Yoga+: Breathing & Pranayama for Greater Health & Happiness
Learn how to improve both mental and physical aspects of your health through correct breathing and specific pranayama (breathing techniques) to quiet mental chatter, focus the mind, and relax the body. We tend to take something that comes as naturally as breathing for granted, but how we breathe has a profound effect on our mental and physical health. Interestingly, even professional athletes and others we hold as examples of good physical health often have the same suboptimal breathing as the rest of us. In this workshop we will cover how to assess your own breathing, the most relevant aspects of the anatomy and physiology of breathing as they relate to health, and techniques you can use to help you breath better and use your breath on and off the mat to gain greater mental clarity, and calm. |
Yoga+: Spine and Back Health
In our competitive society the mantra more is better isn’t questioned nearly enough. Asana or 'yoga postures' are no exception. Your spine is literally the housing of your body’s rapid communication system, so it makes sense to protect it to the best of your ability. A healthy back and spine allows you to express better movement throughout the whole body both on and off the yoga mat. Also, maintaining the right alignment between the diaphragm and pelvic floor allows better breathing patterns and improves pelvic floor health. This workshop, part theory and part practice, will cover how you can protect your spine by: understanding common back problems; minimising damaging movements and activities; and choosing the safest and most effective movements for mobilising and strengthening from head to hip. |
Yoga+: Self Manual Therapy
Asana or 'yoga postures' might be considered among the first systems of self-manual therapy, but they evolved in a time before 'office posture', a time when walking was the normal mode of transport, and labour saving devices were made of wood and stone, and notably, a time when people of all ages considered squatting a position of rest, not an exercise or stretch. These days we are more prone to little, as well as not so little, kinks, niggles, and physical imbalances, and, as a result, less than ideal movement patterns. Unfortunately, its easy to carry these movement patterns over into asana and exercise. When this happens we can end up reinforcing rather than correcting our bad movement habits. We'll show you some basic self-maintenance techniques you can apply in order to move better within minutes, sometimes seconds. Techniques you can apply with few tools, quickly, and at home, at work or wherever you can carve out a little space for yourself. Along the way, you'll learn about how you are currently moving, and what you can do to improve it. Once you've used these techniques to help correct movement, you'll get the full benefits of asana and exercise as you reinforce good rather than poor movement habits. |
Yoga+: Body Magic
Our bodies' are wonderfully intricate and heavily influenced by our perceptions, including the subconscious ones that our nervous system continually feeds back to our spinal cord and brain. Small changes in how we move, where we look, what we focus on both with our eyes and internally, and what we do before a given movement, can make a big difference to how well we move and how good we feel. In this workshop we'll explore the little things you can do to help realise your full movement potential. Among other things, we'll look at how eye position can help you become more mobile or lead your body to limit your mobility, how the position and stability or instability at one joint affects other joints above and below it, how to spot the difference between a mobility issue and a flexibility issue, how muscle weakness or simply a failure to properly engage the right muscles limits movement and balance. This workshop will set you on the path to greater physical expression in terms of mobility, balance, strength, and agility, while at the same time reducing necessary tension to leave functioning and feeling better. |
“I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship.
I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.” – Mahatma Gandhi – |