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| (Growing Your Practice Workshop. Creating short sequences with partners.) |
ABOUT THE COURSE
1. This course is offered not only for those who want to learn to teach, but also for those who are interested in the study of Yoga in a way that can deepen one’s understanding, experience and practice.
2. The intention is not to teach one particular style but to cultivate the experiential understanding of principles that underlie practice regardless of the style or tradition.
3. The course is divided into three parts spread out in a 7-month period. This is to give students time to absorb and integrate the lessons through self-study (through personal practice and/or teaching) during the two-month period in between the sessions.
4. It is not offered as an anatomy intensive, therefore enrollment in separate anatomy course is recommended but not required.
OVERVIEW:
This course aims to provide an experiential understanding of the foundational elements of Yoga. Following the movement of the CHAKRAS to explore four paths of Yoga – Jnana, Hatha, Bhakti, and Karma, we will proceed from the stabilizing quality of the earth in order to learn the all-important lesson of grounding. It is this basic support that we cultivate in order to stay integrated as we grow into our dynamism and power, and all the way through the finer expressions of our creative vitality.
Asana will be studied in this context - as expressions of these various aspects and states of being. This approach reveals a subtle but basic and encompassing support that allows for an integration and alignment of inner and outer. (For those with an interest in the healing aspect of Yoga—this understanding lies at the heart of Yoga’s perspective on healing, which really means “to make whole.”)
Between what is ‘innermost’ and what is ‘outermost,’ there are intermediate spaces which allow for a fuller expression of being when engaged and embodied. The particular intermediate spaces this course introduces the practitioner to is that of the systems of the body and movement patterns in our body-mind, which have a direct influence on our bodies and over-all experience.
This course aims to create an awareness of these kinds of inner support in our practice as well as the understanding that engaging, activating, and embodying them is an important link in the transformative process, a key to fuller Expression.
For more on the context of this program, please see Personal Notes About the Course.
A Note To Aspiring Teachers:
Training to become a teacher requires many years of comprehensive study in a variety of subjects. This program is not in any way meant to be a complete training but aims to provide the student with a foundational understanding and skills to get started on the teaching path. You do not come away with a script for giving a class but the grounding in the understanding that finding, cultivating, and embodying one’s true voice (the union of a well-developed mind, body, and heart) is the basis of becoming a Yoga teacher.
