We know from our own experience has incredibly good yoga is for us. We also keep hearing about people being injured in yoga. We want our yoga practice to be as sustainable as can be. As students, this involves the blended attributes of patience, perseverance and openness in exploring it all. As teachers, it involves applying our knowledge of the essential elements of the asanas, including the fundamentals of alignment and energetic actions, how we craft the sequences that make up our classes, and how we offer the nuanced guidance to students that can help turn frustration to ease and make the practice altogether more meaningful.
This series of four workshops with Mark Stephens offers focus on essential skills and knowledge in teaching yoga:
- The Art & Science Sequencing – 12 Hours (two days)
- Seeing, Understanding & Guiding with Hands-on Cues – 12 Hours (two days)
- The Sun Salutations – 3 Hours (half day)
- Core Awakening & Arm Balances – 3 Hours (half day)
All four workshops are designed for those on the teaching path as well as serious students interested in developing a deeper understanding of how to make the practice more accessible, sustainable, and thereby more deeply transformational. Combining interactive lecture, discussion and practical sessions, these workshops will help you refine your practice on the mat and give you more refined skill and insight in creating and teaching amazing yoga classes.
Wednesday, September 10
Topic: The Art and Science of Sequencing – Part I
General Description: This workshop builds on prior training and experience with asana and pranayama practices to explore designing complete classes that are informed, effective, efficient, beautiful and integrated. The basic question we ask is, “why this before that?” Rather than random or excessively creative sequencing, this workshop is based on how the body works and how to make the practice of asanas as safe, accessible, yet deep as possible. Applies and expands prior learning about functional anatomy and other elements of the practice to understanding the interrelations of asanas within and between families of postures.
Morning Session: 9:00am-12:00pm: Philosophy, Principles and Techniques of Sequencing
Session Description: How are the philosophies and theories of sequencing given in the ancient literature of yoga? How has they evolved over the centuries? What new insights into sequencing can we find in more contemporary sources? What do we find when we distill all this into clear principles for planning and sequencing classes? These and related questions are explored in this three-hour talk and discussion that lays the groundwork for the rest of this intensive.
Afternoon Session: 2:00pm-5:00pm: Sequencing Lab – Basic Class Designs
Session Description: What do beginning, intermediate and advanced practices look like? What differentiates them? Here we will work collaboratively to imagine and design classes for different levels of students, styles of yoga, and class intentions.
Thursday, September 11
Topic: The Art and Science of Sequencing Intensive - Part II:
Morning Session: 9:00am-12:00pm: Sequencing Lab – Yoga for Special Conditions
Session Description: How can we best accommodate students with special conditions in regular or specialized classes? What are the basic accommodations we can offer to pregnant students, students tending certain injuries or practicing with other specific challenges? Here we will continue working collaboratively to imagine and design classes for a variety of special needs.
Afternoon Session 2:00pm-5:00pm: Sequencing Lab – Designing Chakra and Dosha Classes
Session Description: This final session of sequencing focuses on the cultivation of subtle energy. Here we explore and apply the concepts of koshas, prana vayus, chakras, nadis, gunas and doshic constitution in crafting classes designed for different specific students, intentions, seasons and settings. We also explore the relationship between traditional energetics and western medical models of the body in understanding the effects of different sequences.
Friday, September 12
Topic: Seeing, Understanding & Guiding with Hands-on Cues - Part I
General Description: Skillful, sensitive, appropriate touch and verbal cues have the potential to transport students to a more conscious awareness and self-refinement in their yoga practice. But before we touch and speak we must first see and understand the unique qualities present in an individual student's practice. In this workshop, we further develop postural observation skills; learn and practice effective hands-on adjustments that both address common misalignments and encourage inner guidance in a variety of poses; enhance the skill of linking clear verbal cues with tactile cues; and deepen confidence in the practice of giving and receiving as participants learn to better help students find joy and ease amidst the challenges in their practice.
Morning Session: 9:00am-12:00pm: Philosophy, Principles and Techniques of Yoga Adjustments
Session Description: What are the essential philosophical underpinnings, principles and techniques for involved in hands-on adjustments? What can we learn from traditional sources such as the Yoga Sutras? What can we learn from functional anatomy and bio-mechanics? What specific methods of giving tactile cues are most effective in helping students in developing their personal practice? How can we best develop the knowledge and skills for guiding students with the right balance of demonstration, verbal cues and hands-on cues?
Afternoon Session 2:00pm-5:00pm: Hands-On Yoga Intensive I: Standing Asanas
Session Description: Here we will look closely at and practice giving a variety of hands-on adjustments in internally, neutrally and externally rotated hip standing poses, including standing balance postures.
Saturday, September 13
Topic: Seeing, Understanding & Guiding with Hands-on Cues - Part II
Morning Session: 9:00am-12:00pm: Hands-On Yoga Intensive II – Back Bends & Twists
Session Description: Here we will look closely at and practice giving a variety of hands-on adjustments in contraction, traction and leveraged backbends, each with variations of shoulder extension and flexion. With twists we will focus on seated and supine forms.
Afternoon Session 2:00pm-5:00pm: Hands-On Yoga Intensive III – Forward Bends, Hip Openers, Inversions
Session Description: Here we will look closely at and practice giving a variety of hands-on adjustments in more deeply integrated asanas, covering a variety of symmetrical and asymmetrical seated and supine postures as well as inversions.
Sunday, September 14
Morning Session – 9:00am-12:00pm: Topic: Breaking Down the Sun Salutations: Alignment, Energetic Actions, and Transitions in the Flowing Sequences
Session Description: The Sun Salutations can get pretty sloppy when we flow through them without being attentive to key alignment principles and energetic actions. Here we will look closely at each of the 12 asanas in Classical Surya Namaskara and Surya Namaskara A & B, exploring their various alignment and energetic qualities how the transitions between them can be approached to make them simpler, deeper and more sustainable. Open to students and teachers.
Afternoon Session – 2:00pm-5:00pm: Topic: The Interrelations of Core Awakening & Levity in Arm Balances
Session Description: Applying the basic principles of sequencing to arm balances, this 2-hour intensive practice will offer a model approach to integrating a variety of arm balances in flow-style classes. We will play with Crane (Bakasana), Side Crane (Parsva Bakasana), Scissored Pose (Eka Pada Koundinyasana A & B), Flying Crow (Galavasana), Eight Angles (Astavakrasana), Flying Lizard (Uttana Prasithasana) and Upward Rooster (Urdhva Kukkutasana). Open to intermediate-to-advanced students and teachers.
Please visit the Spirit Yoga website for further details and pre-registration.
