Soup is Soaring, with Workshops, Too

Yoga Soup, the studio located down by the Santa Barbara train station that often serves as a bookstore, gift shop, and gathering place during our “old normal” times, has managed to schedule upwards of 70 classes available via the Zoom service each week. A few weeks into the transition, Yoga Soup has also started to migrate some of the workshops that cover everything from yoga techniques to ecstatic dance to meditation to breathwork to the online platform.

Chantal Peterson – a regular instructor and workshop leader at the studio who is also a writer, birth doula, certified massage therapist, a RYT Yoga Alliance certified Women’s Self Care practitioner, and a body positivity advocate – leads “An introduction to Connected Breathwork” at The Soup this Sunday, April 26. Breathwork, one of the most effective and accessible healing tools, can be used for everyday clarity and inspiration as well as for unearthing deep emotional wounds. In Sunday’s event, Peterson will introduce the practice of Connected Breathwork, explaining why the technique is effective and how it differs from other breathwork techniques. The intro will be followed by a guided 45-minute breathwork practice in which participants will be guided gracefully into and out of the practice anchored in a curated musical journey. The day finishes with a short meditation to help ground the healing modality, the final step for participants to be able to bring Connected Breathwork into daily life. Admission to the 5 pm workshop over Zoom is $15.

“Practicing the Alchemy of Intuitive Writing & Gentle Yoga,” part of Yoga Soup’s Sunday Writing Series, also takes place on April 26, with Deborah Donohue leading the workshop with a theme of “Cultivating Grace, Steadiness and Equanimity in Times of Uncertainty.” The underlying principle for Sunday’s practice is that life has always been fragile and uncertain, although we may not be aware of it. “When something happens that changes the sameness of days, the fact that our time on Earth is vulnerable and fleeting becomes crystal clear,” Donohue writes in the event description. “All at once we may find ourselves untethered and anxious, the past a place we cannot return to, the future an unpromised and unknowable landscape. We have only that which we have always had, the present moment.”

Donohue will offer writing prompts, practices, and gentle yoga poses to create a unique alchemy, one that can transform unsettled perceptions and somatic experiences into something more positive. The goal is to skillfully cultivate one’s innate dignity and divinity along with the clarity and grace, insight, strength and serenity needed to navigate whatever may present itself in each unfolding moment.

The workshop is appropriate for all levels of experience in writing and yoga. Participants should have a journal or notebook and pen handy when the 90-minute Zoom class, which costs $7, begins at 1:45 pm. Visit www.yogasoup.com for details on all the online activities.