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Kassandra Prus is a Toronto-based Yoga Therapist (IAYT 2021), yoga educator, and tarot reader. Kassandra’s lineage of study is through teachers Ante and Felicia Pavlovic (Yoga Therapy Toronto) and Dr N Chandrasekaran (Yoga Vaidya Śālā) through direct teachings of TKV Desikachar, son of T. Krishnamacharya and founder of Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram (KYM) in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Kassandra works to uphold and respect the powerful classical teachings of Krishnamacharya and his lineage through rigorous ongoing personal practice and study. These classical teachings come directed through Kassandra’s lived experience of navigating the world as a queer and trans Ukrainian living in Toronto. For Kassandra, working with yoga as an embodied mano śastra (science of the mind) mirrors newly proven western understandings in neuroscience, somatic psychotherapies, psychoneuroendocrinoimmunology, our growing understandings of trauma, and more. It is of great interest to Kassandra to see how the deep indigenous knowledge system that is yoga, built to heal all the layers of ourselves from the inside out (body, physiology, mind, emotions, spirit) will co-mingle with modern allopathic medical research into the future.
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As a Yoga Therapist, Kassandra works with people to facilitate healing from conditions like adrenal fatigue, arthritis, autoimmune conditions like lupus and RA, breathing issues like COPD and asthma, migraine, high blood pressure, recovery after stroke or surgery, insomnia, and a wide range on mental health concerns. While facilitating the health of heart, mind, breath, and body through Yoga Therapy, Kassandra also turns to Tarot reading in a practical way to illuminate the way forward for students when the path seems obscured. Kassandra also specializes in teaching chair yoga group classes, especially for seniors, as well as group classes for practitioners where the focus is on integrating the subtler practices of yoga (prāṇāyāma, stages of meditation, bhāvanam/visualization, and mantra) within an āsana practice to create a therapeutic effect for all the layers of the self.
As an educator, Kassandra and facilitates trainings to support others doing the same: a 40hr Therapeutic and Chair Yoga Teacher Training twice yearly, a Subtle Anatomy module in Union Yoga + Wellness's 225hr Teacher Training Program, and the Accessible Yoga Training for the US-based organization founded by Jivana Heyman once we are able to meet in person again. The hope is that one day people of all abilities, ages, races, genders, religions, financial statuses, and health statuses will have places to engage with the deeply healing practices that yoga has to offer the world, through many different teachers and practitioners with lived understanding of the practices. |
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