Hi, I’m Isabelle, and I am a long-time yoga teacher, lover, and practitioner, based in Edmonton, Alberta.
I bring over 15 years of experience teaching students, as well as training yoga teachers, together with the quality, insight, and effectiveness of good technique to provide a multi-dimensional and revelatory experience for each student or teacher I work with, whether one on one or in groups, live and in-person or online.
I specifically share the material of Katonah Yoga® because it is the smartest, most informed, and most generous approach to potentiate personal wellbeing that I have encountered.
If you are inspired to connect, I look forward to sharing the joy and intelligence of yoga with you.
Katonah Yoga’s lens on the body and the practice translates each individual’s foibles, weak spots, injuries and imbalances into information that can be used to systematically support and reform the body, inviting it to rest and reset at a higher level of equilibrium.
Be prepared to be supported, recalibrated, nourished and activated with usable insight and technique that will change how you live and move in your body in ways that are immediately practical and practicable.
Repetition opens the possibility of deepening insight. Meeting weekly over the course of 4 weeks we will work together to create a repertoire of shapes and movements that will specifically address the blind spots in your body. Infused with theory and metaphor, these techniques will become readily accessible tools you can leverage throughout your day and for the rest of your life.
Yoga is both a personal and a communal endeavour. Coming together in person offers all of us a richer lexicon for good technique as we learn not only from the teacher but from our fellow students. Time, space, and vision gives each Masterclass a theme to explore, with ample opportunity to experience revelatory technique in your own body and mind as well as work with others – an especially illuminating facet of the practice for those that teach!
Be the architect, master builder, and joyful inhabitant of the house that is your body. Learn how to leverage the intelligence of props to both support and inform. Come away with practical and repeatable techniques that will continue to enhance both life and practice. All levels welcome!
Mark two potent seasonal thresholds with the cleansing, clarifying, and uplifting practices of Classical Kundalini technique and theory.
In the first session, we move through the Solstice portal with practices designed to clear the energetic slate and create spaciousness within.
In the second, we enter the New Year with deeper internal connection and an inspired heart, buoyed by the energy Classical Kundalini can welcome into the body, mind, and breath.
Each practice concludes with homemade Masala Chai, Spiced Ghee-Soaked Dates, and time to connect in community.
Classical Kundalini Yoga weaves breath work, chanting, chakra activation, postures, oscillating movements, Vedic wisdom, mythology, and meditation to attune you to the intelligent life force that moves through the subtle body. This internal and transformative practice is amplified by the shared energy of a group setting, and through Isabelle’s kind and masterful guidance.
Ideal but optional: wear loose light coloured clothing and to take a body temperature or cool shower before practice.
Join me for a beautiful, FUN, family-friendly evening of call & response kirtan singing accompanied by the skilled and intuitive Kevin Parkinson on percussion.
We’ll open with a powerful sea of sound to raise and harmonize both individual and collective vibration, followed by uplifting, heart-opening, easy to follow Kirtan singing.
Singing with others boosts the spirit, optimizing feel good hormones and balancing both inward and outward flowing energies. It easily builds a sense of belonging, community, and joy. Come!
Hot tea & floor seating provided, chairs available upon request.
$15 (50% off for Gold & Prime members)
I teach weekly drop-in classes at the award-winning Prana Yoga Studio in Edmonton’s west end. These are not Katonah Yoga® classes but are informed by some Katonah Yoga principles as well as Akhanda (Holistic) Yoga.
Yin yoga opens, lengthens, and reframes the body; yoga nidra (guided relaxation) facilitates interior exploration and change. In this blend and balance of potent approaches, you’ll finish class re-set and renewed.
All levels.
Katonah Yoga® is an extraordinary approach to and method of yoga practice. Developed over the course of 45 years by Egyptian-American Nevine Michaan, it is a Hatha practice that draws from the Iyengar tradition, Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan, Taoism, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Sacred Geometry, and a healthy dose of Nevine’s unique mystical pragmatism and skillful use of metaphor.
It is unlike any other form of practice I’ve encountered and its principles of referencing the archetype of each pose, leveraging the skill of measurement using vision and the feedback of props, focusing on joint health and longevity rather than purely muscular strength, discovering the multi-dimensional fits and folds of the human body, and the pivotal use of the imagination to feed, fuel, and fill out every asana shape in revolutionary ways continues to confound, delight, inspire and provoke insight within me.
It’s challenging, illuminating, and sometimes mystifying. It treats yoga as an alchemical practice – more magical than medical – that seeks to make the unconscious conscious and reveal what’s been hiding in plain sight to result in a well-rounded, resilient and responsible life.
Katonah Yoga® is a syncretic Hatha yoga practice developed by Nevine Michaan over 40 years. She and her teachers incorporate classical Hatha yoga with Taoist theory, geometry, magic, mythology, metaphor, and imagination — in a practical framework designed to potentiate personal and communal well-being. Framing the practice, maps of time and personal space are defined and refined. Themes using asana as origami, manipulating form for function, and developing a sense of personal measure are incorporated in Katonah Yoga® practices.
Katonah Yoga® is organized around three principles of esoteric dialogue:
All polarities are mediated by trinity
The universe has pattern, pattern belies intelligence
By virtue of repetition, there is potential for insight.
Disciplined techniques are organized for revelation through revolutions.
To learn more about this practice and its founder, visit www.katonahyoga.com
