Joanna Konopczyńska

Joanna Konopczyńska has practised yoga since 2006. She completed her teacher training (2017–2020) with Katarzyna Pilorz, an Iyengar yoga teacher at Senior Intermediate II level, with whom she also took a year-long course in yoga therapy. She trains regularly with the Iyengar Yoga Association of Poland, of which she is a member.

In the Iyengar method poses are held longer, with precise alignment of the pelvis, spine and feet, and props — blocks, straps, blankets — close the distance between the practitioner and the pose. That is why in her class you start from the version you can do today, not the one in the textbook. It is isometric work: the deep trunk muscles, the glutes and the adductors learn to stabilise, not merely to stretch.

Beyond the Iyengar method she has completed a course in fascial yoga with Wojciech Kaczmarzyk and a course in breath therapy with Sandra Osipiuk, a respiratory physiotherapist. She keeps deepening her knowledge of functional anatomy and the biomechanics of movement — that is what decides how a pose is matched to a spine that spends eight hours a day on a chair.

At Teho Sport she leads Spine and Hip Yoga — a class for desk workers, for anyone 30+, 40+ or 50+, for runners and strength trainees who lack hip mobility, and for anyone who has never done yoga. The group is open to all levels, the session lasts 75 minutes, and the club provides the mats and props.