Description
Wednesdays and Fridays
January 10- Friday, March 29
9:30-11:30 AM
$30/class, $250/10 classes (valid for 3 months); $10 on Zoom.
Come learn a yoga practice to strengthen your body, enliven your nervous system, and explore your subtle inner world. These classes teach yoga based on the therapeutic breathing-and-movement system of the Ashtanga Yoga tradition as a foundation for meditation practices inspired by the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Folding posture, breath, awareness, and compassionate intention into the path, these classes align the traditional Ashtanga “sadhana” (a means of achieving your goal) with the inner contemplative disciplines of pranayama and meditation, reconnecting the practice to its roots at the foot of Mt. Kailash in Tibet (according to the Ashtanga lore).
Yoga is called the “inner science” because working with the physical body and the breath together starts to make possible awareness of our subtle, inner world, the “vajra” body. Such self-knowledge and sensitivity is said to be the main goal of yoga, where it becomes possible to leave behind addictions and fears, craving and dislikes, and to embrace your best self and boundless healing.
Classes begin with a brief talk based on an essential yoga teaching(e.g., the Heart Sutra, the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, Three Principles of the Path,) and mantra recitation. The main body of the class that follows is based on the posture-breathing sequences of Ashtanga. Practice concludes with guided meditations based on the theme introduced at the beginning of the session. Classes offer students an opportunity to integrate these precious teachings into their equally precious daily lives.
