petr.smil (at) gmail.com,

I practiced Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga daily since year 2002. From primary series to secondary and later into the 3rd series, I was more and more interested in the topics of breath, its relation to the movement and techniques of pranayama & meditation in general.

In 2007, during my first visit to Mysore (South India), I met Vinay Kumar, who had just started to introduce western students into his unique asana sequence called “Prana Vashya Yoga“. Although he was almost unknown among the western students coming to Mysore, he himself was already recognized as an experienced yoga practitioner (visit www.pranavashya.com for more information).

His modesty and passion for sharing yoga practices and teaching in general was quite unique.

During my next visits to India I have focused only on Prana Vashya Yoga. In January 2009 I completed Prana Vashya Yoga Teachers Training as a second European certified to introduce other practitioners into this profound yoga practice. Since then I have taught Prana Vashya Yoga to thousands of people. In order to do it effectively, I gradually developed comprehensive methodology allowing me to teach Prana Vashya to people of all levels including complete beginners.

In the same year, 2009, due to vigorous yoga sadhana I experinced kundalini awakening in Ramana Maharishi Ashram, under the foot of sacred Arunachala mountain in Tamil Nadu, South India.  This intense experience caused tremendous changes which were challenging my various beliefs and attitudes and I had to somehow manage a kind of psychospiritual emergency crisis which was following initial breakthrough into non-dual awareness. Spontaneous out-of-body and lucid dreaming experiences became daily norm and it took me several years to feel “grounded” again. Since then I started to be interested in depth psychology (mostly Jung & Mindell), altered states of consciousness and authentic Non-dual Śaiva Tantra teachings.

Today I am not interested in performing advanced yoga postures, rather I am more interested in using asana, breath & meditation for unfolding the embodied consciousness, for entering altered states of consciousness and exploring the inner worlds hidden within us. I consider asana practice as a great introduction to yoga especially for our western goal-oriented minds as it is proven and time tested method for preparing body-mind before diving deeper within oneself.

In addition to both public and private asana, pranayama & meditation classes, I organize workshops on various yoga topics, participate as a teacher in various Teacher’s Training Courses and manage yoga studio Jemný svět (i.e. Subtle World), which I found in 2011 in Prague, Czech Republic, Europe.