Join Susanna Barkataki for a full weekend of workshops across Down Under School of Yoga studios.
April 30-May 2, 2027
See all workshop options, locations & prices below.
Metta and Ahimsa: Coming Home to Yourself with Loving Kindness: Yoga Philosophy, Slow Flow with Yoga’s Roots with Susanna Barkataki
Friday, April 30
6-8pm • Porter Square
This Friday night class is an open invitation to experience yoga and its roots as a return. A coming home to your own body, breath, and belonging grounded in the ancient roots of the practice and the wisdom of nurturing care and trauma-informed teaching.
We begin where yoga has always begun: with sound. With gentle movement, slow shapes, philosophy and breath, to practice ahimsa, love and care towards ourselves and others.
Rooted in the tradition's own understanding that the nervous system is sacred, and the body is not something to push through but something to listen to, Susanna Barkataki guides you through an accessible, embodied practice that weaves pranayama, gentle movement, mantra, and meditation into a single living experience.
We will close with loving kindness meditation and offer metta to ourselves, our loved ones and the whole world.
This is yoga as the tradition always intended it, a path toward wholeness for every body.
You will leave feeling grounded, held, and more at home in yourself than when you walked in. 🙏🏽
What to bring: Please bring a yoga mat (rentals are available for $3 at the studio) & a journal/writing utensil. Props are available for use in studio but feel free to bring your own (2 blocks, blanket & bolster).
Who it's for: All are welcome. Accessible, trauma informed options will be given. Beginners, longtime practitioners, yoga teachers, and anyone who has ever felt like yoga wasn't quite for them.
Cost: $55
Living Yoga's Ethics & Roots: The Yamas, Niyamas, and the Eightfold Path as a Way of Life with Susanna Barkataki
Saturday, May 1
11:30am-1:30pm • Central Square & Livestream
Yoga is much more than poses.
At its roots, yoga is a structured, living ethical system, a practical, radical, and deeply compassionate framework for how to be in the world. And when we actually live it, our lives completely change.
This immersive morning session goes deep into the heart of yogic philosophy: Susanna will share stories from her life, the Yamas and Niyamas, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, and the full Eightfold Path as a path to embody, practice and breathe into your actual life.
Through practice, reflection, discussion, and direct transmission, we explore:
Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, Brahmacharya, Aparigraha the five outer ethical codes and how they guide us in relationship, teaching, and community
Saucha, Santosha, Tapas, Svadhyaya, Ishvara Pranidhana the five inner codes for soulful, engaged living
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali including the Locks and Keys of Sutra 1.33, and how "Yogas Chitta Vritti Nirodhah" is not an idea but an experience
How yogic ethics are a framework for justice, equity, and liberation not just personal transformation
How to bring these teachings authentically into your cuing, your sequencing, and your studio culture
Expect to move, reflect, discuss, and go home with practices you can use immediately in your teaching, your relationships, and your daily life.
Who it's for: Yoga teachers, teacher trainees, and dedicated practitioners ready to go beyond the mat
CEU Eligible: This session qualifies for continuing education hours.
Cost: $65
Please bring a yoga mat (rentals are available for $3 at the studio)
***For livestream participants: a Zoom invitation email will go out to pre-registered students 1 hour before the class. Please make sure we have the correct email address on file for you so you receive your invitation! Contact the studio at 617.566.9642 with any questions.***
Ignite Your Yoga with Yoga's Living History & Your Lineage of Liberation with Susanna Barkataki
Saturday, May 1
2:15-4:15pm • Central Square & Livestream
Yoga has a long, layered, fiercely alive story that runs from the banks of the Indus River all the way to this room, right now, today.
And when we actually know that story, when we feel it in our bodies, how we live and practice yoga will never be the same.
This afternoon session traces yoga's unbroken lineage from its pre-Vedic origins through the Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras, the radical Bhakti and Hatha movements, colonization's suppression of the tradition, and yoga's global expansion and it does so not through lecture alone, but through story, reflection, and embodiment.
Because history is something we carry, live and breathe!
How we'll go deep together:
Susanna's own lineage story woven through the timeline, what it means to be an Indian immigrant teacher reclaiming ancestral practice in the West
Your own yoga lineage story You’ll be guided to reflect on different doorways and how you live and lead this practice.
Pair and small group inquiry at key turning points: the Bhakti movement's democratization of yoga, colonization's suppression, the moment yoga crossed into Hollywood and what do we do with all of this?
Creative embodiment practice: participants will step into the lives of teachers and figures from yoga's history, Shankaracharya, Vivekananda, Krishnamacharya, and others and ask: what did they believe? What did they fight for? What do I carry forward?
This is history you feel in your bones, not just your notes. ❤️🔥
We will honestly reckon with:
How Brahminical patriarchy shaped who had access to yogic wisdom and how Bhakti and Hatha movements fought back
Yoga's role in India's independence movement and the U.S. Civil Rights Movement
Cultural appropriation vs. cultural appreciation and the Embrace Yoga's Roots framework for moving from separation to liberation
What it means to practice with integrity in a studio today
Who it's for: Yoga teachers, trainees, and practitioners committed to practicing and teaching with cultural awareness and integrity
CEU Eligible: This session qualifies for continuing education hours.
Cost: $65
Please bring a yoga mat (rentals are available for $3 at the studio)
***For livestream participants: a Zoom invitation email will go out to pre-registered students 1 hour before the class. Please make sure we have the correct email address on file for you so you receive your invitation! Contact the studio at 617.566.9642 with any questions.***
Trauma-Informed Roots of Yoga: Tending Your Nervous System Like a Garden with Susanna Barkataki
Sunday, May 2
1:30-4pm • Porter Square & Livestream
Yoga was always a healing practice. The tradition has known what modern neuroscience is only beginning to name: that the body holds what the mind cannot yet speak, and that breath, movement, sound, and community can bring us home to ourselves.
This session brings together the natural Vedic wisdom of trauma-informed teaching, somatic experiencing, and yogic philosophy to explore how we practice and teach yoga in a way that nourishes and supports us. Our nervous systems are not machines to be controlled they are gardens to be tended.
Susanna guides you through an embodied, grounded exploration of:
The framing of our nervous systems as gardens to tend what happens in the brain, nervous system, and body, and what yoga uniquely offers for each stress response state
Trauma-informed, culturally competent language and cueing what to say, what not to say, and how to create brave, accessible, genuinely inclusive spaces
Yogic resources for healing pranayama, grounding, orienting, mantra, and somatic practices drawn directly from the tradition's own roots
Community care and teacher self-care "Nobody can do it for us. And we can't do it alone."
We end in practice. In breath. In the recognition that yoga, at its deepest roots, has always been a technology for liberation, personal and collective, ancient and urgently needed right now. 🙏🏽💥
Who it's for: Yoga teachers, wellness professionals, and practitioners working with diverse communities or trauma-affected populations
CEU Eligible: This session qualifies for continuing education hours.
What to bring: Please bring a yoga mat (rentals are available for $3 at the studio) & a journal/writing utensil. Props are available for use in studio but feel free to bring your own (2 blocks, blanket & bolster).
Cost: $75
***For livestream participants: a Zoom invitation email will go out to pre-registered students 1 hour before the class. Please make sure we have the correct email address on file for you so you receive your invitation! Contact the studio at 617.566.9642 with any questions.***
SUSANNA BARKATAKI runs Yoga Teacher Trainings, 200 Foundations, 300 Advanced, Trauma Informed Yoga Certification and Yoga Therapy Training.
She is a 2026 Gold Nautilus Award Winning Author in Mind, Body Spirit category for and Ignite Your Yoga (Shambhala/Penguin Random House) and author of Embrace Yoga's Roots (#1 International Bestseller).
She is a Yoga Psychology PhD Scholar, viral TEDx Speaker who has trained over 25,000 people globally to develop a lifelong relationship with yoga’s roots.
Ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh and trained in India's Shankaracharya lineage. Her work has reached Netflix, the White House, UCLA, and CBS.
Ignitebewell.com | @susannabarkataki