Founder Julia Ray
It is my joy, my purpose and my passion in life to help people expand into their full potential through the wisdom of the body.
Yoga
My own introduction to yoga began more than 14 years ago when I was working as a project manager in an extremely busy project management firm. My homeopathic doctor urged me to begin a yoga practice for the sake of my physical and emotional health and I complied. At the end of that first class, I felt better than I had in ages and I was hooked. I began practicing weekly, and shortly afterwards signed up for my first teacher training. That was the beginning of what has become a life-long fascination with the body as a vehicle of self-reflection, healing and transformation.
My extensive and diverse training has led me to study with many great masters and founders of the most popular styles of yoga today, including: Sri Patthabi Jois (Ashtanga/Power Yoga), Ana Forrest (Core Yoga), John Friend (Anusara Yoga), Sean Corne (Vinyasa/Flow Yoga), Hart Lazar (Iyengar/Therapeutic Yoga), as well as Cynthia Funk, Tama Soble (Restorative Yoga) and Danny Paradise (who teaches Ashtanga Yoga to celebrities including Sting and Madonna). Prior to opening the studio space, I ran my own company, Yoga Vibe, for 12 years, bringing yoga to various environments including corporations, organizations, clubs, schools, colleges, teams and private homes, as well as teaching yoga abroad.
Dreamwork
While yoga was my introduction to conscious movement, it was the practice of dreamwork that opened me to the richness and wonder of the unconscious universe and set me firmly on my soul path. Dreamwork has been at the core of my life and personal growth process for more than 17 years. I have been using Dr. Christopher Sowton’s Dreamreading Method, combined with embodied movement, in guiding clients to understand the rich imagery and soul messages of their dreams in private sessions and group workshops.
Dance
As an extension to my yoga practice, I also developed a fascination with freeform movement and in 2005 began studying various forms of therapeutic, experiential and medicine dances. I have been greatly influenced in my own movement teaching by the work of Wilbert Alix’s Trance Dance, Gabrielle Roth’s 5Rhythms, Cass Phelps’ Continuum Movement inspired explorations, The Bartenieff Fundamentals, Toni Bergin’s JourneyDance and Dianne Woodruff’s Body-in-Motion Training. In 2006 I founded the Tribal Dance Community in Toronto, which has taken on a life of its own in the west end of Toronto through Ecstatic Dance Thursdays.
I am so happy to bring together these three holistic practices at the DreamYogaDance space and look forward to supporting you in your own exploration of movement, in whichever ways you feel called.
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