Five Week Home Practice Plan

This course is designed to allow you to progress your home practice (and practice from home) using tools and techniques from both traditional and scientific perspectives. Each week we will learn a concept for practice and address each topic specifically from the perspective of you who are taking the course, so get your questions ready!

On of the beauties of Hatha Yoga is that as a somatic practice, it acknowledges the interrelationship of BODY, MIND, and SPIRIT and explores the interactions and relationships along the body-mind continuum.

The practice of Hatha Yoga has grown substantially in its contemporary form incorporating much from modern western science. This epitomizes the evolutionary nature of yoga and the IMPORTANCE OF CONSTANT QUESTIONING, VIGILANCE AND FEEDBACK in the process.
We grow from constant attunement to the flow of our lives and our living embodied selves. Our bodies constantly adjust to our internal and external states...so a meaningful practice is a constant process of learning and discovery.

ADVANCING YOUR PRACTICE IMPLIES REFINING YOUR ABILITY TO SEE AND LISTEN TO YOUR BODY ON DEEPER AND SUBTLER LEVELS. Cultivating this ability for critical perception is more important than attaining more exotic and difficult postures.

Week #1 Start Where You are
          The Body:
    • the skeletal system
    • the muscular system
    • the circulatory system
    • the respiratory system
    • the nervous system
         The Mind:
    • culture and perception
    • emotion and perception   
          Where are you?
    • The Long View: A Lifetime perspective
    • Asanas are Effects (tools for effects) not goals
    • Learning to listen (feedback)
    • strength and flexibility (or versus flexibility)
    • inner and outer-directed practice
    • limitations
      • physical
      • mental
      • fear
      • comparison and competition
      • body
      • discipline
      • perfection
      • concentration and attention
    • personal practice
    • Integrating yoga into daily life
    • enjoying your practice
    • advancing in asana
Week #2 The Internal Alchemy of Practice
    • Using breath (mastering energy)
      • locks (bhandas)
      • Ujjayi breathing 
    • energy and matter
    • flow and grace
    • cultivating an inner focus
    • adjusting and aligning asana from within
    • "surfing" the edges
    • "control" versus "surrender"
    • finding "balance"
Week #3 Modes of Practice and Kinesthetics
    • resistance
      • enervation
    • toning the spine
      • curves of the spine and development
      • maintaining natural curves of the spine
    • symmetry and alignment
    • Kinetic chain
      • closed chins
      • open chains
    • Gravity and other forces
      • isotonic 
      • isometric
    • Laws of movement
      • torque
      • tension
      • traction
      • leverage
Week #4 The Play of Matter and Energy

    • What to practice
      • themes:
      • structured flow
      • intuitive flow
    • Structural integrity and structural archetypes
      • active holding
      • passive holding
      • dynamic holding
      • long holding

Week #5 Injury, Pain and Healing

    • Pain
      • pain is your friend
      • there is no such thing as pain
    • working with injuries
      • RICES (rest, ice, compression, elevations, support)
      • moving from stupid
        • making stupid intelligent
        • the spread of stupid
    • Healing
      • patience/time/expectations
      • counter indications
        • what never to do
        • better safe than sorry
        • practicing non-attachment


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Internal Alchemy of Practice

Image
USING YOUR BREATH What does breath do? breath moves the body Vayus inhalation and prana and udana vayus:  exhalation and apana and samana vayus Mula (root) moves forward (I) and backward (B) with breath breath is the communication between your mind and your body GRACE What is grace? using just the right amount of effort to complete a task/movement/posture only what is essential moving with your breathing breath leads movement (starts just before the movement does) spiritual grace and physical grace...are they connected? imagining your essential self/nothing that isn't you = self-realization evenness of breath coupled with evenness of movement equals evenness of mind FLOW Flow (inner focus)  is a state where the right amount of effort is applied, no more or less, creating a single minded focus (eka grata) so that the body moves as one coalesced piece. (peak experience) needs a certain amount of challenge to maintain interest ...
Read more

What to Practice: Energy and Matter

Image
Week #4 The Play of Matter and Energy What to practice There are a number of ways to think about structuring your home practice. Today we are going to talk about ways that you can structure a home practice so that you might practice "every day." Generally speaking, practice come in two types: Structured and Free Sequences. Structured Flow : are sequences which are set. This means that you do the same practice everyday. Advantages:  If you learn the sequences, you do not have to think! Then you can focus on whatever you are trying to access, learn, develop focus in as you practice.  Even if you like to vary your practice, it's nice to have a structured BASE that you can riff off of and that has different DURATIONS this way you can start you practice without thinking and end your practice when you are "finished" Disadvantages you may risk repetitive movement you may become complacent in your experimentation Intuitive Flow : Sequences are ...
Read more