“Let your teacher be LOVE itself.”
(Rumi)
About the Teacher
Jacqui Fownes, ARAD, CYA-E-RYT GOLD, YT, CYT, is a Certified Yoga Teacher and Yoga Therapist, trained by Sandra Sammartino as a Yoga Teacher (2000), and as an Advanced Yoga Teacher (2013-and ongoing), in Teaching Yoga to Persons with Arthritis (2000), in Anatomy of Yoga and Yoga Therapy by Leila Stuart of Centerpoint Yoga Therapy School (2002 & 2014), and in Kids Yoga by Maalaa (2006).
Jacqui has extensive teaching experience of adults and children, in both yoga and dance arts, and is previously a fully registered teacher of the Royal Academy of Dance.
She has taught countless group and private classes, in her own long running studio, in scores of public schools, as a volunteer for Yoga Outreach and the BC Ministry Collaborative for Children’s Mental Health, as a teacher trainer, corporately, and as a presenter in numerous conferences and workshops. She has written the Yoga Outreach Teacher Training Manual for teaching yoga to children in schools and a Yoga for Dancers manual, as well as several articles and dallies in children's books.
She has volunteered in countless ways in her community and in schools, introducing simple, practical yoga tools to kids, teachers and parents. Her Parent/Child Yoga for Calming Anxiety, Meditation for Children, and Grade Seven Girls' Leadership workshops are just a few examples. Most recently, Jacqui developed community grant supported initiatives that support children through yoga and nature.
Jacqui is passionate about yoga's healing power due to her own personal experience with chronic pain and illness management, and shares these gentle but powerful practices with others who manage chronic illness and other health challenges.
Her work with adults and children alike is highly creative and inspired, and encompasses the whole Map of Yoga.
Teaching Approach
In our classes, deep, conscious breathing and relaxation are primary components. We move inward with self-compassion and patience. We learn to respect our body and pay attention to its wisdom and knowledge. Through our body, we connect with our whole being.
Our body, emotions, thoughts, sensations, multi-faceted mind, soul and spirit, are all integrally interconnected through an intricate, intelligent, vital energy, what yoga calls prana.
With the ancient, simple and profound practice of yoga, we are able to release the stress in our bodies and become more comfortable in our own skin. Our vital energy (prana) expands, and our minds become calm, opening us to greater awareness and peace.
We connect with deeper aspects of ourselves, gaining perspective, insight, understanding, growth, wisdom and self-control. Grounded in extensive, lifelong education and study of physical and energetic anatomy, yoga and meditation, movement, and the body/mind, alongside a lifetime of deep personal practice, Jacqui's classes are special. Her clarity, intuition, and teaching abilities create a learning environment and energy that is deep, kind, open, authentic and powerful.
"Without education, confidence does not come."
(B.K.S. Iyengar)
