JJ Gormley-Etchells, E-RYT 500
JJ has created many schools of yoga in her over 30 years in yoga.
In Virginia in 1990 she created JJ's Yoga School where she taught yoga in the basement of her house, she could fit 15 students at a time and ended up hiring two other teachers to come and teach classes. This little studio grew to over 95 students/week.
In 1994 she changed the name to Sun & Moon Yoga School, moved it out of her basement to "real" space in a retail shopping center five minutes from her house. Student base grew from 95 to over 1500 students, three operating centers (Arlington, Fairfax and Sperryville, VA) five rooms, over 30 teachers and 8 office staff.
In 2006 she sold Sun & Moon Yoga to Amir Tahami and moved to Montana where she created Eureka Yoga School, a school designed to train yoga teachers and yoga therapists. Though JJ loves Montana, and still owns a small home there where she offers yoga retreats in the summer, she decided to move back to Virginia. (It's hard making a living in Montana as the population of the entire state is only as large as Fairfax County in Virginia.) The economics of the situation, coupled with a few family tragedies it warranted moving back.
In September 2009 she moved back to Virginia to stay with her sister and brother-in-law. Soon after, she changed the name of her training programs from Eureka Yoga School to Surya Chandra Healing Yoga School in sanskrit:
Surya pronounced SOOR-ya and chandra pronounced CHAN-dra
translation: Sun Moon
meaning: Balanced Energy, like yin-yang, hot-cold, masculine-feminine.
When we are balanced, things start to run more smoothly in all aspects of our lives (physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.)
JJ operates her programs with the utmost integrity and vast understanding of yoga's many gifts, especially yoga's healing gifts. These Healing Yoga Schools under her tutelage teach how to use yoga and yoga's many tools (poses, breath, etc.) to bring about balance in our everyday life.
It should be noted that Sun & Moon Yoga Studio in Virginia is no longer under JJ's training and guidance.
Students following JJ have come under her new school: Surya Chandra Healing Yoga School. Students who continue to study with JJ at least 50 hours per year are recognized as Surya Chandra Healing Yoga School Affiliated Teachers: (SCHYS-Affiliate). These Affiliated teachers are known not only for their continued interest in yoga and continued study of yoga, but their growth as a person and in keeping up their own practice toward self-improvement. Not only are these Affiliated teachers gifted yoga teachers, interested in helping others through the use of yoga and yoga's many tools, but they are also interested in self-improvement and educating themselves and deepening their own knowledge and awareness of all that yoga is.
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About JJ Gormley-Etchells, E-RYT-500
JJ Gormley-Etchells, Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RYT 500), Yoga Educator and Yoga Therapist, began practicing yoga in 1979. She studied from many different traditions. Most of the yoga taught in the US at that time was simply called Hatha Yoga, later JJ discovered more detail about what "style" these teachers were teaching. Her first yoga experience was at the local recreation center, her teacher, Gerta Goldberg taught "Hatha Yoga" in a style that was a blend of Iyengar (known for their attention to alignment) and other types as well as Feldenkrais (gentle healing movements) that Gerta was learning.
Over the decade of the 80s JJ took classes in other traditions (including: Kripalu, Sivananda, and Kundalini yoga). She received her first yoga certification from the White Lotus Yoga Center in Santa Barbara, CA under Ganga White. In 1989 she began teaching
yoga and began studying Iyengar yoga more seriously. She studied from the Iyengar center in Maryland (Unity Woods) under Carol Cavanaugh and John Schumacher and took many Teacher Trainings in the Iyengar tradition. She also studied a great deal from Patricia Walden and other "senior" Iyengar yoga teachers.
In the mid-1990s she began to branch out of Iyengar Yoga and studied with Rodney Yee, John Friend and Erich Schiffmann. In 1994 JJ moved her small household studio in Arlington, VA, and changed the name to Sun & Moon Yoga Studio and began teaching teachers. She herself continued her studies and underwent John Friend's Anusara training and was among the first few individuals to receive Anusara certification.
In 2002 she met Kausthub Desikachar and fell in love with the teachings from "The Heart of Yoga" by TKV Desikachar as taught by his son, Kausthub. She went to Chennai, India to study from Kausthub and the tradition of yoga teaching commonly called "Vini Yoga," and also known as KYM teachings (the institute in Chennai is known as KYM (Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram). In the U.S. this tradition is also called KHYF or HYF for Krishnamacharya Healing Yoga Foundation (an international organization) or the Healing Yoga Foundation (located in San Francisco). In 2007 she entered into a 4-year training program for Yoga Therapists with the KHYF.
She continues her studies of yoga and knows that she will always be a student of yoga. She loves her diverse background and calls her yoga education "eclectic and well-rounded." She draws from each tradition she has studied, seeing the good in all and uses what she loves and what resonates with her heart.
As Director of these Teacher Training Programs she
corresponds with and coordinates over 100 students in her training programs.
JJ teaches yoga poses from the perspective of the energetic body and
staying connected to the earth energetically (being well-grounded).
She'll look at the structure of the body and what is happening with the
bones at and around each of the main energy centers (Chakras). She
Teaches how the bones move at each of these Chakras to create more
space at the joints so one can move with better freedom and release
stuck energy.
JJ has produced many yoga training manuals and handouts, yoga videos/DVDs, and a chanting CD which can be purchased on this website. She also continually makes chakra jewelry (selling her pieces at her workshops when she travels) or will make a piece to order--just ask. She
has compiled a Study Guide for Yoga Teacher Trainees for use with the
training programs. You may obtain the Study Guide from the store on this site. She is in the process of writing a book, "Yoga Therapy Through the Chakras" with Megan Sullivan and illustrations by Terry Strayer. Stay tuned for details of the book release.
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About Sun Moon Healing Yoga and
Surya Chandra Healing Yoga School
Surya Chandra Healing Yoga School is a new school that JJ has just founded. Her aim is to start eight new training programs (see the Teacher Training button) with this school that continue to offer the same high quality of instruction and training that all of her training programs have in the past.
Healing Yoga is what she does best, use yoga for healing, whether in the classroom or in one-on-one privates. Healing Yoga is using yoga including any of yoga's many tools: breathing (pranayama), movements (asana), speaking (mantra), meditating (dharana), etc. to heal the body•mind•spirit since yoga looks at the entire being wholistically.
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