Welcome




Namaste

I am a Hatha Raja Yoga Teacher in Knoxville, TN, certified by Dharma Yoga Center both for the 200-hour, and 600-hour courses in New York City. I teach Dharma Yoga levels Gentle, 1, 2 and 3, and I also teach yoga classes customized to an individual or group's specifications or needs.

A class can be 1 to 2 hours long. It can be for an individual or a group. It can be at a private home, Church, Senior Center, Park, or any place you can fit a mat.

I specialize in senior yoga. Two of my best clients were a 90-year-old couple in Manhattan. Over the three year period of their weekly practice, the husband went from being shorter than his wife to taller than his wife once again! You can never be too old or out of shape to practice yoga. Indeed, as we age, the more urgent is the need to cultivate harmony of mind, body and spirit. If you find your body tight and unsupple, yoga is a perfect remedy. All the poses can be altered to fit your body, including the use of chairs or other objects to correct the lack of flexibility.

Please check out my other posts for more information!

Or Contact Me at
jillnfrere@gmail.com


Knoxville Classes



Tuesdays
12:30 - 1:30 PM
Senior Yoga
Strang Senior Center, 109 Lovell Heights Road
$5 per class


Wednesdays
7:45 - 9:00 PM
Dharma Level 1
The Glowing Body Yoga Studio, 711 Irwin St
Karma Class, Pay what you like!

Fridays
12:30-1:30 PM
Senior Yoga
Strang Senior Center, 109 Lovell Heights Road
$5 per class



* Please contact me to schedule a class in your home, church, studio, park, or anywhere you can put a mat!

JillnFrere@gmail.com

Hatha Raja Yoga


The word yoga means to yoke or unite. Yoga is the practice that unites the body, mind and spirit. 

What does this practice entail? Hatha Yoga is the practice of the first 4 limbs of yoga: the ethical rules (yamas and niyamas), the physical postures (asanas), breathing techniques (pranayama).  The 5th limb of yoga is, withdrawing the senses (pratyahara).  It occurs as a natural outgrowth of the first 4.  Raja Yoga is the practice of the final 3 limbs of yoga: concentration (dharana), meditation (dhyana), and bliss-absolute (Samadhi).  

Hatha-Raja yoga, the practice of all 8 limbs, is bigger then the sum of its parts.

Biography


Jill was born in Knoxville TN.  Her love of yoga first began when she took some yoga classes in college in 2001, and read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahamsa Yogananda.  After graduating from New York University in 2004, with a BFA in dance performance, she started taking classes at Dharma Yoga Center in NYC, where yoga became not just something that she enjoys, but a life long path.

Jill graduated from Dharma Yoga Center’s Life of a Yogi 200 hour teacher-training in 2005 and the 500 hour teacher-training in 2010.  In NYC she taught yoga, senior yoga and other fitness classes at NYU, to private clients, and was performing in a variety of modern dance companies.

Presently, Jill teaches yoga at Strang Senior Center, Glowing Body, and to private clients.  She also creates, performs and teaches modern dance with Go! Contemporary Dance Works and Studio Arts for Dancers. 

“I feel blessed and grateful to Dharma Mittra for passing on the teaching of Hatha Raja Yoga.  To teach Dharma yoga is to transmit the Sri Dharma message of compassion and love of God.  “Be Receptive” to the supreme teacher within!”

Dharma Yoga


Dharma Mittra, the founder of Dharma yoga has blessed people through the sacred practice of yoga all over the world. Dharma’s teacher guru, Sri Swami Kailashananda is known as the first Guru to bring the practice of Hatha Yoga to the West in the early 1950's. Dharma has been teaching the classical eight limbs of yoga continuously since 1967.

"It is my greatest joy to share with students this knowledge that I have acquired in the past 50 years of practice and study. Yoga practice will give one’s body the power and strength to have resistance to common illnesses and diseases. With proper encouragement and increased faith in the Guru, one can improve his physical body and mental attitude rapidly, thereby igniting the higher motives of making one's self useful to himself and all mankind.” - Dharma Mittra

Studying with Dharma has had a profound effect on my life. He has awakened within me both a reverence and a passion for yoga. I am constantly in awe of the peace and compassion that radiates from him, and the simple way he teaches a practice that is so powerful. I am truly grateful to be a part of this lineage.

Testimonials



















“I found her to be a wonderful teacher, and increased my skill far beyond what I had expected. I watched her other individual student, I have known for many years, who has a major chronic health problem as well as recent cancer surgery, accompanied by lots of depression and anxiety, begin to move for the first time in years, and as her ability to move increased, her depression and anxiety lessened.”
- Betty Williams

“Jill was the best teacher at Coles, it was my favorite way to start the day.”
-Shelly Fenchel

“I was totally taken with her from the very first session. . . Her attentiveness to each student’s position and her special care to work around a particular injury or other physical obstacle they might have is one of the things that makes Jill such a special instructor. As proof of Jill’s ability to work with all types of students, she instructed three generations of people in my own family – me, my 27 year-old daughter, and my 88 year-old mother! … Her love of yoga, and the fulfillment it brings to her life has been an inspiration to me, as I am certain it will be to all her future students.”
- Victoria Koulouris

Benefits of Yoga

The following benefits of yoga are excerpted from an article in Yoga Journal, Jan/Feb 2005, written by Timothy McCall, M.D.


Peace of Mind

* Yoga quells the fluctuations of the mind, according to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. In other words, it slows down the mental loops of frustration, regret, anger, fear, and desire that can cause stress. Since stress is implicated in so many health problems – from migraines and insomnia to lupus, MS, eczema, high blood pressure, and heart attacks – if you learn to quiet your mind, you will live longer and healthier lives.

Calm the Nervous Systerm

* Yoga encourages you to relax, slow your breath, and focus on the present, shifting the balance from the sympathetic nervous system (or the flight-or-fight response) to the parasympathetic nervous system. The latter is calming and restorative: it lowers blood pressure, and increases blood flow to the intestines and reproductive organs.

Lessen Depression

* One study found that a consistent yoga practice improved depression and led to a significant increase in serotonin levels and a decrease in the levels of monoamine oxidase (an enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters) and cortisol.

Weight Loss

* Regular Yoga practice gets you moving and burns calories, and the spiritual and emotional dimensions of your practice may encourage you to address any eating and weight problems on a deeper lever. Yoga may also inspire you to become a more conscious eater.

Lessen Stress/Tension

* Do you ever notice yourself holding the telephone or the steering wheel with a death grip or scrunching your face when staring at a computer screen? These unconscious habits can lead to chronic tension, muscle fatigue, and soreness in the wrists, arms, shoulders, neck, and face, which can increase stress and worsen your mood. As you practice yoga, you begin to notice where you hold tension… If you simply tune in you can release some tension.

Strengthen Bones

* It’s well documented that weight-bearing exercise strengthens bones and helps ward off osteoporosis…In an unpublished study conducted at California State University, LA, the practice of yoga increased bone density in the vertebrae. Yoga’s ability to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol may help keep calcium in the bone.

Strengthen Muscles

* Strong muscles do more than look good. They also protect us from conditions like arthritis and back pain, and help prevent falls in elderly people. When you build strength through yoga you balance it with flexibility.

Maintain Healthy Joints

* Each time you practice yoga you take your joints through their full range of motion. This can help prevent degenerative arthritis or mitigate disability by “squeezing and soaking” areas of cartilage ... Joint cartilage is like a sponge; it receives fresh nutrients only when its fluid is squeezed out and new supply can be soaked up.

Increase Balance

* Regularly practicing yoga increases proprioception (the ability to feel what your body is doing and where it is in space) and improves balance. People with bad posture or dysfunctional movement patterns usually have poor proprioception, which has been linked to knee problems and back pain.

Better Breathing

* Yogis tend to take fewer breaths of greater volume, which is both calming and more efficient. A 1998 study published in The Lancet taught a yogic technique known as “complete breathing” to people with lung problems due to congestive heart failure. After one month, their average respiratory rate decreased from 13.4 breaths per minute to 7.6. Meanwhile, their exercise capacity increased significantly, as did the oxygen saturation of their blood. In addition, yoga has been shown to improve various measures of lung function including the maximum volume of the breath and the efficiency of the exhalation.

Mission



My mission as a Hatha Raja Yoga teacher is to guide my students into a state of peacefulness and well being, by calming the mind. Using a combination of physical postures, breathing techniques and meditation we work towards the unification of the body, mind and spirit. Through constant practice of Yoga both the students and I work towards perfect health and contentment.