Autumn Term 2024
Yoga, Pranayama & Meditation (30,20,20)
Mondays, 8pm-9.15pm Online
Monday 9 September to Monday 2 December 2024
Essentials: Yoga, Pranayama & Meditation
Dates: Monday 9 September to Monday 2 December 2024
Course Cost: £220
This autumn term, we are bringing together the three key strands of practice: asana, pranayama and meditation in one rich session. The three practice model enables us to really experience each of the strands of practice: asana, pranayama and meditation/nidra in an even and equal way.
Each week we will flow through a thirty-minute yoga flow designed to lubricate the body and free it of accumulated physical and mental/emotional tension, before settling into an extended pranayama or breathwork exploration practice. The pranayama session will introduce a range of breathwork practices enabling you to settle into deeper experience of focused breathwork and this will naturally flow into a gently guided twenty minute meditation which we will then debrief as a group.
The intention behind this model is to be efficient in our physical asana practice in order to prioritise the other two strands of practice in equal measure during the same session. As we all know, asana usually dominates practice unless we are focusing exclusively on pranayama or meditation – as we have also done in the past.
What will be our experience and development in the two latter areas by devoting more space and time to their practice? Developing a regular 20 minute meditation practice will have positive impact on our mental and emotional wellbeing in a variety of ways from capacity for concentration to the deepening of our ability ‘to be with’ experience and to explore at a deeper level who we are beyond the stories we tell ourselves.
The classical eight step path of yoga, documented in the yoga sutras by Patanjali lays out the practice in such an order; asana, followed by pranayama, followed by pratyahara (sense withdrawal) which then leads to the progressive states of meditation. In classical yoga, the asanas are seen as preparation for pranayama and meditation rather than an end in themselves. Asana’s original function according to another ancient yoga text, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika: is to prepare the body to sit; to open up the energy channels so that life force can flow without physical or emotional obstruction. Then we are ready to connect with the increasingly more subtle dimensions of our experience first through the breath and then deeper into meditation which is both inner and outer exploration; a progressive path inwards and outwards; into the depths of ourselves and upwards and outwards to connect with our world in all its dimensions of experience.
Over the course of the twelve-week term, with a half term break, we will explore a variety of short yoga sequences, pranayama practices and meditations. The 75 minute session model will ensure I have time to introduce each practice and that we come together to share experience at the end.
My personal experience
I have definitely seen the progression from the gross to the subtle in my own practice over the years. For me, yoga was definitely about the physical, when I began my practice 25 years ago . My relationship with the physical became gradually deeper, more embodied and eventually more focused on the energy body as I discovered the chakras and began to embody them.
But as my body has changed and I have got older and, hopefully, a little wiser, I am no longer interested in obtaining peak poses but approach my practice as a beautiful opportunity to enter into dialogue with my body through movement and awareness. I have discovered the art of pranayama and breathwork and its relationship with the mind. Through the art of meditation, I have understood much more deeply who I am and what experience is available to me.
I have become much more interested in the subtle aspects of the practice and in how to live, relate and create from that place.
I hope you will join me this autumn and discover a deeper practice for yourself.
Payment Possibilities:
5 Class Discount Pass (Valid In Wednesday class as well):£95
10 Class Discount (Pass Valid In Wednesday class as well: £180
