Feldenkrais Method™ and Yoga
Using Feldenkrais® to Improve your Yoga practice
Using Feldenkrais® to Improve your Yoga practiceHave you reached a plateau in your practice and don’t know where to go?
- Do you suffer from nagging injuries or pain?
- Has your practice become rote, lost its freshness and depth?
- Do you still have a beginners’ mind?
Yoga when done as a mindfulness practice encourages awareness. However, like many things in life it may become habitual and lose its depth of meaning with time and automatic repetition. This can block our progress, creating internal resistance whether physical or mental. Often we find a way through but sometimes no matter what we do nothing changes. Then the ‘struggle’ against the block becomes the focus of practice!
What is needed is a fresh look, a fresh approach, a new way to investigate the situation. The Feldenkrais Method® can be a potent resource for stimulating change. It offers a powerful way to explore variations and possibilities for approaching yoga asanas and the way you practice.
These explorations are not yoga poses ‘done differently’. Feldenkrais® Awareness Through Movement® lessons reveal the underlying functional connections which, when brought to awareness, allow the asana to be practiced with greater clarity and ease.
This allows us to experience mind-body unity in a new way. It opens the door to fresh insights and revelations and deepens your yoga practice.
We will explore:
- Lengthening vs stretching
- Discipline/technique vs Method
- Elements of Awareness
- How the brain thrives on novelty for enhanced learning
You will have the opportunity to learn:
- Expanded self-awareness
- Richer attentional capacities
- Fresh tools to enliven practice
- Greater understanding of mind-body connection
- How the principles of how we learn enhance your yoga practice
Your Instructor
Sandra Bradshaw: Sandra is a guild certified Feldenkrais practitioner. Although life has taken her in a different direction more recently, Sandra practiced and taught yoga for many years. Influenced by Swami Vishnu Devananda, BKS Iyengar and Moshe Feldenkrais, she developed and taught a unique approach to hatha yoga that combined asanas with Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement. Sandra maintains a private Feldenkrais practice in Kelowna, BC and continues to extoll the benefits of hatha yoga and the Feldenkrais Method.
Gisele St. Hilaire: Gisele became a guild certified Feldenkrais practitioner after 10 years practice as a physiotherapist. She has nearly 30 years of deep study of human movement, health, well-being. In her Feldenkrais practice she has worked with people from all walks of life, from 3 week old infants to professional musician's, athletes, dancers, to elderly people with neurological conditions. Many of her current clients are yoga practitioners and teachers. She currently works full time as a Feldenkrais practitioner and looks forward to being the continuity Assistant Trainer for the Kelowna Feldenkrais® Teacher Training.