Certified Breathwork Instructor · Chicago, IL
Breathwork training in Chicago.
Train as a Certified Breathwork Instructor (CBI) with Harmonika Institute in Chicago, IL. Train as a Certified Breathwork Instructor — pranayama, conscious connected breathing, and trauma-informed group work.
Chicago cohort details
- City
- Chicago, IL
- Credential
- CBI
- Tuition
- $2,800
- In-person training
- 8 days · 64h
- Live cohort calls
- 1 day · 4h
- Supervised practice
- 60h
- Portfolio + jury
- 35h
- Total
- 163h · ~20 day-eq.
- Cohort
- 10 students
- Format
- In person + live cohort calls
PDF — modules, hours, faculty notes, and a typical week's schedule.
Why Breathwork in Chicago?
Chicago has been a quiet capital of expressive arts and somatic education in the U.S. for half a century. The city's relationship with the arts — its theater, dance, and visual-art communities — has shaped a wellness scene that is more lineage-aware and less trend-driven than either coast. Our Chicago cohorts tend to be educators, social-services adjacent professionals, and artists in mid-career.
For students of Breathwork specifically, Chicago's scene is a particularly good match: strong somatic and expressive-arts traditions; lower trend volatility than the coasts. The local cohort runs in venue partners around Wicker Park, Lakeview, West Loop, with public transit and parking accessible from across the metro.
Chicago students are often 35-55, with backgrounds in education, social services, healthcare, or the arts. They tend to ask harder questions during admissions than students in trendier markets, want more substantive curriculum content, and value faculty who can speak about lineage with depth. Many of our Chicago cohorts include licensed clinical social workers (LCSWs), educators with master's degrees, and visual or performing artists — students who bring intellectual rigor to holistic practice.
What you'll be training in.
For a deeper introduction to Breathwork as a practice tradition, see the full program page.
Breathwork is an umbrella term for practices that use intentional patterns of breathing to shift psychological, physiological, and energetic states. The category includes ancient yogic pranayama (nadi shodhana, kapalabhati, bhramari, ujjayi, and many others), Tibetan Tummo, Sufi practices, modern conscious-connected breathing (Rebirthing, Holotropic, Transformational), and contemporary clinical applications (4-7-8 breathing, box breathing, coherent breathing).
What a working breathwork facilitator actually does varies widely depending on lineage and context. A pranayama-trained yoga teacher leading slow, deliberate breath ratios in a class of twenty creates a different experience than a Holotropic-trained facilitator running a five-hour group session with deliberately intensified breathing. Both are legitimate; both serve different purposes; both require structured training to do safely.
The Breathwork curriculum, in 8 in-person days.
- Foundational pranayama: nadi shodhana, kapalabhati, bhramari
- Conscious-connected breathing and similar modern styles
- Reading breathers in real time and adjusting pace
- Trauma-informed pacing and clear referral pathways
- Designing one-on-one breathwork sessions
- Leading breathwork circles of 10-40 people
When Breathwork cohorts run in Chicago.
Chicago cohorts adjust around the city's pronounced winter. Most students prefer May or September starts; January cohorts are smaller. Weather rarely cancels classes (Chicagoans are used to it), but the cohort schedule includes one snow-day buffer per month from November through March. The deep winter creates unusually strong cohort cohesion — the shared experience of trekking through January slush to attend training builds bonds that summer cohorts do not produce.
Who this Chicago cohort is for.
Yoga teachers, coaches, and somatic practitioners who want to add a powerful, well-bounded one-on-one and group modality to their work.
After graduation in Chicago.
- Open a private Breathwork practice (CBI)
- Lead breathwork circles in studios, retreats, and community settings
- Add breathwork to a yoga, coaching, or somatic practice
- Specialize in stress, anxiety, or peak performance breathwork
$2,800 for the full 20-day Breathwork program in Chicago.
Same tuition whether you study in Chicago or any of our other U.S. cities. Monthly payment plans without interest. A 25% deposit confirms your spot in the Chicago cohort.
Tuition and financing details$2,800
163h total · 8 in-person days
Breathwork certification in other Harmonika cities.
Next step
Become a Certified Breathwork Instructor in Chicago.
Talk with our admissions team about the next Breathwork cohort starting in Chicago, IL. Free, online, one hour.