Laurie Leone

I teach yoga, pranayama (breath training), and meditation in Delaware and Maryland including group classes and private sessions. I teach in order to serve and pass on the truths and helpful practices that have been passed to me through my teacher, and to my teacher through her teacher, and from her teacher through his teacher, and so on through the ages.

I have been privileged to receive, through yoga, teachings that are affirming, humbling, enlightening, and essential.  It is my honor and responsibility to help others access, understand, and embody them, too.

Phone: 443-466-1586

My Credentials

I have a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware.  I am a Yoga Alliance certified Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher (ERYT 200). I have over 2000 hours of teaching experience that includes teaching gentle yoga, vinyasa, hot yoga, therapeutic yoga, kids’ yoga, yoga for seniors, prenatal yoga, chair yoga, and breath training.  I have spent countless additional hours studying more yoga, anatomy, and other aspects of wellness.

I have had the tremendous honor for the past 2 years of studying with Therese Jornlin, who studied with A.G.Mohan in India.  Mohan was a student of Sri T. Krishnamacharya for the last 20 year’s of the master’s life.  A that time in Krishnamacharya’s life, his 2 main students were his son Desikachar and Mohan.  Through direct teacher-to-student teaching, Jornlin embodies a deep understanding of the ancient teachings of yoga that have been lost in translation and are frequently distorted or completely missing from Western yoga classes. In my teaching, I aim to pass on this tradition of breath-led movement, single-pointed focus and relaxation, and yoga as a 3-in-1 practice of asana, pranayama, and meditation.

My Yoga Story

Yoga has changed my life.  It could be the first statement in any yoga teacher’s bio.  Our belief that it will change your life, too, is what inspires us to teach.

Most of my life I walked around thinking that I was pretty much a mind carried around in a body.  As a reader, thinker, and eventually a student of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware, I loved to dive deep into thoughts and dwell there (still do!).  I tried to eat well and exercise in order to look good and “be healthy” rather than out of any sense of joy that it gave me.  Yoga changed all of that.  After bearing, nursing and (endlessly!) carrying 3 kids, my back felt like that of an 84-year-old.  So I went to my first yoga class to stretch and strengthen.  I got stronger and more flexible, and the back pain disappeared.  Yoga relieved my most immediate suffering, and I felt great.  More importantly, though, I begin to appreciate this experience of living in a body like never before. I no longer thought of my body as something for others to look at or as a carrier of my all-important brain.  Instead, I began to experience that I am my body, that every single one of my thoughts and emotions can only be experienced or expressed through the very cells of this body.  Mind is body and body is mind! And if this is true, then every cell of my body is actually changed by my thoughts and emotions, and even my ideas.  So (the light went on and you could have knocked me over with a feather) I am my body!  All the messages of hate I had sent to my “flabby” belly over the years were like beating or poisoning my self.  The enemy was truly within.

From that time on, I befriended my body. I forgave it (me) for not being as strong, coordinated, and athletic as I would have liked.  I apologized to it (me) for taking for granted all of its hard work and wisdom day in and day out as it (I) converted food to energy, brought oxygen in and waste out, healed cuts, bruises, broken bones, torn tissue, and fought germs, and so much more all while allowing me to hug, laugh, play, work, think, move, kiss, and cry.  Sounds basic, but wow what a difference!  It has been a journey, but now eating right, although I don’t always do it, has become an act of love.  Moving my body, although I don’t always do it, has become an act of joy. Breathing fully and intentionally (don’t always do that either!) is an act of celebration.   No kidding.  Lot’s of suffering relieved here!

But wait, there’s even more!  Just as yoga has shown me to me, it has also shown me my essential connection to the world.  As I paid attention to my self in yoga class without criticizing or judging, I felt connected to something in me other than my bodily sensations and individual thoughts, connected to an awareness, a presence, the part of me that is also in every other living person.  It turns out that I am my body, but I am also something more, something that transcends body/mind.  This awareness connects me powerfully to others and the outer world.  So I am not isolated, separate, and alone; in fact, I am as connected to people, to the world, as I possibly can be.  Opening to, enjoying, and relying on my breath has allowed me to experience that connection more and more.  Misunderstanding cleared, more suffering relieved! (And my back still feels great!)

Yoga continues to both strengthen and open my body, keeping me feeling great and moving well from the inside out..  It opens my eyes again and again to my own habitual reactions and outdated, unuseful patterns of thinking and doing.  I constantly discover new (well, old, actually) misunderstandings that cause me suffering!  We never really arrive, thank goodness, we just keep growing!