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  Sarah Powers:

INSIGHT YOGA INTENSIVE

Integrating the body, heart and mind

through Yoga, Mindfulness Meditation,

Interpersonal Communication,

and Emotional Work

Please call 919-933-9642 to register

PLEASE NOTE!
Students will be responsible for bringing

individual yoga mats and props to this workshop.
A BOLSTER, BLANKET OR PILLOW WILL HELP YOU SIT

Please bring your INSIGHT YOGA book to the training.

For lodging please call the Siena Hotel at 919-929-4000
www.sienahotel.com

They are extending discounts for anyone attending this event!

 

January 26th to 29th

(Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun, 1pm-4:30pm)

$300 early birds,
$400 late registration after Dec. 25th, 2011

A deposit of $100 will hold your spot.

Please bring your own props as the Teacher Training Intensive will be held at

EXTRAORDINARY VENTURES

200 So. Elliott Road in Chapel Hill

919-967-1100

(across the street from Whole Foods)

RECOMMENDED MATERIAL:
Insight Yoga book by Sarah Powers(www.pranamaya.com) or Triangle Yoga
Insight Yoga DVD by Sarah Powers (www.pranamaya.com) or Triangle Yoga
Yin Yoga book by Paul Grilley (www.pranamaya.com) or Triangle Yoga
Yin Yoga DVD by Paul Grilley (www.pranamaya.com) or Triangle Yoga
Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana
Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach
Feeding Your Demons by Tsultrim Allione
Bring a journal for taking notes and writing down your experiences

 


INSIGHT YOGA

A four day Yin Yoga and Meditation Training

for dedicated practitioners and teachers.

Yin yoga is a meditative style of hatha yoga that powerfully complements all other styles of yoga asana. This practice encourages long held floor poses to enhance the Chi or energy distribution through the Yin parts of the body, namely the bones and connective tissues that bind them. These mainly static postures coax Chi into the respective Meridians (the unseen riverbeds of energy the Chi travels through), thereby encouraging a kind of needle-less acupuncture treatment. This style of practice, done slowly and safely, nourishes the natural range of motion of the joints, which allows for more ease in sitting meditation postures. It also flushes the meridians housed in these connective tissues, which directly effects/enhances particular organs in the process. Restoring the flow of Chi within us has a direct impact on our psychological states, encouraging increased ease of being and clarity of mind

THE SCHEDULE

Thursday, Jan 26th, 1pm-4:30pm:

Thurssday will be dedicated to the physical and energetic details, deepening our understanding of our vital energy (Prana or Ki), while understanding how the Yin practice affects the meridian system and specific organs to enhance an overall harmony of being.

Friday, Jan 27th, 1pm-4:30pm:

Friday we will explore the emotional component, learning how the health of our organ system is intimately connected with balancing our emotional body.

Saturday, Jan 28th, 1pm-4:30pm:

Saturday we will look into the effect of this practice on calming and freeing the mind using Buddhist Mindfulness meditation. Each class will be a combination of theory and practice, with time for questions. This intensive is suitable for those who want to teach this practice as well as those who are simply interested in deepening their understanding of Yin Yoga.

Sunday, Jan 29th, 1pm-4:30pm:

An Extended Yin/Yang Practice with a half hour of meditation at the end.


PLEASE NOTE!

Students will be responsible for bringing

individual yoga mats and props to this workshop.

A BOLSTER, BLANKET OR PILLOW WILL HELP YOU SIT! 

Deposits and fees cannot be refunded,

but may be transferred to other workshops or classes.

If you must cancel, there will be a $35 administrative fee.

More valuable information!

We will focus on long held, passive Yin postures that  prepare the

body for sitting meditation. The Yin style also keeps the body supple at its core while

encouraging stagnate chi (prana) to flow throughout the joints. Explanation of this practice

will be given while in the poses during the 1st part of the practice. The remainder of the time

in the Yin practice will be devoted to hearing about and exploring the 4 foundations of Mindfulness. A Yang flow style asana practice will follow, geared toward strenghening

the core while encouragaing ease and grace in movement. Both Yin and Yang practices

will be followed by Mindfulness meditation, both led and silent.

YIN-YANG YOGA integrates Yin Yoga (long-held passive poses that

target the meridian system and connective tissues) with Yang Yoga

(a vinyasa practice, one which moves from pose to pose with the breath).

Each session begins with a Yin practice, then moves into a

vinyasa practice to stimulate the muscles and breath.

We finish with a sitting meditation practice.

This intensive will focus on long-held floor poses that enhance the meridian system, thereby helping to restore a balanced equilibrium internally, preparing one for meditation. While participants experience the practice, Sarah Powers will lecture on the importance of meridian health on one’s overall well-being. This combination of practice and theory should enhance your understanding of the poses that promote organ health and emotional vitality.

Each Yin session will target a different area of the body; Session 1 will focus on the kidney and liver meridians. Session 2 will emphasize the stomach, spleen, lungs, and heart meridians. You will explore how to work with difficult feelings, such as fear and anger, embedded not only in your heart and mind but in your very tissues. Since breath is the inner catalyst for pranic circulation, pranayama (the breath) will also be explored during the Yin sessions.

All sessions will end with Mindfulness Meditation.

Sarah Powers offers a unique inter-disciplinary approach that blends the insights and

practices of yoga with Buddhist mindfulness and meditation. As a result, her retreats

and workshops interweave many disciplines into a single integral practice.

RECOMMENDED MATERIA :

Insight Yoga book by Sarah Powers(www.pranamaya.com) or Triangle Yoga

Insight Yoga DVD by Sarah Powers (www.pranamaya.com) or Triangle Yoga

Yin Yoga book by Paul Grilley (www.pranamaya.com) or Triangle Yoga

Yin Yoga DVD by Paul Grilley (www.pranamaya.com) or Triangle Yoga

Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana

Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach

Feeding Your Demons by Tsultrim Allione 

Bring a journal for taking notes and writing down your experiences

  

 

SARAH POWERS began teaching in 1987. She interweaves the insights and practices of Yoga and Buddhism into an integral

practice to enliven the body, heart and mind. Her yoga style blends both a Yin sequence of long held poses to enhance the

meridian and organ systems, combined with a flow or Yang practice, influenced by Viniyoga, Ashtanga, and alignment based

teachings. Her Buddhist training in Insight Meditation includes many retreats with Spirit Rock trained teachers, time spent in a

Monastery in Burma, and a dharma teacher training with Bhante Gunaratana. Her main influence for the last 7 years has been

the Dzogchen teacher, Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Sarah teaches retreats with her husband Ty, and together they home school their

teenage daughter, Imani Jade. They live in Marin, CA.

 

REACHING DEEPER

Through studying yin yoga, Sarah learned that it had its greatest benefit when practiced before a more active asana practice,

not afterward. When we work actively, the pranic flow and circulation are directed into the muscles and superficial connective

tissues. By comparison, a long-held passive pose practiced while the muscles are not yet warm allows the energy to reach the

deeper connective tissues of the joints and the corresponding pathways of the meridian system. (The meridian system is

composed of energy channels) The prana (or life force) stimulates and tones the joints, deep connective tissues, increasing

the supply of fluids to them, making them less dense and enabling them to stretch appropriately. As a result, we become more

  flexible, our joints become "juicier," and energy blocks along the meridians are removed, enabling the organs to function better.

And because the influx of prana works on the nervous system too, we become not only calmer but also more focused. 

"If you never go into the deeper connective tissue," Sarah says, "it becomes denser and less flexible-more yin-making it more

difficult to go deeper into asanas and uncomfortableto sit in meditation. For me, the purpose of doing yoga is to feel more at

home in my body. I'm interested in having harmony in my body and in enabling energy to flow freely to all channels, joints,

muscles and organs. Yin yoga enables me to reach levels of myself I otherwise could not get to."

PUSHING YOUR EDGES

Sarah finds that the passive yin approach gives students a new edge to work with in their yoga practice -the edge of just being

in a pose without trying to get anywhere in it. "Yin practice takes you deeper into where you are, not out to where you think you

should be, "Sarah notes. "This approach challenges us to rethink what asana is about. It marries meditation and asana into a very

deep practice. Some people, especially beginners, are not interested in or willing to do this -to sit inside their discomfort and just

watch their reactions instead of trying to fix or change the pose. Yin yoga challenges you to sit in the pure presence of awareness.

It's hard in a different way than active asana practice, but in a way that's more profound and satisfying as  well as more beneficial to

the deeper tissues." This doesn't mean that Sarah has given up her active asana practice. In fact, she is continually working on

deepening her yang practice, too. "We learn how to be still, but we also have to utilize our muscles and express ourselves

energetically," she says "The goal is a sattvic [pure] balance of tamasic (passive) and rajasic (active) energies -a beautiful marriage

of yang and yin, effort and surrender, ha [sun] and tha [moon]. The practice of yin/yang yoga helps us learn about stillness in

movement and the flow in stillness." Sarah finds that her yin practice has helped to facilitate and deepen her yang practice.

"The ability to surrender to that yin practice becomes deeply engrained in you and carries over into your yang practice," she says.

"This keeps you from 'overefforting' and trying to push yourself into various poses, which increases the likelihood of injury.

Plus after yin practice, you find that there is already more energy flowing at deeper levels, so you are more flexible and

require less warm-up. As a result, you go deeper with less effort."

CULTIVATING WHOLENESS

Sarah's meditating has been primarily in the Buddhist traditions. She has studied in the U.S. and Asia with highly distinguished teachers - most notably, Jack Kornfield in the vipassana tradition, Toni Packer in the open awareness of the Zen tradition, and the Tibetan reincarnate lama  Tsoknyi Rinpoche in the Dzogchen path of effortless clarity. Buddhism has given her a clear map to the mind and helpful tools for getting into silence and stillness. She is also inspired by the teachings of Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj of the Advaita Vedanta, school of Indian philosophy based on the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita that emphasizes non-duality and holds that liberation is attained through a dissolution of all individuality. She uses these tools in her workshops because she wants to share them with others and help them experience the power of stillness that she finds in yin/yang yoga.

 

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