It’s time for another Training Thursday post!  Today, we report on a weekend training completed by two of our teachers:  Angie Jonesand Deb Logan.  Deb and Angie spent April 12–14 at Sanctuary for Yoga in Nashville, completing a Pranayama Immersionwith Jessalynn Hakanson, E-RYT 500, RPYT, LMT.

In their twenty hours of training, Angie and Deb took what one of their fellow trainees called a “deep dive” into pranayama, the fourth of the eight limbs of yoga.  To enhance their focus on the breath, they learned about and practiced different poses (asanas) and hand gestures (mudras).  They practiced both more familiar pranayama like breath awareness and diaphragmatic breathing and less familiar ones like kapalabhati (skull-shining breath), bhastrika (bellows breath), and bhramari (humming bee breath).  They also reviewed healthy lifestyle activities to support both pranayama and asana practice.

Angie appreciated the opportunity to revisit pranayama to which she was introduced by Debbie Marquette, in her 200-hour teacher training program, and by Erica Jacknin, one of 4yoga’s co-founders, in her classes at at yogaLOFT and 4yoga.  She especially enjoyed Jessalynn’s inclusion of exercises to help prepare the body and mind for pranayama and thinking about applications to practicing and teaching Anjali Restorative yoga.

Deb found Jessalynn’s emphasis on the Kundalini breathwork tradition gratifying because she already integrates it in both her personal practice and her teaching and because it synthesizes breath and movement.  She finds that tradition offers “a focus that enables folks to deepen their practice while extending the benefits…[and] helps with mindfulness.”  She also enjoyed the practices not only of pranayama by itself but also pranayama leading into meditation, especially those with effective, gentle visualization.

Deb and Angie will continue practicing what they learned during their time with Jessalynn and their fellow yogis, and they invite you to join them for a class as they share their training with our community.