative ways not only to support but to enhance learning.  We will focus on alignment while using props as a teaching tool and for beginner teachers. Jessica will be sharing elements of Iyengar yoga to give student teachers a taste of this practice and how it might inform the questions they ask when approaching, ‘What am I teaching and why? ‘What do I see in my students and how can I help them improve?’ She is excited to share her passion for this practice with those interested in the subject of yoga.

Jessica first completed a 300 hr TTP through Moksana yoga in Victoria BC and started teaching in 2007. Once introduced to the practice of Iyengar yoga she committed to this lineage and the rigorous path toward certification. Jessica is a certified Iyengar yoga instructor . She has taught yoga at Soulfire Studio in Ladysmith, Bend Over Backwards in Nanaimo and currently teaches with The Hive Collective in Chemainus. Jessica also has  developed an online teaching practice: Your Yoga Library.  As a classically trained actor Jessica is passionate in the exploration of both play and discipline in yoga and theatre. Jessica  has worked as a TD Artist in the Schools through the Nanaimo Art Gallery offering programs that align Yoga and Theatre in schools. Most recently she was recipient of an Artstarts grant to a develop multidisciplinary yoga/theatre online mindfulness program for students, grade 4-7: Mindful Practice through Mindful Expression. 

Philosophy, empowered reasoning and the history of the yoga traditions with Daniel Clement
Before yoga arose in India, human groups across the planet had evolved the ability to project into the future and think about the past. Societies that could live and work well together thrived and grew, those that could not, did not.
Questions about the origins of humankind, the meaning of life and possible afterlife were answered by mythologies, ideologies and religions. The practices of yoga arose in part as an answer to some of these questions, and as a means sharpening the tools of inquiry. Daniel will take us through cultural changes as humans moved from hunting and gathering through the agricultural revolution, to ritual cultures, to the origin of the word Yoga, and the many definitions it has in the modern world. How does the yoga that we practice today reflect the traditions it grew from? Let’s find out.

About Daniel Clement

​Like many yoga practitioners and teachers, I had a natural predisposition to yoga practice. The qualities of self-study, a desire for balance and harmony and a somewhat sensitive and introverted personality served me as a musician and songwriter. I found the same qualities could be directed toward understanding and practicing yoga. I became interested in hatha yoga in the mid 1990’s as a way to heal a back injury. After attending classes in Iyengar yoga, I gravitated to Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. I practiced this rather intense form of yoga regularly for 3 years before attending my first teacher training with David Swenson. In the fall of 2003 I was introduced to postural biomechanics by Anusara Yoga teacher Elissa Gumushel, who was kind enough to teach me regularly at her home. By this time I had acquired a deep set of habits in the body through my Astanga Yoga practice, and also many small injuries and misalignments. I realized that though I had developed some strength, discipline and flexibility, I had a superficial relationship with the poses I was doing. I knew the basic forms, but had not spent enough time in each pose in any one practice to really understand how to use the pose to get into the body. After leading six to eight 200 and 500 hour trainings per year from 2008 – 2013 in Canada and graduating over 500 teachers, I began to ask some hard questions about what I was doing. My work now is to train effective hatha yoga teachers and to explore the more subtle aspects of the healing power of yoga through writing and workshops. To that end I offer 200 and 300 hour trainings and workshops at my home studio on the gulf island of Texada, British Columbia. I also travel regularly to Japan to teach workshops and try to absorb what remains of the grace of Zen and Taoist influence in the rural villages there.