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The Daily Dish Fitness

Yoga Guru Jessamyn Shares How the Craft Became a Body Positive Experience for Her

Jessamyn Stanley, an internationally recognized yoga guru, creates an uplifting environment in her classes. 

By Kelly Kollias

"I think it’s really important for me to say that my first yoga experience was hell on earth." Um... what?

These aren't exactly the words you expect to hear from an internationally recognized and award-winning yoga guru. And yet, Jessamyn Stanley does not hold back from admitting that her first yoga experience did not flow as naturally for her as it does today. However, she continued with the practice because in the end, she saw a change within herself that was unlike anything she had ever felt before. 

"As time went on and the more that I practiced the postures and the more that I focused on breath work and meditation it became like 'okay this is something really different.' And I'm seeing parts of myself that I maybe didn't want to see, things that I didn't know were there," she explained in Bluprint's new video series called Spark. 

Today, Jessamyn is a yoga teacher based in Durham, North Carolina, who uses high energy vinyasa flow as a way to move past mental and emotional barriers. Her style of teaching contains a body positive approach to yoga, which celebrates students’ bodies. Jessamyn encourages students to ask “how do I feel?” rather than “how do I look?”

Check out the Spark clip below to find out what five words Jessamyn would use to describe her yoga now. 

NBC Universal’s online learning platform, Craftsy, has rebranded its streaming subscription service, Craftsy Unlimited as Bluprint - a new lifestyle learning digital destination that inspires enthusiasts and makers to turn passions into actions. Bluprint’s content is available now on-demand via its Bluprint subscription; accessible on desktop and mobile at http://www.mybluprint.com/, via the Bluprint app and on the streaming platform, Roku.

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