Studio Deep Calm offers Purna Yoga, a complete yoga which includes alignment-based asanas, meditatio In the 1990s she began to practice yoga in Chapel Hill, NC.
About the Teacher, Anna Williamson
For three decades Anna was an artist who made art, earned art degrees in America and Italy, and taught art in two colleges in Tennessee and North Carolina. Over the years she has studied with four of the world's leading yoga teachers in America and Canada. Yoga has taught Anna the art of going within and finding the energy that can penetrate outward throughout all the layers of body and mind. Yoga is the most intimate, challenging, and exhilarating of all transformative experiences. Anna began to teach yoga in 2003 and now finds herself teaching a groups of people who have begun to open themselves up to the wonder of yoga in different communities in central North Carolina. As we unveil ourselves over time, we move into one integrative body that turns us into a living new form. Credentials
Certified in 2006 as a Purna Yoga Teacher with over 2000 hours of teacher training (with Savitri and Aadil Palkhivala www.purnayoga.com)
Advanced training in Yoga Nidra iRest Integrative Restoration with Richard Miller (www.nondual.com)
Certified with the late Esther Myers in 2002 (Toronto, Canada) with over 500 hours of teacher training
Registered with Yoga Alliance, 500 Hour Level since 2003
MFA in Art at UNC Chapel Hill, NC in 1991
MA in Sculpture, Villa Schifanoia (Florence, Italy) in 1970-1971
Teaching Experience
Hillsborough Yoga & Healing Arts since 2011, Hillsborough NC
Purna Yoga East since 2010, Clayton NC
Studio Deep Calm Yoga Studio since 2003, Laurinburg NC
Yoga Johns Yoga Studio since 2003, Laurinburg NC
Assist Aadil Palkhivala in Purna Yoga Teacher Training at Moksha Yoga Studio in Chicago, Illinois 2008, 2009
St. Andrews College Art Department 1977-1990
Shelby State Community College Art Department 1973-1976
02/20/2022
Today I will bury Johnsie, my cat for 21 years, the first year that I taught yoga was 2001, so she was in alignment with my new teaching career and some of you will remember her joining us when Studio Deep Calm was added to the farmhouse with the great yoga wall ! Yesterday my friends Lisa and Haley helped dig a hole for her burial. She is beautiful in the Pause before her next journey.
She is a great yoga teacher. Her movements into stillness, her Downward Facing Dog Poses, her frequent yoga nidras inspired me . She embodied unconditional Love in my household for almost a quarter of a century. Her gifts will carry on in her so called absence. Just like an art installation, when it is taken down , one can still see it there even in its absence.
05/18/2021
Jennifer Daly from Feathered Pipe Ranch took this amazing image of me in 2014. It is a place and space that I was in complete harmony with myself bwhic included being a mirror for the lake and big sky Montana, and all who grew inwardly there led by the extraordinary creators of this sacred spot on earth.
05/18/2021
05/19/2019
Studio Deep Calm is still being refinished on the inside. There is a lot to put back or throw away!
My husband, Joel, may be about to move to a new floor in the nursing care facility at our retirement community.
I will be in management mode for a while but I will be able to come to Johns and offer you classes when all is clean and in order (Saucha....one of the Yamas and Niyamas that we experience in yoga). So, I must get all those mats and blankets washed after all the work over the last 6 months).
All is well. "All Life is Yoga". Joel is happy and visits our house in independent living each evening and we sit under the canopy of the trees that are our backyard (a private woods that only we seem to have access to. I call it the Upanishad ( literally this means to draw near and to sit down with)
I so look forward to be opening the studio again and to be near (our Upanishad) other Yoginis experiencing Yoga together with Aadil's spinal regenerative series. I have been brushing up on the series at Purna Yoga East in Clayton from time to time to just absorb its beauty and regenerative powers.For those of you that have been with me for awhile, you have been doing them for awhile.
08/29/2018
An 8 week session entitled "Moving into the Integrity of Yoga" will begin in October 2018 at Studio Deep Calm. Specific details will be forthcoming as well as some preliminary classes in September that are basic fundamental classes that will prepare you for the 8 week session.
04/11/2018
Studio Deep Calm is closed for several weeks while Anna takes a break after an 8 week session which celebrated B.K.S. Iyengar’s inspiring book The Tree of Yoga . I loved this series and I could do it over and over again and again refining and refining.
Over my break we are tending to our house in Chapel Hill and doing our taxes and managing our affairs.
I will get to ponder when I can offer some make up times for those of you who missed classes.
I just want to express how much it meant to me to be teaching Purna Yoga again. My teacher Aadil Palkhivala was a student of Iyengar since he was 7 years old. I spent many summer weeks at Feathered Pipe Ranch with the teacher
Erich Schiffmannn who also studied with Iyengar live for many years as did Richard Miller who created iRestyoganidra who has been one of my very special teachers too.
For those of you that ventured out to Studio Deep Calm in Johns Station this past winter ... I look forward to being with each of you again and to continue to create a very powerful atmosphere for us to experience the fullness of Yoga. Thank you for helping me create a place for you .
03/21/2018
We will be back in Studio Deep Calm this coming Sunday. I had a wonderful workshop this past weekend at Triangle Yoga Studio in Chapel Hill NC wth Jeffrey Crespo. ( yoga nidra) I learned a lot, experienced a lot in those 10 hours. Look forward to sharing.
01/29/2018
The Tree of Yoga Series Part I and/or Part II will offer you an authentic experience of yoga. If you are interested in weither or both of these 8 week sessions please write Anna at anna@studiodeepcalm.com.
01/26/2018
The Tree of Yoga Series Part I
Feb 4 through April 8 2018 Sundays from 4-5:30.
01/11/2018
Hello yogis! Very soon we will announce our class offerings. Some classes will begin Feb 4 2018 at Studio Deep Calm in Laurinburg NC.
05/31/2017
With a new studio floor and deck, it seems like a good idea to plan a Summer Solstice event with yoga and celebration! Mark June 21st at 6pm on your calendar!
12/07/2016
Last week's class was wonderful and I enjoyed being with all of you. This week we will continue working on ways to be ego-less by practicing Being Present with alignment and quieting the mind.
See you Friday at 5:30.
11/30/2016
Studio Deep Calm Yoga Studio is offering a 4-class yoga session based on the theme “Asmita” which means “the ego”. This obstacle (klesha) will be applied to the practice of asana (the postures) as well as to our whole life. It is easy for us in the West to measure physical prowess by comparing ourselves to others who are more flexible—and we get trapped in the belief that the forms of the practitioner are the goal. Join me to realize that this is not the goal. Learn to perceive progress in new ways.
Dates and Time: Friday nights (Dec 2,9,16, and 30) from 5:30 to 7pm
Location: 16741 Old Maxton Road in Laurinburg North Carolina 27514 (at the corner of the volunteer fire station and 501 South—take a left on Old Maxton Road and park in front of the first house on the left).
Come into the front door and sign in at the table down the hall. Take off your shoes and come on in! Props are provided but you may bring your own personal mat if you like.
Contact me if you are interested. anna@studiodeepcalm
cell phone: 919 619 9973
11/17/2016
Hi all! I'm currently repairing from the hurricane and planning to teach regularly in February 2017.
Meanwhile I'm going to teach a free 4-session class in December based on the theme of Asmita (Ego) using the postures. December 2, 9, 16, 30 from 5:30-7pm at Studio Deep Calm in Laurinburg.
10/19/2015
Hello all. I'm not able to teach right now but am hopeful that I can teach in early 2016. I'll be in touch soon!
10/28/2014
Theme: "Facing the Unknown"
Preparations for Inversions
Postures: Downward Facing Dog, a series of Shoulder Openings, Standing Wide Angle Forward Bend, Passive Restorative Inversions and Shoulderstand Prep (all can be modified for any level) and a 20 minute Yoga Nidra practice that focuses on the Breath Body.
When we start playing with yoga poses that are not part of our everyday physical vocabulary, we begin to understand our visceral and intellectual ways of dealing with the unknown. Dealing with the unfamiliar teaches us how to react in the face of being lost.
How do you react in a threatening situation? How can we approach an Inversion in a less goal oriented way?
I am beginning to understand where each of you are for most of the families of poses. Rest assured that you will be safe and you will be guided to do just what you are ready to do. I will have each of you in mind as I prepare the class.
An Inversion in yoga means that your head is lower than your pelvis, so Standing Forward Bend is an Inversion and we have done that many times. Lying on our back and resting our shins on a chair is an Inversion. So everyone will be able to do one or two and more.
Here are a few of the benefits:
Your organs will find relief as they drop into your upper cavity.
Your shoulders and arms will feel as if they are both supporting and expressing your heart.
Some Inversions require that your hands be very receptive and responsive, fingers broadly spread. We will work on this! In case of not being able to use your wrists, we will use our elbows and forearms.
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Anna Williamson, a certified Purna Yoga Teacher at the 2000 hr level since 2006 has taught yoga at Purna Yoga East in Clayton, NC and other studios in the Triangle Area. She owns and teaches at Studio Deep Calm (formerly Yoga Johns) since 2001. She trained initially with the late Esther Myers (500 hr) in 2001 and with Anusara Yoga (200 hr) in 2011. She became a certified iRest Yoga Nidra teacher in 2011. She has had advanced training at the Center of Timeless Being with Richard Miller in 2009. She has attended yoga workshops, retreats and conferences for many years with great teachers including Erich Schiffmann at Feathered Pipe Ranch for more than a decade. She has attended five consecutive years of 10 day retreats with Aadil Palkhivala and Savitri in Hawaii and keeps her recertifications active.
She taught art for 20 years at two institutions of higher learning, after having received her MA in Art in Florence, Italy at Villa Schifanoia in the 70’s where she cast bronze sculptures. In 1991 she received her MFA in Art at UNC Chapel Hill,NC. She exhibited her works on paper and installation pieces for a decade with awards including a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts in 1991 in San Francisco. In 1979 she became a participant in Richard Demarco’s Journey as an Art Form where she sailed the Irish Seas with a small group of artists through the Isles of Scilly on an exact replica of the Beagle which Charles Darwin used for his expeditions. On the campus of St Andrews, she brought other participants from the Art Journey --Chicago artist John David Mooney who did a Light installation with most of the student body on the lake--an outdoor piece that mirrored a constellation that happens every 50,000 years. She did a residency with Robert Morris (American Minimalist) and later with Mel Chin at the New Smyrna Center for the Arts in Florida. With Morris she did a series on tornados after an experience that she had in 1984 inside the vortex of a tornado. She has taught in Italy several semesters during her tenure at St Andrews University in Laurinburg NC at Brunnenburg Castle in the Tyrol in Italy. Her first career spills over into her second career as a Yoga Teacher.
She is now beginning a series of art works based on a great epic poem by the yoga sage Sri Aurobindo . This body of work will be an expression of her communion with this great piece of literature entitled Savitri .
Anna and her husband Joel spend long weekends at her beloved farmhouse (where they were married in 1984 and where Joel wrote his last book, on Elvis) and yoga studio in Laurinburg, NC, where she teaches Purna Yoga and Yoga Nidra.
Studio Deep Calm is a century old 4000 square foot farmhouse on two acres of land. It includes an 800 square foot yoga studio. The Great Yoga Wall and many other props are used in Anna’s teaching, as she has had over a decade of exposure with Iyengar lineage which is the base for Purna Yoga asana teaching. Safe and skillful alignment-based teaching along with a heart-centered approach to teaching is the essence of Purna Yoga. A new outdoor studio for future sunrise and sunset classes adds another unique space in good weather.
One other special fact about Studio Deep Calm. The house is sitting on top of craters from prehistoric meteor marks that happened in Scotland County and parts of Russia.
