NOW hybrid Yin & Restore Series - January to March 2024
REGISTER HERE for online attendance
Dear Friends,
As we transition into the new year, I was reflecting on what practices can best serve us during the colder months, where the immune system is more easily compromised, energy levels are often lower, and the yearning for light can be great! How can we create this lightness inside of ourselves?
I will also now be running this class in-person in Bad Godesberg as well, for those who wish to join me. Contact me to register.
I decided that I would like to dive deeper into the themes that I started at the end of last year. Since we are so strongly connected to our habitual patterns of behaviour, repetition is vital to slowly overcome these patterns. Plus, with repetition, we can more easily become familiar with and slowly transform the stress response in ourselves.
"When our stress response is triggered, we focus on three things, and they are of highest importance for us as survival beings:
- the body (it must be taken care of)
- the environment (where can I go to escape this "threat"?)
- time (how much of it do I have to use to evade this "threat"?)" (Taken from Joe Dispenza`s book, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself)
I will weave this theme into my Yin & Restore classes in the next three months, inviting space on the yoga mat for us to individually and collectively soften to this stress response as it becomes evident to each of us in our own way, through our bodies, our environment and narrowness of time.
Come and feel for yourself how quickly you can shift your stress response to a more balanced calm internal atmosphere, when you are invited to BE with what IS, in and around yourself through the yoga practices. Calming the stress response is a powerful personal tool, as well as the effect radiating out into your wider community.
11.01 - MOVING & BREATHING WITH EASE
This session aims to offer a nourishing, balancing sequence for the body meridians. We will also aim to shift awareness from thinking-centred in the head, to belly-centered in the lower abdomen.
18.01 - BUILDING STRENGTH & SUPPORT
This session will focus on the concept the neutral spinal curvatures and how to position the spine for easeful breathing and moving, as well as a clear relationship to gravity and being grounded. How can this practice support you to calm your own stress response?
Your spine is not only the backbone of your body, but also of the way you move through life. Come and explore how to build strength and support from the backline, from as place of inner stability, strength and support.
Come and enjoy finding ease and pleasure in doing less on the mat so the breath and body can be fluid.
25.01 - ALIGNING THE SPINE
Observing the stress response stored in the spine and primary nerve pathways. How can we feel into our spines in a soft, slow way to release stored holding patterns through yielding?
"Yielding" is a beautiful term used to describe what happens when "we allow the surfaces on the body that are in conrtact with the earth to give their weight to the earth. At the same time we maintain enough integrity through our structure that we receive the rebound of gravity up through our bodies." We will explore and experience our spines in lying, standing, sitting and slow moving asanas.
01.02 - MOVING FROM CENTRE
This session will offer you an experience of your deep navel centre or hara through naval radiation.
We will explore together:
- how to access a felt sense of inner core support and stabiltiy
- how movement is organised from the deep naval centre or hara
- how alignment can be an intuitive process
- how to allow yourself to be guided by your breath
NO yoga on 08.02.
15.02 - MAKING FRIENDS WITH SOFT BACKBENDS
Building up backbends from a safe "place" within your feeling tone, and from the perspective of deep long holdings and aware breathing.
We will explore together:
- how to find ease and integrity in your spine in simple backbends
- how to warm, hydrate and release areas of the body that need to be open for ease in backbends
- how to integrate strengthening poses that restore rounded posture and move the spine away from gravity.
22.02 - UNWINDING WITH TWISTS & SPIRALS
Somatic based-movements to feel into twisting from your centre, with a focus on the innate spirals within our bodies.
We will explore together:
- how to find balance and integrity in twisting asanas
- focusing on stability before mobility
- enjoying seeing and observing the natural spiral pathways in your body
29.02 - CREATING SPACE WITH SIDE BENDS
We will explore together:
- the value of side bending through interoception (awareness of your internal state)
- how to increase spinal fluidity though side bending
- how to move towards more balance in an "unbalanced" back
- activating the gall bladder meridian
07.03 - COMING HOME TO YOURSELF
This practice offers you a conscious experience of the breath, ground, gravity, and space, as you are invited to:
- gently release tension in the hips and pelvis
- lengthen into the lumbar and thoracic spine
- explore how your breath moves your body
14.03. - EMBODIED STILLNESS PRACTICE
Putting it all together - being still with what IS.
