After losing her father to suicide, Alicia Willemet found peace in yoga. The practice was therapeutic and allowed her to breathe again.
“I just immersed myself in yoga, meditation and chanting,” Willemet tells 225 in a feature in the current issue.
At an ashram program outside Boulder, Colorado, Willemet lived, ate and slept the yoga practice for four months, ultimately earning her certification to teach. She then returned to Louisiana and taught for 10 years before launching the Louisiana Yoga School in Baton Rouge—a training program that connects yoga studios and teachers.
Accredited through the national Yoga Alliance, the Louisiana Yoga School began its first 200-hour certification program in late April. The basic program will wrap up at the end of this month, but Willemet plans to offer additional instruction time to Baton Rougeans who want it.
“Two hundred hours is like walking to the edge of a diving board and realizing that, instead of just one yoga pool, you’ve got 10 different pools that you can jump in,” she says. “Your (first) 200 hours is an introduction to what those pools are,” she explains.
With the influx of yoga studios around the city, Willemet says she wants the Louisiana Yoga School to also offer smaller workshops ranging from one-hour to month-long commitments. And for those who do want more intensive training, the school will offer extended versions of the standard 200-hour workshop.
Ultimately, Willemet sees the Louisiana Yoga School serving the students, the teachers and local yoga studios.
And through its teachings, she intends to bring the meaning of yoga back to the forefront.
