FREE ONLINE YOGA SUMMIT - Saturday Sep 12 - 11:00am–12:30pm PDT
The Art + Science of Alignment With Julia Pearring & Adam Ballenger
Recording available if you can’t make the event
To register on eventbrite see link above use access code ART to register
Alignment Reimagined: New Perspectives on Anatomy, Movement, and Awareness Through the Anusara Yoga Method
What if alignment was not about making a yoga pose look a certain way—but about understanding how the body organizes, adapts, moves, and breathes?
In many contemporary yoga classes, the emphasis is on the sequence: moving from one posture to the next, keeping the rhythm of the flow, and creating an engaging experience. While flow has tremendous value, there is often less time to explore the deeper intelligence within each posture. When we slow down enough to investigate how and why we move, yoga becomes an opportunity to develop greater body awareness, functional strength, mobility, stability, coordination, and ease.
Join internationally respected teachers Julia Pearring and Adam Ballenger for a dynamic exploration of the Universal Principles of Alignment from Anusara Yoga and discover how these principles can support healthy, sustainable, and intelligent yoga practices for every body, every age, and every level of experience.
The Universal Principles offer far more than a system for refining physical alignment. They provide a framework for observing movement and understanding the relationship between anatomy, kinesiology, biomechanics, breath, prana, awareness, and intention.
Julia and Adam bring complementary areas of expertise that will help participants look more deeply into the benefits of these principles. Their extensive backgrounds in anatomy, kinesiology, physiology, exercise science, functional movement, yoga philosophy, therapeutic applications, and the Anusara methodology offer a unique opportunity to understand not only what the Universal Principles are, but why they can be so valuable for the longevity and sustainability of a yoga practice.
Together, they will explore how the principles can help teachers and students:
Develop greater awareness of how their individual bodies move
Understand the relationship between mobility, stability, strength, and ease
Refine postures without becoming rigid or prescriptive
Recognize movement patterns and make more intelligent choices
Use alignment to support rather than restrict individual expression
Bring greater awareness into transitions as well as static poses
Adapt practices for different bodies, ages, abilities, and levels of experience
Create more sustainable practices that can evolve throughout a lifetime
Connect the physical practice with breath, prana, attention, and embodied awareness
From Alignment to Embodied Intelligence
The Universal Principles become especially powerful when we move beyond simply “getting into the pose.”
In a vinyasa practice, for example, every transition asks the body to coordinate strength, mobility, balance, breath, and attention. Rather than simply following the teacher from one shape to another, students can learn to become active participants in their own practice—observing sensation, recognizing patterns, making adjustments, and developing a deeper understanding of what their bodies need.
This is where alignment becomes embodied intelligence.
The principles give teachers a language and framework for helping students understand their own experience rather than simply replicating an external shape. They can provide meaningful choices and adaptations while honoring the tremendous diversity of human bodies.
Whether you teach Hatha, Vinyasa, Iyengar, Ashtanga, Yin, Restorative, Gentle, Therapeutic, or another approach to yoga, these principles can offer useful tools for observing movement, communicating with students, and creating practices that are both more effective and more sustainable.
Why Study the Universal Principles of Alignment?
For teachers, developing a deeper understanding of the Universal Principles can transform the way we see, teach, and respond to our students. Rather than relying solely on prescribed alignment instructions, teachers can become more skilled observers—learning to recognize what is happening within an individual body and offering appropriate options, refinements, and pathways. For students, the principles can become tools for developing a lifelong relationship with movement. They encourage us to listen more carefully, respond to sensation, understand our own patterns, and cultivate a practice that can change as we change.
This summit is an invitation to look beneath the surface of the pose and discover the intelligence that makes movement more functional, sustainable, and meaningful.
A Preview of Yoga Conference San Francisco
This free online summit also offers a preview of the offerings that will be at the heart of Yoga Conference San Francisco, May 13–16, 2027.
The conference will bring together leading teachers and presenters from diverse backgrounds and traditions for four days of immersive classes, workshops, philosophy, anatomy, alignment, pranayama, meditation, and embodied practice.
At the heart of the conference is a larger question: How can yoga become more meaningful, intelligent, inclusive, and sustainable—for ourselves, our students, and the world around us?
Join Julia Pearring and Adam Ballenger on September 20 for an inspiring and practical exploration of the Universal Principles and discover how a deeper understanding of alignment can change the way you practice, teach, observe, and move.
TEACHER BIOS
Julia Pearring, E-CAT, C-IAYT, supports students in uncovering the strength, freedom, and potential available through a deeper understanding of alignment, regardless of their individual range of movement.
Her advanced studies include extensive training in anatomy, kinesiology, physiology, and the subtle dimensions of yoga practice. Julia brings these areas of study together with the Anusara Yoga methodology to help students develop greater awareness, refinement, and confidence in their practice.
At the heart of her teaching is the belief that an active sadhana—a personal practice grounded in committed self-inquiry, curiosity, and compassion—is invaluable for both yoga teachers and practitioners.
Julia lives and teaches in New York City, where she serves as Managing Director of the World Yoga Center. She teaches Anusara Yoga retreats and trainings internationally and regularly travels to support and teach within Anusara Yoga communities.
Adam Ballenger is a 500-hour E-RYT, Certified Anusara Yoga Instructor, Teacher Trainer, Subject Matter Specialist, and Director of the Utah School of Yoga. He holds a B.S. in Exercise Science/Kinesiology and is pursuing an M.S. in Kinesiology.
Adam has practiced yoga since the early 1990s and has taught since the mid-1990s. His teaching has been shaped by more than 25 years of personal exploration, movement study, yoga philosophy, and working with the physical and emotional challenges that accompany a lifelong relationship with the body.
His approach today combines yoga, movement science, sustainable body mechanics, mindfulness, and traditional teachings in practical and accessible ways. He has a particular passion for active aging and working with older populations, developing a deeper understanding of the movement skills people need throughout the lifespan. These insights inform all of his teaching, helping students develop healthy movement patterns long before they become necessary.
Adam continues to maintain a challenging personal practice while emphasizing movement skills, longevity, functional strength, mindfulness, and sustainable mechanics. His more than two decades of study of yoga and Buddhist philosophy also inform his teaching, allowing him to bring traditional wisdom into contemporary practice in clear and practical ways.
Adam teaches locally in Salt Lake City, Utah, and travels internationally to teach and train teachers throughout Europe, Central and South America, and Asia.
Logistics
Location: Online
Saturday September 12 11am-12:30pm PDT Please use this time converter if you need.
Technology We will use Zoom. You will receive the link in the confirmation email.
Reminder emails: You will receive a reminder email 2 days before and 30 min before.
Recorded Video of the livestream session will be sent 48hr after the live session. If you cannot make the time but would like to attend, please register to receive the video link.