Mastery
Program 1: Samudrik Shastra/Body Reading: The Art of Seeing Each Other More Deeply
This workshop is an opportunity for yoga instructors, body workers, and somatic educators to dive into Samudrik Shastra, the “Ocean of Knowledge,” by exploring the roles of seeing and awareness in observing and assessing the body. Samudrik Shastra/body reading, or somato-typology is a useful tool for understanding the human organism and the integration of mind and body, psyche, soma, and spirit. Many models for “reading” bodies, constitution, and personality have been used throughout history, each with strengths and weaknesses. In this workshop the historical and experiential foundations of somato-typology will be reviewed—including the roles of awareness, embodiment, comparison, contrast, and figure-ground relationship. The class will then look at a number of models of “body reading” including Ayurvedic models, Western constitutional models, Oriental models, characterological models, autonomic models, reflex models, organ system models, and others. A 3-step method—the “O-N-E” method—for developing advanced skills in body reading will be presented and practiced. Through practicing the 3-step method and using photographs and live examples, these models will then be compared, contrasted, critiqued, and integrated to reveal new ways of seeing/assessment which will offer participants a truly individualized and personal approach to teaching and practicing yoga, and to allow them to work less and achieve more in their practice. Practice sessions in seeing will be emphasized. This seminar offers practitioners and teachers the foundations for developing a true “mastery” of yoga practice and teaching.
Program 2: The Power of Touch
In this seminar we will explore the role of touch and kinesthesia in the practice and teaching of yoga. Touch serves many roles including as a tool for communication, a modality for healing, and a means for creating relationship. Through discussion, group work, and experimentation we will explore body structure, movement, sensation, perception, and emotion with the goal of cultivating greater presence and awareness that will lead to a richer experience of touch in yoga practice and in our lives.
Program 3: Language, Communication, and Yoga
In this class we will look at speech, language, and other forms of communication used in the yoga class, and how they affect our experience of class.
Rhythms, volume, and qualities of speech can have a profound effect on shaping our states of awareness, and can serve or detract from the desired goals of the class. Through cultivating our communication skills through sensory awareness, we can expand the possibilities for communication and bring more richness and aliveness to our yoga practice and teaching.
Program 4: Mastery and Movement (in Yoga and Life)
We each move in a unique and individual way. How we move is an expression of who we are. In this class we will explore movement as a bio-psycho-spiritual phenomena. We will observe how body structure and “character” affect how we move, and how our movement patterns relate to styles of thinking and states of awareness. We will explore embodiment—the moment to moment experience of body as self—and expanded embodied awareness. Through cultivating awareness of how we move, we can begin to move more easily, both in practicing yoga, and in moving through life.
Program 5: Beyond Pranayama
Our breath reflects our aliveness, and moves and animates us. It also allows us to recede, release, and “expire.” There is no proper breathing, yogic or otherwise. Breathing practices, in general, including pranayama, often add more layers of conditioning to our already over-conditioned being. Through seeing, experiencing our breath, and experiential learning we will explore ways to free and balance our breathing leading to more responsiveness and aliveness in our practice and in life.