About Deborah
I understand this stage of life, because I'm living it too.
I'm Deborah Pennington. I teach restorative yoga and healthy aging to women over 50 in Nicholasville, Lexington, and Central Kentucky. My work is small and intentionally personal: one woman, one practice, shaped around where she is today.
Four decades of practice
Yoga has been part of my life for more than forty years.
It has travelled with me alongside a long career, through busy seasons and quiet ones. As I stepped back from the demands of executive work and thought carefully about how I wanted to spend this part of my life, I kept returning to it.
My own aging changed how I think about yoga. I became more interested in what women actually need as their bodies and lives change: strength without punishment, movement without performance, meaningful rest, adaptability, and confidence.
Restorative yoga brought those interests together.
What I bring
Thirty-five years in healthcare shaped the way I teach.
Before focusing more fully on yoga, I spent more than 35 years in healthcare leadership, physician recruitment, business development, and advisory work. I'm not leaving that experience behind. I'm bringing it into a more personal kind of work.
It means I listen carefully before I suggest anything. I'm organized and practical. I respect the realities of aging and health without treating you as fragile, and I never make claims yoga can't keep. You'll find me straightforward, warm, and attentive to the details that make a practice feel right.
Traditions and teachers
I've studied with respected teachers across several traditions.
My background includes Ashtanga yoga, including Mysore-style practice; hatha yoga; Iyengar-influenced alignment; restorative and therapeutic yoga; pranayama; meditation; and yoga philosophy. My current work with Judith Hanson Lasater and Lizzie Lasater through Relax & Renew® has brought restorative yoga and healthy aging into much sharper focus.
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Mysore, India
Shri K. Pattabhi Jois and Saraswathi Jois
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Restorative
Judith Hanson Lasater and Lizzie Lasater
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Alignment & practice
David Swenson, Laura Spaulding, Doug Keller, Ramanand Patel, and Francois Raoult
Experience
Credentials, briefly.
My experience is here to reassure you, not to impress you. What matters most is how you feel in your first session.
- Practice More than 40 years of personal yoga practice
- Teaching More than 2,000 hours of classroom instruction; E-RYT 200
- Teacher training Founder of a Yoga Alliance–certified 200-hour teacher training program; Founder and Lead Trainer, Red River Gorge Yoga; lead teacher trainer for studios in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, and Ohio
- Specialties Yoga for older adults, chronic conditions, restorative yoga, yoga nidra, meditation, Ashtanga, and corporate wellness
- In progress Relax & Renew® advanced restorative yoga training with Judith Hanson Lasater and Lizzie Lasater
Beyond the mat
I don't believe wellness should become another full-time job.
Outside of teaching, what matters most to me is my faith and church community, my family and friendships, my health, travel, learning, and my own yoga and restorative practice.
I'm at a stage of life where I value both engagement and spaciousness: meaningful work, and time for the people and ordinary pleasures that make life rich. That perspective shapes how I teach. Your practice should fit your life, not take it over.
In their words
She taught me how to meet people where they are, without judgment. Deborah also helped me embrace the rapid changes in my own body.
I came to yoga as a complete novice, and Deborah met me with extraordinary patience and kindness.
She gave clear cues that helped me understand the poses. I still practice several days a week and continue to use many of the cues she taught me.
Her passion and grace in using yoga as a healing, restorative practice is what made my study with her so very special.
I'd be glad to meet you.
Your first private session begins with a conversation about what brought you here and what you'd like to feel.