Yoga for Optimal Wellbeing – November 4th

This workshop is designed to teach you how to modify your yoga practice to optimize longterm wellbeing through a focus on biomechanics, mindfulness, and joy. True wellbeing requires physical, mental, and emotional health. Better biomechanics improves your physical health because it reduces iinjury rates and compels you to use the parts of your body you have been diligently ignoring. Mindfulness improves cognitive functioning, and a focus on joy supports emotional wellbeing.

Biomechanics:

We all know that physical movement is critically important for our longterm wellbeing. However, there is a growing body of evidence indicating that how we move, not just how much we move, can have a dramatic effect on our wellbeing. In this workshop you will begin to discover that our habitual movements are often problematic in terms of efficiency, balance, safety, and wellbeing. You will learn how to notice ingrained detrimental habits(neck tension, for example) and then learn specific techniques to disrupt those detrimental patterns. The techniques you will learn all unfold from a simple, universally applicable theory of alignment and movement that we will explore in this workshop. Learning this deceptively simple theory of movement will allow you create better alignment and better biomechanics in any movement, on or off the mat, without the need for an exhaustive understanding of anatomy or biomechanics, and without the need to memorize dozens of specific alignment cues.

Mindfulness:

The physical benefits from better movement are significant. However, better movement requires and thus also increases your mindfulness, and that has equally profound benefits for your wellbeing. The act of modifying your alignment, based on what you are feeling in the moment, is by definition an act of mindfulness. These acts of mindfulness exercise your brain and strengthen weakened synapses, increasing the interconnectivity between mind and body and improving your wellbeing.

Joy:

Lastly, focusing on better biomechanics and mindfulness also makes your yoga practice dramatically more enjoyable. This is primarily because you are disrupting patterns of stress and striving, and because you are learning to prioritize your breath. Disrupting stress and learning to enjoy your breath directly contribute to your wellbeing. However, they also increase the likelihood that you will continue to practice regularly because your practice is becoming ever more pleasurable.

The workshop includes an illustrated practice guide that describes all the techniques covered in the course.

Session 1:

You will learn to recognize problematic movement patterns in basic yoga poses, and explore the anatomical, biomechanical, and psychological phenomena that create and reinforce these patterns. You will also learn a simple (though not necessarily easy) technique to disrupt those detrimental patterns.

Session 1 is open to all levels.

Session 2:

We will apply the new patterns of better movement learned in Session 1 to more challenging yoga poses, including (if desired) inversions and arm balances. The point isn't to "master" certain versions of certain poses, but rather to learn how to engage with difficulty and intensity in a constructive, joyful way, without surrendering your serenity and wellbeing. You will learn a simple technique for determining on your own which pose variations are best for you on any given day for doing this work.

Session 2 is also open to all levels. The whole point is for you to find appropriate challenges for yourself, so that you can learn how not to get stressed out when stressful things are happening. If you are less experienced, less strong, or less flexible, you will simply choose different (easier) versions of the poses so that you can do the work of disrupting problematic patterns in the face of reasonable challenges. As you get stronger, the pose variations that used to challenge you just right will get too easy, and that is when you start to explore new variations.

Hope to see you on the mat, Gernot