24 June 2023, 13.00 – 16.00

Prime Sports Physio Balerno, Edinburgh

Yoga is often represented as simply a particular type of body-work or exercise. It’s better described as a system of right living, intended to be incorporated into daily life. Yoga can bring harmony and balance to body, mind and emotions, using asana (postures), pranayama (breathwork) and relaxation to help prepare the mind for meditation. In this two hour workshop we will practice simple, gentle asanas, yogic breathing and an introductory yoga Nidra – a deeply relaxing practice. The pace of the class will allow time for reflection. Yoga teacher: Bijam Sannyasi Bijam (Dr Jenni Connaughton) Yoga Scotland and Bihar School of Yoga UK registered teacher Signatory of Scotland's Mental Health Charter Accessible Yoga Ambassador Website:www.yogawithbijam.co.uk Email: jennic878@gmail.com T: 07966573804 Dr. Jenni Connaughton retired in 2009 from over 30 years’ experience in different mental health fields in the NHS in Scotland, for the last 16 years as a Consultant Psychiatrist at the State Hospital, Carstairs. Jenni discovered yoga in the early 1970s, attending Iyengar classes for around 12 years. In the 1980s life, in the form of children and work, intervened. She resumed practising after a 12-year gap, in the mid-1990s. She completed her first 500-hour yoga teacher training in 2001 with the Scottish Yoga Teachers’ Association (now Yoga Scotland), whilst still working in the NHS. In 2007 she qualified to teach in the tradition of the India-based Bihar School of Yoga. Jenni was initiated into mantra diksha with her spiritual name “Sannyasi Bijam” in 2006. With her medical background, Bijam feels very fortunate that she could combine an abiding interest in mental and physical health with her yoga practice and teaching, the disciplines complementing each other. Her interest in yoga breathing practices began with a one-year Teaching Pranayama course run in 2002 by Philip Xerri, during which she discovered the life-changing effects of a regular pranayama practice. She repeated the whole course in 2019. She has also completed courses in remedial and adaptive yoga teaching, including chair-based yoga. In 2017 Sn. Bijam developed and taught a 12-hour course dedicated to progressive pranayama practice. She presented aspects of this course at the European Union of Yoga Congress in Switzerland in August 2018, representing Yoga Scotland. She was invited to teach it in Finland in the summer of 2019. Discoveries in neuroscience and the links to the more subtle practices of yoga, especially pranayama and meditation, will form part of the background to the session.