Workshops

A four part-workshop series designed to cultivate and fine-tune self-knowledge through practices in the body, mind, and breath Practicing yoga in a group class is like playing in a symphony, each body contributing the music of its own instrument. A variety of other practices can help fine-tune the instrument—revealing blind spots, reconciling habitual patterns, and informing one's relationship to the body and mind. Katonah Yoga offers a body of theory and embodied practices that use structure, geometry, and metaphor to make the unconscious conscious. Tools and technique function as tuning forks, revealing where we are in space, time, and ultimately, ourselves. These tools provide feedback that help reconcile habitual patterns, personal tendencies, and inherited propensities, returning our relationship to nature, personal agency, and choice. This series is designed for students who wish to refine and deepen their understanding of their personal practice, as well as for teachers who are curious to explore, clarify, and elevate their teaching through applied theory and skillful means. Each module offers a unique framework to help participants refine their practice.

 

Part 1: Adjustments

Part 2: Props

Part 3: Body Reading

Part 4: Breath work + Meditation

 

Part 1: Adjustments, March 15

Learning to organize the body to be functional, sustainable and dimensional, hands on adjustments are revelatory. Just like an instrument, hands on adjustment helps us tune into our own physiology so we can take that information and transform that energy. A physical adjustment informs you from your habitual nature, your personal investment. Many classes are taught with verbal cues and assists, but a physical adjustment informs one's direction, vision and experience.

Through time and repetition of hands-on adjustments, our body's neurology remembers it, like a meaningful hug, and it begins to track that information so that we can return and find that landmark on our own.  A stable, safe and grounded adjustment will inform and expand our possibilities and overall well-being. Our goals in practice are to be powerful in our options, to find joy, and develop a healthy life-long practice. 

 

This workshop is designed for anyone who would like to deepen their knowledge and experience through adjustments. It is especially useful for the dedicated practitioner, teachers in training and teachers who wish to deepen their ability to support others through safe adjustments to further educate their students through their bodies. 

 

What to expect in this workshop:

• Breaking down postures

• Demonstrations

• Hands on adjustments - be prepared to give and receive adjustments

• Learn & experience how adjustments can transform your practice

• Introduction to Katonah Yoga® material

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Part 2 - Props, April 12

Props are used during practice as a kind of personal scaffolding to support our well-being, allowing us to transcend our personal nature and our conditioned state. They encourage our bodies to release habits, and in this way, give us a framework for expansion and exploration into our inner terrain, where consciousness and breath transform.

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Part 3 - Body Reading, May 10

The sharps and flats of life show up in the body: one’s foibles, patterns and habits. Body reading is an art: the power to see and transform old patterns into new sustainable postures. In this session, we will use templates & metaphors as a roadmap to function and ease, a return to one’s true nature. Expect a demonstration of individual body-reading along with group observation and practice.

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Part 4 - Breath work and Meditation, June 7

The breath has the power to release and move stagnant energy. We can use breath to open our imaginations, travel the mind, and support the nervous system while adding volume and space in the body.

Meditation is the art of being mindful with oneself in the present moment. By observing the quality of our conscious awareness in the body, mind and breath, meditation offers us insights and the opportunity to notice our personal narrative and patterns.