3 HOUR FRIDAY WORKSHOPS: (5:30 - 8:30 pm, $35 + tax, Please call 304.296.1744 for information)

June 18, 2010 Healthy Knees and Hips with Yoga

Among the most used and most injured of our joints, the knees and hips often need extra care in order to enjoy the strengthening and flexibility that comes from practicing asana.  The knees and hips interact in a very complex way due to the limited range of motion in the knee and the much wider range of motion in the hips.  This means that whenever we do poses that bring mobility in the hips, we have take care keep the knees neutral.  And whenever we do stretches that benefit the knees directly we can involve the hips in ways that enhance those benefits.  In this workshop we will practice poses from many categories with attention to obtaining the most benefits to the knees and hips. 

July 16, 2010  Opening the Rib Cage—the Key to Vitality

Respiration occurs when the diaphragm is pulled down toward the abdominal cavity and the rib cage expands.  The efficiency with which lungs absorb the oxygen from the atmosphere, as well as the efficiency with which the lungs expel the carbon dioxide from the blood is related to how well the rib cage expands, how well the diaphragm works, and whether the tissues (bronchioles) and blood vessels in the lungs are relaxed or not (i.e. whether one is anxious or relaxed).  These factors determine vitality to a large degree.  So if there is muscle tension in the back muscles, or in the intercostal muscles, the pectorals, or if one is feeling anxious, then the breath is restricted to some degree.  We will practice poses in this workshop that bring mobility to all the muscles that are involved in respiration and vitality.  These include poses from all categories of poses such as backbends, forward bends, twists and inversions. And the sequence of poses will be chosen with the intension of improving vitality. 

August 13, 2010 How to Work with Asymmetries in Your Body

One of the most surprising events that occurs in many yoga practitioner’s experience of yoga is the discovery of asymmetries in their body: the two sides have differences in strength, flexibility and balance.  This discovery can be frustrating at first, but with some patience we can come to accept that finding asymmetries really represents progress.  Once we can embrace those asymmetries, then we can begin to work with them.  That is, we can begin to cultivate evenness, for in the effort to create evenness we find new freedoms of movement in the body and greater mental clarity and focus.  In other words, we come to know how our structural imbalances have had impacts on our mental and emotional lives, even though those effects are largely unconscious.  This workshop will give you a chance to become aware of and learn how to work the unevenness in your body. 

September 24, 2010 Incorporating Restorative Poses in Your Practice

The importance of restorative poses to one’s practice cannot be overstated.  Depending on who we are, we may feel different proportionate needs for restorative poses and active poses, different need to feel rested and invigorated.  Taken as a group, restorative poses have many different effects and functions.  Such poses as supta baddhakonasana (reclining bound angle pose), supta virasana (reclining hero’s pose), and salamba sarvangasana from a chair (supported shoulder stand from a chair) have specific effects and benefits.  Practiced as restorative poses, they provide 1) rest to the structural body (muscles and joints), 2) rest to the organic body (digestive organs, reproductive organs, heart, lungs, brain), 3) increased blood flow to various organs, depending on the pose, 4) rest to the central nervous system, and 5) balance in the autonomic nervous system.   Restorative poses can also be practiced for their therapeutic benefits.  For example, they can help with recovery from effects of excessive stress (for example, from overworking, anxiety, or depression), or from injuries (for example, back pain, neck and shoulder pain, plantar fasciitis).  This workshop will focus many of these aspects of restorative poses.

October 22, 2010 The Meditative Side of Yoga

The practice of asanas (poses) has classically had the purpose of preparing the practitioner for sitting meditation.  The aim of yoga has been to discover the spiritual aspect of our being, and sitting quietly in meditative practice has been the yogic way of facilitating spiritual experience.  As Patanjali states in the Yoga Sutras, the aim of yoga is to still the fluctuations in the mind, which has the result of allowing our being to rest in awareness of our true Self (rather than the relatively limited self defined by, for example, possessions, and likes and dislikes).  It is important to cultivate a sitting practice, but there is a meditative side to the practice of asanas that teaches us how to have a quiet mind in any posture, and in the middle of active movement.  When we practice poses with an awareness of the appropriate actions, as well as their shapes, we culture our mind as well as our bodies.   In this workshop we will do asanas that prepare the mind and body for sitting practice, some Pranayama that further prepares the mind for meditation, and we will go over the basics of a sitting practice.   

December 10, 2010 Aligning the Layers of the Being

When ancient yogis practiced yoga, they experienced different aspects of their nature that they felt were effectively divisible into five layers they called ‘koshas’, or ‘sheathes’.  The five koshas are annamayakosha (layer of the structural body), pranamayakosha (layer of energy or prana, which includes the organic body and emotions), manomayakosha (layer of the sensing and perceiving mind), vijnanamayakosha (layer of the discerning, judging and reasoning mind), and anandamayakosha (layer of bliss).  The practice of asana and Pranayama aligns each of these layers in a progressive way that starts from the coarsest layer, considered to be annamayakosha, to the most subtle, anandamayakosha.  The attention to alignment that is one of the hallmarks of Iyengar yoga has the initial purpose of starting with the physical body, and it has the ultimate purpose of aligning all the layers of the being.  As the layers become more aligned within themselves and with the other layers, then there is greater awareness of and connection to the deepest aspect of ourselves, our true self.  The purpose of this workshop is to explain what it means to align all the layers of the being, and to link all the layers of the being to the practice of asanas.   
 
2 HOUR SATURDAY WORKSHOPS: (3 - 5 pm, $20 + tax, Please call 304.296.1744 for information)

 

SPECIAL TOPICS WORKSHOPS: Please call 304.296.1744 for information

April 10, 2010, 2 - 5 pm, An introduction to self-help bodywork tools Craig Wilger, Licensed Massage Therapist & Workshop Leader. Here is information about the workshop. 

You will learn to use your hands and a variety of inexpensive tools to release muscle tightness and adhesions and restore your body to a full range of motion. Once released, muscles can be stretched safely and effectively. Athletes, dancers, martial artists, yoga practitioners, body workers, office workers, anyone with muscle pain or dysfunction or repetitive motion stress will benefit. Workshop limited to 16 participants, all tools are provided and are available for purchase. Specific workshops on the back & neck, arms and legs to follow .

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