Ashtanga Yoga - Healing Retreat
and Adjustments Training
Oct 4-7
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Healing Retreat
October 4-6 in Karkur
The Ashtanga Primary Series is also known as Yoga Chikitsa, which means “Yoga Therapy”. It is a practice that heals and vitalizes the body, releases pain, improves flexibility and posture, blood circulation, breathing, digestion and much more…
It is a powerful series: if you know how to use it, it can give wonderful benefits, but it will not be effective if you misunderstand or misuse it, and can even cause or increase pain, instead of getting rid of it.
How you practice is just as important as what you practice. How you breathe and move, how you use the bandhas or follow the vinyasa, the intensity of your effort, the intention guiding your practice, etc. - these things are of great importance.
So if we want to get the healing benefit, it is very important to properly understand a few basic principles, otherwise practice will not be effective and instead of relieving sickness and pain, it will actually increase our suffering.
Cost: 1275 INS - Reserve Your Spot
You can also pay by BIT or Paybox 052-3327013
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Morning Program: Fundamentals of Asana Practice and Deepening Understanding through Adjustments 9AM-1PM
Morning sessions will focus on Asana practice - it will be a mixture of Mysore and Led Practice. Over the three days, we will explain important principles in depth, such as bandhas, vinyasas, alignment of the body and breathing, taking into consideration different body types, age, health conditions etc.. We will then explore these principles through hands-on assisting in the asanas.
Adjustments can help students feel the “perfect” asana - one which is effortless, steady and comfortable. In the perfect posture, all unnecessary strain is released and the mind can relax: one can just “be” in the asana and feel how it can be experienced as effortless effort with a tranquil and awake mind.
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For students who would like to take the science and art of adjustments a little deeper, a fourth day is added to the retreat:
Adjustments Training - Deepening Practice
Second Half of Primary Series and First Postures of Intermediate
October 7 - 10AM - 2PM
This workshop offers a focus on the more challenging postures of Primary Series and the beginning of the Intermediate Series. Workshop is open to students who have attended the retreat or previous adjustments trainings with me and who are comfortable with practicing all the postures of the Primary Series.
Click here to reserve your spot - Cost - 275 NIS
This workshop is a continuation of the Ashtanga Healing Retreat - Oct 4-6. You can join both together for 1500 INS - Click here to reserve your spot
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Afternoon Program: Breathing - Introspection - Absorption
Body, Mind and Beyond (Pranayama, Pratyahara and Dhyana) - Oct 4—6 - 2-4.30PM
Breathing is the key to yoga, the key to healthy living and the release of stress and pain. It is a subtle bridge between the body sensations and the psychological component of experience. Breathing is both physical and mental - how we breathe affects both the mind and the body at the same time. Through observing and modifying this interaction, we are able to observe and start to release the subtle stresses that lie beneath the surface of our everyday awareness.
But we can only make these subtle observations when we stop moving, when we sit still for a period of time. Only through observing our bodies and breath in silence, can we become aware of these underlying tensions and begin to release them.
Releasing pain/improving health and deepening meditation (yoga) go together. You can focus on the obstacles (pain) or you can focus on the target (inner peace/bliss). In practice we always go back and forth between these two. In the afternoon sessions we will explore three pathways that facilitate the mental aspect of release - because, you cannot expect to release pain from the body, without also releasing the psychological component.
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Afternoon Program in More Depth - Oct 4-6
Friday - How to Breathe
Breathing is the most important tool in Yoga and the most important thing you do in every moment! In fact it is THE most precious activity we are engaged in: without it, we simply die.
But the value or influence of breathing extends far beyond the purely physical sustaining of life, because breathing is intimately connected with the operations of the mind. In the morning session, we explore breathing from a physiological point of view, in the afternoon, we will explore the energetic and psychological features of breathing through pranayama.
Saturday - Practices for Releasing Pain
It can be observed that every unpleasant experience is recorded in the body as tension or pain, even leading to chronic illness, sickness and death. But there is a silver lining: because everything is recorded, you can gain access to and transform/release/heal your unconscious through observing the sensations in your body.
The body desires to release. All the time. But the mind blocks it. This action/resistance of the mind is also a block to meditation.
Over the last years I have developed some powerful tools that facilitate the natural release process that the body wishes to follow. Through meditations on the sensations in the body we may be able to release old memories that keep the body stiff and that limit the freedom of the mind to release the unwanted residue of painful or uncomfortable past experiences.
Sunday - Deeper Meditation
Beyond pain, there is bliss, tranquility and peace, insight, wisdom and clarity. The spiritual teachings of India are full of divine poetry that expresses, teaches and celebrates the inner unfolding of yoga. These poems are beautiful gems that can sink us deep into an absorption or meditation on the fundamental essence of existence.
I will share some of these teachings, we will open for discussion, and conclude with pranayama and meditation.
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This retreat is open to everybody
Click here to reserve
You can also pay by BIT or Paybox 052-3327013