Paula Tortolano Self – Two Day Iyengar Yoga Immersion June 14-15, 2013
Friday, June 14, 2013 9:30 am to 12:30 pm
“Sensitize Effort, Adjustment and Comfort”
BKS Iyengar says the making of the mind and intelligence run parallel to the action of the body and establish the self in the cells, tissues and the fibers of the body is comfort.
While doing asana, we are asked to correct our position and to translate the act to a state as required from the body. Instead of doing what the body needs, we strain the brain, tense it, and think we have done the required job. Here the effort was on the brain and not at all on the needed areas. This creates a gap between the body and mind, which makes one to feel action as effort. If we co-ordinate body and mind in action, then the feel of effort fades out and practice appears effortless.
We will explore many openings of the body to channel its function in the right way. Let’s work to keep the brain as an observer while performing asana, then the first step of effortlessness will be felt.
Single Module Fee - 3 hours: $80
Friday, June 14, 4:30 pm to 7:30 pm
“Asanas to build courage and bring intellectual clarity”
Practice of Yoga is to acquire calmness in the mind. BKS Iyengar always emphasizes that mental health needs both intellectual as well as emotional stability.
The intelligence in a person has two branches. One branch moves towards the brain while the other towards the heart. When one is depressed, the upward flow of energy facing the brain is retarded. The retarded energy makes one to brood and it sinks the mental heart. Some asanas work on emotional quietness by stabilizing the emotional center. Some asanas help one in developing intellectual sharpness, alertness, smartness and power to endure any type of physical load whereas some other asanas make the mind move inwards to penetrate the interior mind.
Inverted poses bring the nectar for intellectual clarity and emotional stability. The head is subdued and the heart is energized. Let’s permit the life-energy flow in these regions creating joy without any disturbances.
Single Module Fee 3 hours: $80
Saturday, June 15, 2013, 8:30 am to 11 am
“Exploring preparatory action for standing and sitting postures”(including a segment on teaching children)
What does asana mean? What do asanas deal with? What do asanas bring? What do asanas make us indirectly to follow?
We already know that asanas improve our health, enhance our physiological functioning and bring stability to our mental state. It is not possible to gain all these by doing just one asana. Among all the things we owe BKS Iyengar, the ‘art of sequencing’ is one of them, as long as ‘timing’ in asanas but there is one more aspect that is not explored enough which is ‘repetition’.
We are going to deepen this aspect of Iyengar Yoga which have been a beacon in therapeutic as well as in teaching Yoga to children and youngsters. The ‘preparatory progressive sequential movements’ are learned in three ways: basic, intermediate and advance. Let’s make us energetic and give rhythmic movement to the body.
Single Module Fee 2.5 hours: $75
Sat., June 15, 2013; 12:30 to 2:30 pm
“Essentiality of regular practice”
One has to practice asana with total involvement. Each has various facets such as balance, motion, repetitive action, reflection, intellectual penetration and elevation.
While practicing the asana one has to study the changes and transformations that take place in body, mind and intelligence. BKS Iyengar says that practicing without reflection is predominance on motion and not on action.
Let’s experience the sense of delight in each asana so the practice finally evolves from complexity to simplicity and from simplicity towards serenity.
Single Module Fee 2 hours: $70
FULL workshop FEE for 10.5 hous only $225 prepay by May 15, 2013; $260 thereafter.
Or priced as marked for single modules.
Above: Paula, new baby girl, Lila, and Geeta Iyengar in June Photo
