Series 2 - Class #01 with Lisa: Sideways with Somatic Yoga

Side bends inhabit a liminal space of possibility. We are neither moving forwards or backwards but in the fertile soil of ‘in-between asana’. This class will focus on developing a conscious conversation between our right and left sides, and investigates how our sides talk to our midline. We will investigate how to grow yoga asana from simple somatic exercises. You are invited to....

• Learn how to use somatic exercises as an exquisitely intelligent preparation for yoga asana.
• Investigate how to align bones and free myofascial knots and tensions.
• Discover how to lay down inner movement pathways for seamless flow.
• Experience the ease, freedom and strength that comes from being aligned from the inside out.

This class includes yoga, somatics, embodied anatomy, breathwork, movement inquiry, developmental movement and bio-tensegrity. It is suitable for students from all streams of yoga.  Bring a curious mind, a willingness to explore, and a love of movement.

Series 2 - Class #02 with Donna: Movement as Meditation

“The moment opens.  In it are contained

Like tiny seeds a million more divisions.”

~ Jewel of the Moon, William Kotzwinkle

When we invite present moment awareness into our yoga practice there is an opportunity to saviour the granularity of sensation. What we might have once experienced as a blunt transition or a final end-point or threshold, can be transformed into a delicate and differentiated experience that opens doors into new possibilities and potentials. When we open into the moment, there are indeed many more divisions; made up of distinct, subtle and sometimes ineffable experience.

In this class we’ll explore a broad range of movements and yoga practices with the view to heightening our awareness of how we enter into a practice, how we sustain and explore it, and how we can expand our threshold for deepening.

Series 2 - Class #03 with Neal: Kindness in Motion

“When you carry out acts of kindness you get a wonderful feeling inside. It is as though something inside your body responds and says, yes, this is how I ought to feel.”~ Harold Kushner

It has long been a passion of mine to bring kindness into my personal Yoga practice, my teaching, and into my life. I’m truly excited to be offering this class on embodying kindness.

Yoga traditionally means to unite, to yoke together, to bring together. Kindness is like the glue–it always connects us. Known to not only be good for our health and well-being, kindness offers us a felt sense of belonging, and a practice in which our essential and true nature is in action.

In this movement class, a space is offered and practices explored which allow kindness to be present throughout. Where we are encouraged to meet ourselves–our body, breath, emotions, mind and spirit, with curiosity and easefulness.

We will take time to savour and feel how a kind practice may be experienced in the body, and we will complete the session with a potent and restful Yoga Nidra meditation on metta (loving-kindness).

Series 2 - Class #04 with Donna: Sequential Flow: Origins of Alignment

Through learning to initiate impulse from the ground and allowing this force to move unimpeded, we rediscover the organic origins of asana and its intimate relationship to the oceanic flow of the breath.  As we learn how to use the ground as a springboard for movement, we begin the process of sending force clearly through the structure of the body, while keeping the joint spaces open and fluid. 

The ability to intelligently sequence force through the body is the foundation of what we call “alignment”; alignment of the structure of the body; alignment of the energetic pathways that support the movement of prana and breath and an ultimate alignment of the human being in relationship to ground, gravity and space.  This cyclic flow through the body is constricted when asana practice is practiced in a static and effortful  manner.  We’ll explore how containing and directing impulse through the body can be balanced by remaining suggestive to the subtle ebb and flow of the breath current.

Series 2 - Class #05 with Lisa: Forward Bending with Grace and Gratitude

‘…with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things.’

William Wordsworth

This class is an opportunity to explore how we move inwards before we can move outwards. We are born curled into flexion. It is the first movement motif that we experience outside the womb. Flexion is associated with the grace of bowing to the earth. It is the precursor of opening ourselves to the sky and the world. This class explores the moment-to-moment transitions into forward bends and how to find your right way.

You are invited to…

•Find your fluid centre and allow movement to emerge from there.

•Learn how to create a springy recoil that emerges from the ballast of your centre.

•Explore the feeling of being safe with yourself and what that means to you. •Experience the joy of having a moving, breathing body.

•Bow with grace and gratitude.

This is an opportunity to play with the boundaries between inner and outer resources. The class will include yoga, somatics, embodied anatomy, breathwork, movement inquiry, developmental movement, bio-tensegrity, and the childlike wonder of a somanaut. Suitable for students from all traditions of yoga.

Series 2 - Class #06 with Donna: Sequential Flow: Inner Currents

The ability to intelligently sequence force through the body is the foundation of what we call “alignment”; alignment of the structure of the body; alignment of the energetic pathways that support the movement of prana and breath and an ultimate alignment of ourselves in relationship to ground, gravity, and space.

Impulse not only relays through our bones and joints, impulse also travels through our internal organs in fluid waves. Learning to feel and utilize the support of the internal organs can create a sense of ease and remove unnecessary strain from our muscular body. In this way the contents of the inner body can shape and support the outer container of the body, creating the conditions for a sense of satisfaction and deep expressiveness in our practice.

In this class, we’ll focus on two key relay points in the body: the pelvic diaphragm and the thoracic diaphragm.

Series 2 - Class #07 with Neal: Softening, Resting, Being, Presence

This class is an invitation to release tension, to soften, to rest, to be and to come to a felt sense of our presence.

Using the tools of Restorative Yoga, Yoga Nidra, and meditation, this is an opportunity for deeply resting and in this rest, this pausing and being, a possibility of opening to a renewal of ease and vitality.

Easefulness, curiosity, kindness and presence–all qualities of our essential nature, given space to emerge. Please join me for the joy of resting.

Series 2 - Class #08 with Donna: Gentle Back Bends–Strong Spine

Being able to do deep backbends seems to be the ultimate status symbol in Yoga Land, but is deep extension really that great for the spine?  Are there safe and beneficial ways to maintain spinal integrity, strength, and graceful upright posture . . . especially as we age? In this class we’ll explore what makes for safe spinal extension and the incredible benefits we can gain from regular, gentle, and targeted back bending.

If you tend toward stiffness and immobility in extension, this class will be a delightful way to release and unwind spinal tension.  If you tend toward hypermobility, you’ll come away with new tools to stabilize the most vulnerable shear points in your back and restore the strength and stability of your vertebral column.

This class is an investment in lifelong upright posture and what this means for our ability to remain active and healthy into our twilight years.

Series 2 - Class #09 with Lisa: Twisting from Our Inner Spirals

The world is available to us.

Can we be available to the world?’

~ Thich Nhat Hahn

This class explores our inner spirals through twisting asana. It’s an opportunity to discover a new sensory gorgeousness within your old best friend called yoga. How we create ourselves is one of the wondrous secrets of the universe. At fifteen days old you are a three-layered disk with a top layer, a bottom layer and a filling in the sandwich of you. Over the next five weeks the disk that is you will fold, unfold, twist, turn, and shapeshift creating tubes, pouches, pockets and bags within bags. There are no straight lines in your body. There never were. It is a world of spirals within spirals. This is the embodied reality of yoga asana and all movement.

You are invited to…

•Investigate the natural elasticity of your tissues without stretching.

•Play with embodying the natural resilience of your fascia.

•Feel qualities of strength, elegance and glide in movement.

•Experience yourself as a multi-dimensional being and investigate what that offers to your movement and your life.

This class will include yoga, somatics, embodied anatomy, breathwork, movement inquiry, developmental movement, bio-tensegrity, and a deep respect for our embryological origins. Suitable for students from all streams of yoga.

Series 2 - Class #10 with Donna: Channeling Your Inner Fish

So much of modern postural yoga practice is oriented in the to-and-fro of the sagittal plane.  The rectangular shape of the standard yoga mat reinforces this linear dimension: inviting us to bend forwards, backwards or to stand sideways.  While working in the sagittal plane can build strength and cohesion in the core and spine, overemphasis of movement in this plane can also create rigidity and lack of fluidity and differentiation in the spinal column.

Lateral movement shifts us out of yes and no answers and moves us into the dimension of choice and possibility.  We begin to see the world (and ourselves) from a different perspective.

 In Anatomy Trains, Thomas Myers describes lateral movement as “the kind involved in the swimming of a fish, consisting of reciprocal reflexes flowing down the musculature in waves.” 

Through playful movements and variations on more traditional yoga asanas we’ll explore how rediscovering our inner fish can release the deep intervertebral muscles of the spine and restore fluid ease to our movement.  Swimming costumes optional.

Series 2 - Class #11 with Neal: Moving From Center

“This pattern deep within our body supports the basic relationship rhythms of coming into self and going out to other, or the world … I have to be connected within myself and able to claim my own movement sphere before I feel comfortable moving in the world.”~ Peggy Hackney

How can we be more centred in our life? In our movement? How do we find and feel the center of our body?

In this class we explore how our movement and our Yoga may be connected to our centre. We’ll harness our natural fluidity to flow in and out of centering practices. We’ll explore pathways from the center out to the periphery of the body and back again, in a cyclical pattern informed by our breath. These pathways point us towards an organic, felt sense of inner relationship and alignment.

As a foundation for core awareness and support, this pattern of moving from and back to center has been an essential part of my practice and teaching for many years. I look forward to sharing it with you, in the spirit of somatic enquiry and Yoga asana.

Series 2 - Class #12 with Donna: Restorative Reset

In this Restorative deep dive, we’ll explore how the baroreceptor reflex (a carotid artery sensor that registers blood pressure) can support a downshift in the nervous system; slowing the heart rate and calming the activity of the mind.  The baroreceptor reflex is a physiological phenomenon specific to postures such as  Supported Bridge, Shoulderstand and Legs Up the Wall.  To maximise the potential benefits of these practices we’ll first prepare the body through gentle cervical, upper thoracic and shoulder opening movements.

We’ll also investigate the oculocardiac reflex whereby gentle pressure in and around the eyes slows the heart rate.  This class will be of particular interest to yoga teachers wanting to more fully understand the physiology of inverted Restorative postures and how to maximise benefits through tailor fitting postures to individual structure.