Course curriculum

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    Befriending Gravity for Support in Asana

    • The art of yielding in asana

Befriending Gravity for Support in Asana

In this class you will explore: Practices that promote a feeling of safety and trust. How to use the ground and gravity for support in movement. The art of yielding and how yielding and breathing are inseparable. Expansive, spacious supportive breath practices. How to be at ease within effort For additional resources see Donna Farhi’s book Yoga, Body, Mind and Spirit. This classic text is many students’ first introduction to the art of yielding and the idea that gravity is a resource we can lean on. Further videos on befriending the breath and space will be available in the coming months.

Instructor(s)

Lisa PETERSEN

Senior Yoga Teacher, TrainerPRO

Lisa Petersen is a Yoga Teacher, Yoga Therapist, and Somatic Movement Educator based in Ireland. With over two decade’s teaching experience, Lisa is known for her clarity, presence, humour and passion. She offers workshops and teacher training in Yoga, Somatics and embodied anatomy internationally. Lisa co-taught Donna Farhi’s 2013 and 2015 Advanced Teacher Trainings. She holds a Diploma in Yoga Therapy and originally trained at Vivekenanda Kendra, India’s most reputable Yoga Therapy Hospital as well as the International Institute for Somatic Movement Education. She studied experiential anatomy and Yoga directly with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen from 2008-2010, and a further decade studying embodied asana with Amy Matthews. Her style is personable and enriched by a deep understanding of anatomy, alignment and universal movement patterns. With a wealth of knowledge, her classes and workshops are innovative and authentic as she guides her students towards personal transformation on and off the mat. She is passionate about finding the balance between being and doing, movement and stillness, strength and fluidity, discipline and freedom. A personal note from Lisa: I am often asked why I chose to dedicate my life’s energy to the practice of Yoga. There are many answers, but at its simplest, yoga makes me feel authentic, profoundly peaceful, embodied and real. It offers me a vehicle to explore life’s questions, and a map for exploring myself from the inside out. It helps me understand how our physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and energetic bodies are interpenetrating frequencies woven together. It keeps me curious and allows me be a midwife to my own and my students’ experiences. It’s the place where I can find balance between life’s polarites. It’s my coming home to myself. I am an explorer, a scientist, an anatomy geek and a spiritual searcher. I am equally an educator who is passionate about the art of communicating and transmitting knowledge. Inevitably, what I learn I teach. It is my dharma. I am deeply and profoundly grateful to this ancient practice and to all the teachers and students that have gone before me.