Every moment of our lives is filled with potential for deeper, simpler, more sublime experience. In opening our senses to being fully aware of our reality, we discover insights for consciously refining our actions and ways of living, making our practice and life more beautiful and joyful. Rather than only turning our awareness inward, we open to being fully awake in the whole of it all, conscious in the beauty of existence, even – or especially – amid complex lives in this often crazy, stressful, and unpredictable world.

These sessions blend insights from yoga, tantra, mythology, science (mostly kinesiology and neuroscience) and philosophy. Some are “practices” (classes) and others are “workshops”; all are for deepening your personal practice and the practice of sharing yoga with others.

This set of classes and workshops can be taken a whole or in its separate sessions.

Complete 25-Hour YECEP Certificate Option: € 590 (€ 550 early bird by 15 September)

Covers all sessions (workshops & master classes) Receive a 2-hours of Mark’s pre-recorded videos on Refined Teaching of Asana Receive a 2-hour bonus video on Teaching Pranayama

SCHEDULE

Thursday 13 October

12:30 to 16:30

The Intricacies of Standing Asanas Some teachers say just let it feel good. Others tell you exactly what to do and how to do it. Here we will explore student-teacher dialogue, the conversation between student experience and a teacher’s informed guidance, in the context of looking closely at a wide variety of standing postures. We will peer through the prisms functional anatomy, biomechanics, and kinesiology; inquire about habits and samskaras; discuss different theories regarding alignment, energetic actions, and stress; and consider alternatives ways of offering verbal cues, visual demonstration, and hands-on cues.

18:30 to 20:00

Master Class – Focus on Hip Opening (Drop-in possible)

This mixed-level class will encourage playful and joyful exploration of asana, pranayama, and meditation. First, we will sit, breathe, visualize, and set clear personal intention. Second, we will explore a gradually deepening array of asanas in a flow-style practice with many options for different conditions and intentions, offering a deep exploration of the hips (using both standing and seated asanas) and some basic backbends. Third, we will integrate with simple twists, forward bends, and inversions, rest, then breathe to simplify everything, and then sit a little more. If there’s time and interest, we can sing.

Friday 14 October

12:30-16:30

The Intricacies of Backbends and Spinal Twists Some teachers say just let it feel good. Others tell you exactly what to do and how to do it. Here we will explore student-teacher dialogue, the conversation between student experience and a teacher’s informed guidance, in the context of looking closely at a wide variety of Backbends and Twists, starting with a discussion of the spine and its relationship to the pelvic and shoulder girdles. We will again peer through the prisms functional anatomy, biomechanics, and kinesiology; inquire about habits and samskaras; discuss different theories regarding alignment, energetic actions, and stress; and consider alternatives ways of offering verbal cues, visual demonstration, and hands-on cues. Postures will range from very basic to advanced.

18:30 to 21:00

Master Class – Focus on Levity & Heart Opening (Drop in possible)

This classes explores the relationship between grounding and expanding, roots and extension, applying awakened core and open hips to a variety of playful arm balances before transitioning into the deeper realm of the heart with slow progression into a series of backbends. There will be options for all levels of experience and ability.

Saturday 15 October

14:00 to 18:30

The Intricacies of the Core and Arm Support Asanas Some teachers say just let it feel good. Others tell you exactly what to do and how to do it. Here we will explore student-teacher dialogue, the conversation between student experience and a teacher’s informed guidance, in the context of looking closely at a wide variety of practices for cultivating the abdominal core and connecting the Core to Hand and Arm Support postures, starting with a brief discussion of the core, hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders and neck. We will again peer through the prisms functional anatomy, biomechanics, and kinesiology; inquire about habits and samskaras; discuss different theories regarding alignment, energetic actions, and stress; and consider alternatives ways of offering verbal cues, visual demonstration, and hands-on cues.

19:00 to 20:30pm

Master Class – An Integrated Practice (Drop-in possible)

This flow-style class with have many pauses to explore a wide range of hand and arm support asanas, starting with basic aspects of hand placement, shoulder girdle stability, and active use of the abdominal core to make arm balances easier and more expressive. A wide variety of arm balances will be sprinkled through the class, with multiple options for each one, including options for not doing the arm balance. Includes wrist and shoulder therapy practices.

Sunday 16 October

14:00 to 17:30

The Intricacies of Surya Namaskara – Remix and Refinement There a few simple remixes and several principles rooted in biomechanics and neuroscience that can make these precious gems of yoga better for all – safer, more accessible, more sustainable, and more beneficial. While bowing deeply to ancient wisdom and the creativity of Krishnamacharya, Sivananda, and others, we will explore new methods and techniques for practicing and guiding Surya Namaskara A/B and Classical Surya Namaskara, considering how best to practice them as students and guide them as teachers. Begins with a lecture on the philosophies, mythologies, and histories of human being ritually bowing to the sun, especially in doing yoga.

18:00 to 19:30

Master Class: Asana, Pranayama, Meditation: An Integrated Yoga-Tantra Practice (Drop in possible)

In the whole yoga, our practices integrate the eight limbs of yoga. Here we will start with a brief discussion of that idea, then explore the integrated practice of asana, pranayama, and meditation. We will visit every asana family (standing, core, arm support, backbends, twists, seated & supine hip openers and forward bends, and inversions), with options for all levels of ability. We will explore several pranayama techniques (including vritti, viloma, kumbhaka, and nadi shodhana). We will sit and explore both “classical” and tantric approaches to meditation.

California yoga teacher and author Mark Stephens integrates insights from vastly diverse sources found in ancient-to-modern yoga, tantra, science, mythology, and philosophy. Practicing yoga for over 31 years, teaching for over 26 years, and training teachers for over 21 years, his four comprehensive yoga textbooks, Teaching Yoga, Yoga Sequencing, Yoga Adjustments, and Yoga Therapy, plus Yoga for Better Sleep, are available in many languages. He wrote the “For Teachers” column for Yoga Journal Deutschland in 2017-2019. He lives in Santa Cruz, California and teaches globally. Learn more at markstephensyoga.com.

The practices are designed and taught for all levels of students, offering options for beginners to seriously advanced students and teachers. The workshops (especially those titled “The Intricacies…”) are designed primarily for teachers and teacher trainers, and they are open to students with dedicated yoga practices.