Mysore Style Ashtanga Exploration Weekend, 9/8-9/9, 1:00-4:00pm

Mysore Ashtanga Exploration Weekend

with Susan DeRyder

Saturday & Sunday,  9/8-9/9, 1:00-4:00pm

$75 for entire weekend/ $40 for Day 2 only
Midtown Studio

 
 

Day 1: Saturday, September 8th, 1-4pm Open to students new to the Mysore method, including absolute beginners

On Day 1 we will explore the fundamentals of the Ashtanga Yoga Primary Series. The Primary Series is the first series we learn in the Ashtanga Yoga system, anyone new to Ashtanga Yoga begins here. We will approach the practice with the intention to start attending the early morning Mysore program. Discover ways to memorize the sequence, which is necessary if we are interested in practicing using the traditional Mysore method. Once you have completed Day 1 and Day 2 of this weekend, you will have the basic foundations needed to join in the early morning practice group which meets Monday, Wednesday, Friday anytime between 6:30-8:30am* (*you may arrive any time and are required to finish your practice by 8:30am).

On Day 1, learn:

  • a little about the background of this method, where it comes from and the benefits of practicing Mysore Style Ashtanga Yoga
  • the foundations for this practice Surya Namaskar A and B, the standing sequence and the closing sequence.
  • ways to learn and memorize the sequence.

Those attending Day 1 are welcome to attend the Sunday Led Primary Series class on 9/9 at no extra charge to participate or to just observe.

Day 2: Sunday, September 9th, 1-4pm Open to students who attended Day 1 and to those who have a current Mysore Style practice*. (*If you do not have a current Mysore practice, please attend Day 1)

On Day 2 we will dive deep in to the theory and practice of Mysore Style Ashtanga Yoga. Anyone who has been practicing Ashtanga Yoga or those who have attended Day 1 of the Mysore Style Ashtanga Exploration Weekend will benefit from this workshop. We will explore the principles that support this method of yoga practice in detail giving those who attend many tools to take with them into the Mysore room and can then apply in an individual way to their personal practice. This 3 hour workshop is packed full of information, bring a notebook and pen! You will have the opportunity to ask questions about the practice in general as well as personal questions related to your own practice.
On Day 2, learn the following:
  • Ashtanga Yoga follows the `Tristana` approach to yoga practice ~ Breath, Bandha/Posture, Drishti. We will learn the details of this method and find out why and how it leads to a state of dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation) and ultimately samadhi (liberation/enlightenment). We will practice this method using various postures from the Ashtanga Primary Series in order to experience the breath, the bandhas and the drishti as it happens in your own practice.
  • When you attend a Mysore Style class you will primarily receive hands on adjustments with minimal verbal cues. We will learn about this approach, how to assess if a physical adjustment is safe for your body and how receive adjustments in a way that will ultimately benefit your practice.

Mysore Ashtanga Exploration Weekend



 

Susan DeRyder

Originally from Edinburgh, Scotland, Susan settled in the Hudson Valley in 2016.  Susan has been teaching Ashtanga Vinyasa, Vinyasa Flow, Restorative, Yin Yoga and Meditation for over a decade, with her original training at The Life Centre in London, UK, in 2007. Back in Edinburgh she helped establish the now thriving Mysore program at Meadowlark Yoga. In 2011, Susan’s teaching schedule began to spread overseas and she found herself working seasonally at a retreat center in Costa Rica. During those years she would return to Edinburgh in the spring to teach and/or assist the Edinburgh Mysore program. This program is still running under the care of Sarah Hatcher who is now the morning Mysore program director there. Susan returns to study with Sarah, her Ashtanga teacher, at least one time per year. Susan is also a trained massage therapist and offers deeply healing yoga & sound meditation with her partner, Shawn DeRyder.

Summer Pop-Up Kirtan–Tuesdays in August, 7:45-8:45pm

Summer Pop-Up Kirtan

Led by Seth Lieberman

Tuesdays July through August

7:45-8:45pm

By Donation, hosted at our Midtown Studio

 

Join us at The Yoga House on Tuesday nights in July and August for Kirtan, call-and-response devotional group chanting. Kirtan will primarily be led by Yoga House instructor, Seth Lieberman, who will some (or all) weeks be accompanied by other local musician. In this powerful Bhakti Yoga (The Yoga of Devotion) mantra practice, we repeat the names of the divine in the Sanskrit, accompanied by the harmonium and musical instruments. Like other paths of yoga, kirtan works to calm the mind, open the heart, and bring us into closer union with our Self and with others.

This Summer Pop-up Kirtan will connect not only our local community through singing and gathering, but will also connect us to those  further away as we will collect donations for RAICES, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization agency that promotes justice by providing free and low-cost legal services to underserved immigrant children, families, and refugees in Texas.

 

Kirtan is accessible to all and no prior experience with yoga or singing is necessary. All are welcome.

Sacred Circle: An Amazonian Sound Healing – Sat,. Aug. 4th, 4-6pm

Sacred Circle: An Amazonian Sound Healing

Saturday, August 4th

4:00-6:00pm

Midtown Studio

$25

Join curandera Eda Zavala Lopez for an evening of sacred Amazonian chant and healing. You can also schedule a private shamanic healing session with Eda for Sunday, August 5th, to be held at the uptown studio.

Sound Circle

For thousands of years Indigenous Peoples have learned to be deeply connected to Nature and Universe in order to keep our spirits healthy and strong, tuned to the pulse of every being that creates a very refined balance into ourselves to walk in harmony and peacefully. Those sounds in the current times are so needed because people tend to be disconnected and mostly distracted by their minds; it is almost forgotten that beyond physical bodies there is a pure essential vibration that we call SPIRIT. The Amazonian sounds in conjunction with human healing chants help you to connect with your pure essence and creates an incredible opportunity to reconnect with your essential vibration. Come and join us to create together the South Amazonian and Northern Vibration.

 

Eda Zavala Lopez is a peruvian shaman-curandera, sociologist and environmental activist is in the US to share her profound knowledge about Shamanism, Plant Medicine and Amazonian Conservation. She is a direct descendant of Wari and Ashaninka People from the Amazon.

In December 2014 she was awarded by the Ministry of Environment in Peru for her profound commitment to Indigenous People from the Amazon Jungle to protect their sacred territories and pristine forests. She is also a Cultural Ambassador on behalf of Impact A Village that funds her projects in Peru.

Eda is a Plant Medicine healer that connects with the spirits of the plants and she is an activist that works so hard to preserve Indigenous knowledge and empower Indigenous People regarding future generations. Indigenous Wisdom and Amazonian forests are so important to keep alive in order to conserve the entire Planet.

In the last 10 years Eda has been participated in several venues around the US and participated in 2010, 2017 and 2018 at the United Nations Permanent Forum of Indigenous Issues. She also collaborated on the Stephan Martin’s book “Cosmic Visions: Dialogues on the Nature of the Universe and the Search for Reality” (2010)

Find out more

www.edazavalalopez.com

 


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September Focus of the Month – Cultivating Calm in a Chaotic World

Cultivating Calm in a Chaotic World

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States today. It doesn’t take a diagnosis to feel the impact. Whether it’s your own occasional suffering or a loved one’s persistent condition, anxiety crops up everywhere — draining life of its color, leaving exhausted humans in its wake.

This month we bring you tools to address the anxiety in your life, taught by yogis for millennia. While not a replacement for therapy or medication, yoga offers its practitioners many resources to access calm and peace even when these feel far away.

Some of the many tools of yoga:

  • Breath awareness, or pranayama practices. Ranging from the simple to the adventurous, yoga’s breath practices offer a way to become grounded and embodied, pulling the practitioner out of head space and into body space.
    • This month your teachers will guide you through breath awareness and breath techniques.
  • Gaze points, or drishti. Yoga is very concerned with focusing the mind. Its underlying assumption is that each of us has the power to tame the mind as a charioteer might tame horses. Focusing the eyes on a single spot is just one way to reign in the mind and to bring it under conscious control.
    • Notice when your instructor suggests where you should gaze.
  • Movement, or asana. Not everyone feels relaxed or at ease when they sit down, for instance to meditate. Agitating thoughts, like memories and worries, can sometimes be more noisy when all is still. Physical movement provides a way to lull and vitalize the mind and body, bringing them into better connection, stimulating happiness hormones and elevating mood.
    • The hearty part of any yoga class, consider how breath, gaze, mind and body come into balance when you’re doing asana.
  • Meditation. Anxiety and related disorders can have the effect of tightening and constricting consciousness. Sometimes done prior to movement, sometimes done afterward, meditation has the power to give you access to a wider field of awareness, bringing stressful thoughts into perspective, calming the nervous system, and kicking on the restorative centers of the brain.
    • Even a single minute of meditation can have a powerful effect. Your teachers can point you to more opportunities to learn how to meditate, if that interests you.
  • Yoga Nidra, or yogic sleep. Yoga nidra is a restorative practice wherein the instructor guides you into a rested waking state while your body is positioned comfortably. The usual brain centers get a break and the healing centers work their magic.
    • TYH teacher Susan DeRyder and her partner Shawn are offering Asana and Sound Healing with yoga nidra this month, Friday, Sept. 28th, 7:30-9:30pm.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, and yoga’s true impact comes when it is practiced regularly and over the long term as a lifestyle. Tune in to your teachers’ suggestions all month long. Balanced, peaceful, calm and joyful people are especially needed right now, and all the work you do to embody these qualities has a ripple effect “out there.”

Thanks for your commitment to the practice. See you on the mat <3.

 

In gratitude and service,

 

Leigha & Jacquelyn