Doug Keller - April 19th-20th, 2024
How to register: Registration is now closed.
What we will learn in this workshop: So much! A complete description of the workshop contents are included at the bottom of this message. If you want to read about Doug Keller, here is his bio, http://www.doyoga.com/about-us.htm
Cost to attend this workshop: $225 Payment needs to be received by April 14th. Ways to pay are cash, check to Yoga Loft, or PayPal to Mary Beth Nehl.
Meals & Snacks: Meals, snacks and beverages are not provided, though meal and comfort breaks are part of the schedule. Please bring your own food and beverages. The Yoga Loft does have a refrigerator, microwave and small break room area.
Bring with you: Your yoga mat, a way to take notes if you are a note-taker, whatever you need for your personal comfort. The Yoga Loft does have bolsters, blankets and blocks.
Workshop Description:
Friday 1pm to 5pm
Principles of Safe Hip Opening and Low Back/Sacral Health
Hip openers are universal to yoga practice: we’ll be taking a look at why they are indeed beneficial and essential, and how to do them safely and effectively.
Hip openers are vital for increasing our general comfort with all forms of sitting, for supporting low back and knee health, and even for releasing pent-up tension in the pelvic and low back area from emotional stress. And they have a significant role to play in maintaining the health of the cartilage of the hip joints themselves, in an era in which hip replacements are becoming more and more common-place.
A healthy hip practice demands moderation and self-awareness, along with an appreciation of the nature and needs of the hip joints, and awareness of warning signs of stress or problems. We will include props and variations for working productively with different age and body types, and at the same time set forth clear principles that will provide you with guidance for no matter who you’re dealing with — including yourself!
We ALL can benefit from hip practices at any age — in fact, it’s essential that we do, while respecting our own boundaries. This will be a wide-ranging session of both learning and practice!
Friday 6:15 to 8pm
Understanding the Vagus Nerve in Asana and Pranayama — and Why It’s Central to Yoga
While it is only fairly recently that attention has shifted to the role of the Vagus Nerve in our modern understanding of health and well-being, the Vagus Nerve has always been central to yoga practice, particularly with the advent of hatha yoga. The yogis just didn’t use the same language to describe it!
In this evening session, we’ll have an introduction to this all-important member of the ‘cranial nerves,’ and after an introduction to how it is stimulated in asana (which we’ll follow up with on Saturday), we’ll focus mainly and experientially on how it is stimulated through breath practices as well as meditation techniques which include visualizations. And we’ll explore how the fundamental reasons for the practice of the bandhas during pranayama, which are almost entirely devoted to supporting this experience.
We’ll go step by step, balancing learning with practice, for a deep, powerful, and enlightening evening centered around breath, meditation, and relaxation with insights we can really relate to.
Saturday 9am to 12pm
Deeper Than Alignment: The Secrets of the Power of Practice Lie in the Vayus
As our modern understanding of the body and mind improves, we are better able to understand the benefits of yoga as a whole body-mind practice. What we need, of course, is a better understanding of how to access and enjoy these benefits in our own practice.
The founders of yoga — the Upanishads and later the hatha yogis — had a language for this. The ‘Vayus’ are the ‘powers’ of Prana that maintain and enhance every aspect of our health and well-being. Our modern understanding of the nervous system parallels this explaining how it governs our mental and emotional well-being, our immune, hormonal, and digestive systems, as well as regulating our experience of pain. What science lacks is a connection to practice.
In this session, which focuses largely but not exclusively on the shoulders, we’ll explore the first three fundamental Vayus — Vyana (feeling), Prana, and Apana — and how to enhance our experience of their support in asana practice.
Building on ideas introduced on Friday about the joints, we’ll go deeper into exploring space and freedom in the body — in the joints. The key to freedom in the body lies not in stretching muscles, but in the joints. Address the joints first, and flexibility and strength in the muscles follows, as well as the reduction of pain problems. If we understand this, it’s much easier to craft effective variations as people — and joints — age.
The shoulders are a great example, and we’ll be exploring actions and variations in the shoulders that find ‘space’ in the shoulders, as well as expansion of our personal sense of ‘space,’ which is the foundation of our continued growth and development. As a very recent idea regarding brain health in science, it’s called ‘peripersonal space.’ In the Upanishads they called it Vyana Vayu, which flows through our nadis, both within and beyond the physical body.
Connected with this, in the practice, we’ll explore the experiential meaning of ‘Prana’ and ‘Apana’ in the body (and not just the breath), and how these two bring us to mental, emotional, and physical equilibrium.
Saturday 1pm to 4:30 (or a little beyond)
Yoga: How We Grow as Embodied Souls
A quiet revolution took place in yoga as the idea of self or ‘soul’ as static and unchanging, ‘trapped’ in the body, was replaced by an understanding of how our soul grows through being embodied, and ‘spirituality’ is the journey of that growth, which we make together.
Equilibrium — which is encapsulated in the idea of Samana Vayu — is the foundation for fulfilling intention (Udana Vayu) as we make that journey.
The afternoon session will include some warmups for finding that equilibrium within, holding the space for some discussion of the very meaning of ‘soul’ and its relation to some modern terms concerning how we grow as embodied beings, and finally the exploration of these experiences of equilibrium, clarity, and expansion of consciousness in breath, meditation, and Yoga Nidra.
