“We don’t use our body to get into a pose, we use the pose to get into our body.”
Yoga is my creative art. By training the awareness to work directly with the organs, nerves, glands, muscles, and bones, we awaken the body’s innate intelligence, restore vitality, and cultivate a deeply nourishing, embodied experience.
Strength and flexibility are common bi-products of a this style of practice, but they are not the goal. When we learn how to use our minds, apply our awareness in just the right way, the nervous system settles, the tissues of the physical body soften, and the organism accepts the yoga posture.
The beauty of the asanas is how they encourage chi, prana, life-force to integrate through the body from one end to the other. When the body feels safe— because our mind and our will are in balance, the muscular-skeletal system responds with openness that allows the life-force to flow through the pose unobstructed from one end to the other. When we over-exert our mind and our will by forcing the body into postures it's not ready for, the body clenches. Although we may look like someone on the cover of Yoga Journal, the chi is unable to flow through a tightly held muscular-skeletal system. The practitioner will enjoy the benefits of strength and flexibility; however, they will be prone to injury because they are working from the will-force of the mind over the body, rather than observing how the innate intelligence of the physical structures themselves will spontaneously align the posture when the relationships between structures comes into balance.
What is the structure of the class?
Classes are organized into a multi-week workshop series that revolve around a single theme. This allows us to build on specific cue sets week-by-week that bring us deeper and deeper into one specific part of the body. We are training our awareness to be embodied in such a profound way that we begin to genuinely see, feel, and know ourselves from the inside out.
Relationships within the body, for example how the inner edges of the lungs relate to the sides of the heart, are explored through direct experience and we learn through sensation how to change the texture and placement of the lung edges to discern how to be supportive rather than pushy, and how to give space while staying connected. In order to practice in this way, the student must meet their mind and learn how to use it beneficially. The mind needs to be alert and present, while remaining quiet, curious, and willing to follow the body’s lead. It has to step back from dictatorship over the body and stand on equal ground ready to learn, collaborate, and be surprised by what emerges.
Obviously, spending hours and hours practicing with the relationships in our own bodies, minds, organs, glands, nerves, muscles, and bones on our mat, teaches us how to better relate to others, to our daily experiences, and to the world around us off our mats. And, you will find that over time, that it is your own body intelligence that guides your experience, understanding, and knowledge with less and less need for my words or instructions.
Sequences are thoughtfully crafted to address individual needs while aligning with the chosen thematic content of the block we are currently studying. For example, we may be in a content block focusing on the relationships between the bones of the femur, tibia, and fibula to bring awareness and health to our knees, but include mobility and strength exercises for hamstrings and hips as our warm-up to support individual student needs.
Because classes focus on training the awareness to abide in the body, building pathways of neuromuscular connection, we are able to reduce patterns of chronic tension and increase freedom of movement. We balance effort and ease by working subtly and diligently to bring strength to slack weakened areas while learning to relax and undo the vise-like grip of areas that are tightly clenched. This work calms the nervous system, and brings a profound experience of quiet and peace to the asanas.
Classes typically begin with a brief introduction to the anatomy we will attend to that day. We often begin with a restorative shape or two to drop into a deepened state of consciousness by settling the mind. We warm-up the body with strength and mobility exercises to begin opening up the areas that will be featured in our asana sequence that day. From there, we take standing shapes, one at a time, balancing poses, twists, supported inversions, seated poses, restorative shapes, and guided pranayama, as time allows.
Props are used for most poses to safely support the body’s unfolding, to allow us to go deeper into certain aspects of the poses, and to make the practice safe for a variety of ages and abilities.
What to Expect
We will move with awareness and intention, knowing that handstands won’t make us better people, but sticking with ourselves, accepting both the abilities and the limitations of our bodies on any given day, celebrating ourselves for showing up on the mat, and practicing positive self-talk absolutely will!
We will practice being patient and kind with ourselves by genuinely listening to the body’s invitations to go deeper, as well as any requests to back off.
We will unfold into deeper expressions of the poses over time, according to the felt wisdom of our bodies, rather than pushing and pulling ourselves into idealized shapes that make us vulnerable to injury.