THE REFINEMENT OF YOGA ASANA - 25h INTENSIVE with Mark Stephens

***WAITING LIST***

4 DAY INTENSIVE WITH MARK STEPHENS

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 “Master Classes” (fully developed and intricate practices) and others are “workshops”; all are for deepening your personal practice and – if it is your intention – the practice of sharing yoga with others as yoga teachers.

Please note, that the intensive can only be booked including all four days (not single days or workshops) while the masterclasses can be booked separately!

REGISTRATION : nico@voltayoga.ch

Master Classes

These classes are designed and taught for all levels of students, offering options for beginners to seriously advanced students and teachers. They model how to teach, including how to teach multi-level classes, while focusing guiding the practice in accessible, sustainable, and meaningful ways.

The Refinement Workshops 

These sessions are designed primarily for teachers and teacher trainers, and are open to anyone interested in seriously deepening and refining their personal practices. We start with the idea that some teachers say just let it feel good, while many others tell you exactly what to do and how to do it. Looking very closely at a wide variety of asanas, we will explore the conversation between student experience, expression, and a teacher’s informed guidance. We will peer through the prisms functional anatomy, biomechanics, and kinesiology; inquire about habits and samskaras; discuss different theories regarding human 5ssues (such as bones, cartilage, muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fascia), alignment, energetic actions, and stress; and consider alternatives ways of offering verbal cues, visual demonstra5on, and hands-on cues designed to more greatly empower students in their personal practices – as practices of kriya (“action” – in which the student, not the teacher, takes primary action.

PRICING

Workshops (including masterclasses): 

590.- (four days, 25h, no reduced price available)

Masterclasses: 

3h: 90.-/75.-reduced

2h: 70.-/55.- reduced

--> can be booked separately

SCHEDULE & DETAILS

Thursday 6 October

18:00 to 21:00

• Master Class: Asana, Pranayama, Meditation: An Integrated Yoga-Tantra Practice  In the whole yoga, our practices integrate the eight limbs of yoga, yet there is far more in the many strands of practice deep in the roots of yoga and tantra. Here we will start with a brief discussion of that idea, then explore an 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 medita5on. If there’s time and interest, we can sing.

Friday 7 October

14:00-17:45

• The Refinement of Standing Asanas  Focus on the fundamentals of standing starting with detailed elements of pada bandha, pelvic neutrality, mula bandha, natural spine shape, the shoulder girdle the head and how specific breathing can support these; close consideration of standing asanas with externally, internally, and neutrally rotated hips; standing balancing asanas; modifica5ons, use of props, and creative variations; hands-on adjustments; and matters of sequencing.

18:00-20:00

• Master Class – Focus on Hip Opening  o This mixed-level class will take you deeply into your hips with slow, patient, methodical, sustained and potentially revelatory techniques. First, we will sit, breathe, visualize, and set clear personal intention. Second, we will explore a gradually deepening array of very specific actions in the hips, mostly while supine. Third, we’ll explore with great specificity a variety of standing hip opening asanas in a flow-style with many options for different conditions and intentions, offering a deeper exploration of the hips. Lastly, we will rest, then sit.

Saturday 8 October

9:00 to 12:00

• The Refinement of the Core and Arm Support Asanas  o Focus on the fundamentals of 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.

13:00 to 17:00

• The Refinement of Backbends  Focus on the fundamentals of a wide variety of backbends, starting with a discussion of the spine and its relationship to the pelvic and shoulder girdles.

18:00 to 20:00

• Master Class – Focus on Grounding and Levitating  This class 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.

Sunday 9 October

9:00 to 10:00

• Waking Up with Pranayama and Meditation  First, we will simply sit and tune in. Second, we will go very slowly in gradually expanding, balancing, and refining how we breathe, exploring a variety of pranayama techniques, with just a little bit of movement. Third, will sit and play with a few ways of cultivating simpler yet more expansive consciousness and joyful awareness.

10:30-12:30

• Master Class: Asana, Pranayama, Meditation: An Integrated Yoga-Tantra PracGce  This is a shorter version of the Master Class given on Thursday. We will start with a very brief talk about yoga and tantra in practice. We will then 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.

14:00-17:30

• The Refinement 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.

MARK STEPHENS

California yoga teacher and best-selling 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.