ABOUT JEN

WELCOME, I’m Jen. I’m guessing you’re here because someone passed my name on to you or you’ve been to one of my classes.

I’ve been teaching yoga since 2011 at yoga studios (L.A.’s Black Dog Yoga through 2020, currently Old Town Yoga in Fort Collins, CO.) workplaces, through online group classes and individual sessions.  In the workplace, I teach workshops on self-care, managing stress and relieving low back pain. I designed the Yoga Foundations program and other yoga programming for wellness-startup Rebel360 with teacher Heather Archer.

My teaching is informed by my practice and my life. I came to yoga nearly 20 years ago, taking a class at a gym to avoid the actual gym. Before teaching, I worked as a business and entertainment journalist. I’ve continued writing as a content writer and communications consultant for major corporations and small businesses.

In between, I burnt out and moved to Paris, because, Paris. And croissants. I thought it would put an end to the anxiety that had stalled me in my writing work in LA. I had been waking up with a pit in my stomach that I would try to stuff down and ignore before my first cup of coffee. But without distractions from friends and my daily routine, I was forced to actually spend time with my thoughts. Walking behind the Notre Dame one day, embarrassingly teary-eyed, I was hit by the truth in the title of a Jon Kabat-Zinn book I had bought but never read: Wherever You Go There You Are.

F*ck.

I was living this privileged life but my mind was beating me up. So I did the only thing I knew to do in pre-iPhone times: I began practicing yoga every damn day in my Right Bank apartment. My mat provided safe space from my tangled mind. I began unraveling all the ideas about how life should be and who I should be. When I returned to LA, I sought out teachers who helped guide me into my body so that I could find clarity in my mind and experience my own presence.

What I’ve learned from all of this is that you don’t have to dramatically change your job and home to change the patterns of anxiety. You don’t have to move your body into extremes to feel peace and power. Making relaxation and mindful self-care a practice in your life is how you change your experience of life. 

When we take care of our well-being, we start to take our power back. When we feel good we can be present with others, we are empowered to choose how we respond to the world around us. We become the creators of a new world.

 

I see yoga as Self care. A practice that allows us to tend to our needs so that we can heal patterns of stress and anxiety and live from our wise heart. My classes are breath-focused and mindful, bridging yoga tradition with modern anatomical understanding. 

My teaching has been most influenced and inspired by the teachings of Sri Krischnamacharya and his son TKV Desikachar, Sigrid Matthews, Leslie Kaminoff, Tracee Stanley and Rod Stryker.

In practice, this means a combination of Embodiment + Breath + Exploration:

Embodiment

We begin by arriving in our body. The focus may be a specific part of our body or may be a new way to view our body.

Breath

Breath is central to practice, keeping us present in this moment.

Exploration

We approach our practice as explorers, listening and inquiring about what we are doing and how our body is moving. Do we know what we are doing? Where is tension, where is ease?

Most importantly, I am a dog mama to Lady 

Press

Mental Floss12 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Yoga Teachers

Voyage LA  Meet Jennifer Netherby

 

 

Teaching/Certification

E-RYT 500 Hour Yoga Alliance

YogaU Online

Training

Black Dog Yoga 200/300 hour training, mentored by Sigrid Matthews and Maria Cristina Jimenez

Yoga Anatomy Principles Course with Leslie Kaminoff

Yoga Philosophy Deeper Studies and Yoga Sutra Studies with Joy Stone

Empowered Wisdom Yoga Nidra Training with Tracee Stanley and Chanti Tacoronte-Perez

Vinyasa Krama with Rod Stryker

Yin Yoga Teacher Training with Melissa Christensen

Trauma Sensitive Yoga workshop with Mischa Hines

Yoga for the Lower Back workshop with Larry Payne

Integral Anatomy Intensive Workshop with Gil Hedley

Glandular System Workshop with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

Street Yoga Teacher Training for homeless youth

Goddesses of Yoga Philosophy workshop with Sally Kempton

Reiki I Training with Rebeca Manning though Usui Lineage

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