Welcome!

What we’re about: Restoration and Recovery Through Movement and Breath.

We’re straight-talking yogis who don’t engage in yoga-babble. The mission of War Retreat is to bring awareness, help, and stress reduction thorough Trauma-Sensitive Yoga for people who have gone through war. Our community consists of veterans, contractors, First Responders, journalists, human rights workers and families seeking relief from the demands of war and the symptoms of PTSD. This yoga blog is veteran, military and war community-centric.

• We serve as a free social networking platform for organizations with a focus on helping with the aftermath of war through movement, breath, and trauma-sensitive yoga. While WarRetreat does not offer programs, our partners do. Our partners are on the sidebar of our blog. If you have a program for consideration, please contact us.

We share information through Facebook, this blog, and Twitter at WarRetreat.*

• War Retreat is the home of the War Photographers’ Retreat held in honor of Tim Hetherington in 2011.
• War Retreat works in cooperation with organizations that work to reduce the harmful impact of PTSD in veterans, active duty, families, and the war community at large  in the aftermath of wars, conflicts and disasters.
• WarRetreat hopes to see more scientific studies research and the gathering of empirical data to study the efficacy of yoga as a companion treatment for chronic, complex PTSD.  In order to assure long term funding for our nation’s veterans, definitive studies are needed not only for yoga, but for other movement-related therapies. We believe this is the best way to assure they are prescribed as adjunct therapies to already existing programs.
• WarRetreat welcomes organizations and people to write posts for and share their events on this blog.
• WarRetreat has a preference for organizations that are veteran-initiated and run.

Kanani Fong, and Jillian Hunsanger are the principals behind the WarRetreat blog.

Kanani is long time organizer for non profit organizations. Professionally, she is an outreach specialists for books, films, and documentaries and has worked Restrepo and High Ground. Her interest is in spreading the word about how traumatic stress is stored in the body, and finding relief through breath and body work.

Jillian Hunsanger

Jillian is a personal trainer and the youngest trauma-sensitive certified yoga teacher in the country.  Currently, she is teaching in the Fitness Center at Nellis Air Force Base. She is currently consulting on a policy manual on trauma-sensitive yoga for a national yoga corporation. Jillian lives with her partner, a former U.S. Marine, in Nevada and has also lived at Twenty Nine Palms, CA. Jillian is applying applying for doctorate programs in psychology to further her goal of working with veterans and military families.

As of 2013, MSgt Chris Eder joined us as a contributor.

MSgt Chris Eder • Baltimore

Chris Eder is a certified Vinyasa/Hatha Interdisciplinary Yoga Instructor. His yoga journey began in 1999 after he encountered the joys of a pinched sciatic nerve, and a diagnosis of Adult ADD. A friend introduced him to yoga as an alternative to pain pills and other meds. He was hooked instantly as a student.

During a 2007 deployment to Baghdad Iraq with the Air Force, Chris began teaching a morning sunrise yoga class five days a week. Upon returning to Italy for his follow-on assignment, Chris attended Yoga Fit training and began teaching Vinyasa & Hatha inspired classes. He also taught yoga to Wounded Warriors returning from combat action as part of the Warrior Resiliency Program.

Chris is a graduate of Frog Lotus Yoga’s 200 hour teacher training, specializing in Vinyasa and Hatha Interdisciplinary classes. His classes are fun but focused. Chris has an infectious energy and mixes traditional yoga music with mainstream music. His intelligent sequencing and motivation make for an inspiring yoga experience. Chris is a 22-year Air Force veteran, still serving since August 1990. When not teaching yoga, he is teaching aspiring military broadcast journalists.

At the training seminar on Trauma-Sensitive Yoga for yoga teachers and therapists, at Kripalu..

Participants at the War Photographers’ Retreat in Cambridge MA

Journalist Dave Tobin & LtCol (Ret) Paul Fanning at the War Photographers’ Retreat.