Sylvie Schmitt
Teacher
Originally from Lorraine, where she grew up in a village surrounded by forest, she left her region to settle in the Deux-Sèvres department in 1992 and discovered yoga in 1997, a discipline she practised assiduously for several years under the guidance of Gabriel PLESSIS (Asthanga Yoga – Mysore), before enrolling at the French School of Yoga (EFY Paris) in 2007 at the request of her yoga teacher Gabriel. She obtained her yoga teacher certificate after four years of training and is an affiliated member of the National Federation of Yoga Teachers (FNEY).
Always seeking new knowledge, she discovered and has been regularly practising Toumo Yoga (Institut International du Yoga Toumo Maurice Daubard) since 2014 and qualified as a Toumo Yoga teacher in February 2020. In 2017, she trained in Sound Yoga, obtaining a certificate from the Instituts de la Voix-Patrick TORRE.
Since childhood, Sylvie has loved and lived in the heart of nature, having lived 100 metres from a magnificent national forest. She started riding horses at around the age of 13 and has a clear preference for forest rides to encounter trees and nature over other equestrian disciplines. She has always been fascinated by trees, their beauty, their grandeur, their power and their longevity. She reads extensively on the subject, but also experiments… yes, experiments and feels: leaning against trees, for example, meditating at their feet, touching them, observing them through the seasons, listening to the music of the wind in their leaves. She quickly discovered the soothing side of nature and the connection between humans and trees, and became increasingly interested in it, eventually training in sylvotherapy with Laurence Monce in 2018, which reinforced and complemented her beliefs about trees.
Through her experiences in both yoga and sylvotherapy, Sylvie brings these two disciplines together, which she believes are inseparable, to create Sylvoyoga or SylvoYoga, because whether we like it or not, humans are an integral part of nature!
Workshop
Language
French / with translation into English
Title & Short Description of the type of Yoga Practice
Tummo Yoga is the awakening of the inner strength — the inner fire that allows us to adapt to harsh external conditions, and by extension, to the changing circumstances of life.
Through this practice, we will explore how to face challenges with awareness and calm, observing the emotions that naturally arise. In this case, the challenge will be meditation in the cold and gentle exposure of the skin to cold — an experience that helps us understand, rather than resist, our emotional and physiological responses.
Reconnecting human beings to their inner resources is also a way of protecting the environment.
When we cultivate resilience and inner balance, we reduce our dependency on external comfort and energy, aligning ourselves with more sustainable living.
From a physiological perspective, exposure to cold releases noradrenaline into the bloodstream. In the central nervous system, this neurotransmitter plays key roles in attention, alertness, emotional regulation, sleep, dreams, and learning.
