Allison Dennis holds a BFA in Musical Theatre with a Minor in Music from ECU where she studied Sanford Meisner's acting technique for two years. She sang in jazz, funk, and folk bands, recorded and performed as a singer-songwriter, and performed supporting and leading roles in a variety of plays and musicals.
As a child Allison was a competitive gymnast, even training with Bela Karolyi one summer.
In NYC at the turn of the millenium, she was acting and singing in Off Broadway shows, auditioning and personal training, and ultimately flying in the wildly popular Argentine circus De La Guarda. This is also about when she started writing songs on the guitar and drove across the country with her then four month old puppy, Strider. A back injury during a show brought her to yoga in 2001.
A herniated disc with nerve impingement made movement quite painful for the first three years of the injury, so her entry point to yoga was the philosophy of India, not the poses. She concentrated on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras for a decade while becoming a yoga asana teacher as therapy for her own physical pain. Once mobility returned after sincere dedication to physical therapy and pilates, Allison was finally permitted by her Physical Therapist to take on an asana practice. Within months she had signed up for her first Yoga Teacher Training.
Her training experience includes:
- Prem Sadasivananda, 500 hours of TT in the Sivananda lineage, 2005
- Body Therapy Institute, 650 hour Massage Therapy Program, 2006
- David Life, Sharon Gannon, and Manorama, 300 hour Jivamukti TT, 2008
- Swami Swaroopananda, Patanjali Raja Yoga TT, 2010 – 2013
- Mark Whitwell, Yoga of Heart TT, 2011
In addition to countless hours of continuing education and the aforementioned teachers, Allison has been deeply influenced by the classes, travels, tours, encounters, dinners, conversations, and extended satsangs she's shared with Edwin Bryant and Dr. Robert Svoboda.
From 2010-2018 Allison owned and operated Heart of Yoga School out of Carrboro, NC where she designed and taught three distinct yoga teacher trainings, culminating in a full 800 hour YTT program. She led nineteen long-term trainings while managing the School, guiding curious seekers to become teachers and home practitioners.
In 2010 Allison began her friendship with Naada Yoga Master, K. Sridhar. He inspired Allison to apply her love for music to the practice and study of Indian music and has been her primary mentor and teacher for some time. He also supported her interest in astrology as she began studies with Komilla Sutton, Renay Oshop, and now Steven Highburger.
Prem Sadasivananda has remained a shining light for Allison's spiritual development; he and Sridhar often encouraged Allison to visit India. Life finally allowed that to happen in 2016. She's returned every year since, spending about two months a year there deepening her understanding of the Indian culture that Sridhar and his wife Camilla introduced her to.
Allison is offering sessions and leading kirtan and courses on Teachable and through Zoom from her tiny home on wheels, currently located in Saxapahaw, NC. Before too long she'll be relocating to Somewheresville, CO as she continues to focus on her practice and study of Jyotish and Naada.