Valerie Jeremijenko

Australian-born Valerie Jeremijenko, (PhD, ERYT 500), is the Lead Partner and Director of Yoga Programming and Teacher Trainings. She has been teaching since 1991, training yoga teachers since 2007 and was the founder, owner, and director of the highly acclaimed Yama Yoga Studios in Qatar for 15 years before relocating to Thailand. 

Over the 30 years of her practice she has studied with such luminaries as Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, R. Sharath Jois, John Scott, Graeme Northfield, Tim Miller, Dave Oliver, Eddie Stern, Lino Miele, Richard Freeman, Dharma Mitra and many many others. In addition to 15 plus trips to India to study within traditional lineages she has hosted and studied with internationally acclaimed teachers in contemporary forms. Theses include Dylan Werner, Simon Borg Olivier, Alison West, Nicky Knoff, Lisboa & Simon Calder, Kristina Karitinou, Noah Mckeena, Dice & Briohny, Brian Campbell (Forest), Max Storm, Petri & Wambui, Jules Febre, Renee Mcnamaro Cerro, Michael Gannon, Yogeswari, Bridget Woods Krammer, Kathryn Budig, Adam Keen, Ian Lewis (Iyengar), Paddy McGrath (Scarvelli), Julie Martin (Flow), Yogeswari (Jivamukti), and many, many others. Her yoga anatomy studies have included extensive studies in the facial and nervous systems with her current studies focusing on pain science. Her anatomy teachers including Tom Myers, Simon Borg Oliver, Joseph Muscolino, Leslie Kaminoff, among others. Her ongoing studies of yoga philosophy has included innumerable programs with the Oxford Center for Hindu Studies, Carlos Pomeda, Embodied Philosophy and Yogic Studies. Her meditation practice is rooted in the tradition of Vipassna. Over the years she has completed 4 ten-day silent retreats in this form and served in their Japanese and Queensland centers.

As a teacher Valerie is simultaneously charismatic, challenging and nurturing. She infuses her classes with compassion, humour and intelligence and encourages her students to see each practice as an archetypal voyage into self healing and discovery. Her class forms include dynamic lead ashtanga, creative vinyasa, dharma-inspired hatha, and technical workshops. She also offers programs in myofascial release, natural breathing, yoga nidra, emotional balance and mediation. Valerie is known as a teacher’s teacher and has offered teacher trainings programs in Doha since 2007 and at her summer retreat center in Bulgaria since 2012. To date she has graduated over 500 200-hour teachers and 200 plus teachers from the 300-hour program who now teach world-wide. In addition to being a yoga entrepreneur and teacher Valerie is also a writer. How We Live our Yoga (Beacon, 2001) is a collection of literary essays reviewed to high acclaim in such notable publications as the New York Times, The Village Voice and Publisher’s Weekly. One of the first of its kind, the collection explores the way yoga transformed the lives of notable writers, thinkers and teachers. An e-version of this classic text was released in August 2020.

Having raised 4 daughters and working full time for many years, Valerie is now committed fully to her practice, to her students- past, present, and future, and to the renewal of Ananda Yoga and Detox Center.