Jennifer W. Beaumont
find Jennifer Beaumont's workshops here.
Natarajasana photo by Jim Gebben
Jennifer W. Beaumont, director of Light on Yoga Institute, the Iyengar Yoga Center of Grand Rapids, has been studying and practicing yoga in the Iyengar lineage for over two decades. A Grand Rapids native, Jennifer's intense study of Iyengar yoga ignited as a freshman student at the University of Michigan. An artist and poet who graduated in the Creative Writing program and U of M, Jennifer chose to dedicate her life to the practice of the art of Iyengar Yoga. A longtime student of B.K.S. Iyengar’s method, Jennifer has studied with the Iyengar family (B.K.S. Iyengar, and his daughter, Geeta Iyengar, and son, Prashant Iyengar), Laurie Blakeney while in college at the University of Michigan, for decades with Manouso Manos, and lately with Zubin Zarthoshtimanesh, and weekly with Prashant Iyengar.
Jennifer experiences Iyengar Yoga as deeply therapeutic. A Certified Yoga Therapist, Jennifer is trained through apprenticeship through her teacher as well as the Iyengar Yoga Therapeutics program at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of Los Angeles. She was blessed by practicing near B.K.S. Iyengar for two months at the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune, India.
Jennifer began teaching Iyengar Yoga in 2003 in San Francisco. Now a Senior level Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher, she was the first CIYT in West Michigan. She currently serves as a mentoring teacher in Iyengar Yoga. The mother of two children, Jennifer has specialized prenatal Iyengar yoga training and is an experienced teacher for women experiencing the transformative changes of pregnancy and motherhood.
Jennifer experiences Iyengar yoga as a creative art form that deeply transforms the practitioner. Intense practice has improved her health and continues to bring clarity. Through a dynamic, therapeutic teaching style, Jennifer inspires students to overcome obstacles through the insights gained in consistent study in classes and realized through the power of practice.
“As a teacher, I aim to be a trustworthy reporter...to tell the truth of the action that I am performing. There are invisible directors behind the cascading, ripple of adjustments. While the buttock may pull, the back extend, and the hip grip and turn are all more visible to the eye—often the key that turns the secret locks may be really the act of presence in the humble heel. And so we feel how no point is truly disconnected or unworthy. When one part does its honest work, guided by the inner intelligence, there can be a trust that others will be touched, impacted, inspired by a willingness to be present, drawn into the spell of alignment. ”
"Beaumont teaches possibility in the moment... "
Grand Rapids Magazine
“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
“ Perfection in asana is achieved when the effort to perform it becomes effortless, and the infinite being within is reached.”
“Just as in a dream, the dreamer appears in many different ways but is one on awakening, so the universe appears to have many forms.”
“Don’t follow in the footsteps of the old poets, seek what they sought.”
“We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and bones.”
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love.
Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.”