Aches and pains are a part of life. The causes of some — usually more temporary — are obvious to us, while the causes of those that linger and become more persistent over time are not so obvious.
Yoga is a fun and challenging practice that you can take on any level, and it’s more than just an accessible form of fitness training: it helps you reduce the aches and pains of life by releasing the tensions that cause them, and also helps you to be more self-aware in how you use your body. The practice is a tool for rewriting patterns of movement that otherwise wear you down.
Each session gives you insights into your own body, and simple tools and practices for enhancing wellness and overcoming your aches and pains, all with an enjoyable and engaging practice.
As recognized by Yoga International, Doug Keller has been teaching full-time in classes, workshops, and training for 23 years worldwide, after 14 years of study and practice, and after completing a Master's degree in philosophy and teaching at a college level at Fordham University. His yoga journey includes practicing in Siddha Yoga ashrams, intensive training in the Iyengar and Anusara methods, and nearly a decade of teaching in the U.S. and abroad. His book Refining the Breath has been around for 20 years, presented as a simple and accessible entry into the practice of pranayama. Asana instruction, essays, and other enlightening information are available on his website.
Individual workshop sessions are $75 per person or $240 for all four sessions.
Contact Jim Turner with questions about yoga workshops: 409-771-1948
Our feet — and knowing how to use them — provide a key to not only the health of your feet and ankles, but also your knees and hips. The most fundamental poses of yoga — the standing poses — are tools for improving wellness in these joints, and strengthening the muscles that maintain their health
This practice will include some simple principles for working with your feet, knees, and hips, and an all-levels practice that involves moving through series of poses while keeping these principles in mind.
This is both a ‘learning’ and ‘doing’ experience. You’ll find the explanations insightful and accessible, and that you’ll easily be able to incorporate these ideas into your own body, as well as inspiration to carry this practice forward in your own life, even if for just a few minutes a day.
The evening will finish with guided relaxation.
The ‘Core’ is a popular buzz-word in the fitness world, but what is it, really? You’ll be introduced to not only the layers of abdominals that make for dynamic, healthy movement, but also the center of movement — the psoas muscle and its companions.
This is not an ‘abdominals workout,’ though the abdominals will see some action! It will be a movement practice that emphasizes ‘functional movement’ — i.e. practicing poses that support our everyday movements, particularly twisting movements that support the health of our low back. These are not ‘deep’ twists: the movements in the poses leave you feeling like you’ve had a good massage.
And at the heart of it lies the psoas, a deep muscle that is linked to chronic back pain, particularly when we are under emotional stress. In the latter part of the practice, as we move into relaxation, you’ll be introduced to simple practices involving the breath and movement that help to release tension in the psoas, and thus release pressure in the low back. These practices will be all the more effective thanks to the poses that came before them!
The shoulder girdle includes three moving parts — collarbone, shoulder blade, and armbone (humerus). For healthy, pain-free movement of the shoulders, all three parts have to work together well.
We’ll look at the role of these three parts and their joints in shoulder aches and pains, and principles for warmup and action for all of them, with applications in yoga poses. This will include a look at common form of shoulder aches and pains, and their causes — including and especially shoulder impingement and rotator cuff problems. Special attention will be given to the ‘wings’ of the shoulders — the shoulder blades.
This will be a relatively simple practice, with no ‘extreme’ movements for the shoulders, and will include plenty of ‘light bulb’ moments for working better with your shoulders in yoga poses — and in life.
This practice will be a wrap-up of ideas from the weekend, and also take things a step further to understand why we experience ‘zig-zags’ of aches and pains that seem to ricochet from one side of the body to the other. These come from little shifts and imbalances in our postural and movement patterns that put pressure on joints and give rise to these aches.
The session will start with some simple tools for recognizing our own patterns — and some simple principles for recognizing where we need to work. From there, we’ll go into a practice to see how these ideas apply from pose to pose, making connections in areas where we have become ‘disconnected.’
Yoga poses are designed to re-establish connections and restore the wholeness of movement, but they are not often practiced this way. This practice, building upon the weekend, gives you a nice ‘reset’ to re-establish balance and ease in your own body.
