Doing yoga on your own reveals the full power of the practice as it allows you to bring all your attention within. As the saying goes, your energy goes where your attention goes. With the practice of yoga, we start fine-tuning our energies, making our minds and bodies the ultimate tools for transformation. To harness our energies all our attention must be placed within. During group sessions, your energy is split between doing and paying attention to what to do, limiting the benefits of the practice. Therefore, independent individual practice is of profound effect. One where you no longer need to follow a teacher. Yoga is meditation itself when it is properly taught and practiced. There really should be no difference other than the subtlety of the techniques that are been progressively practiced. This means that as you progress you move from the gross to the subtle aspect until there is no need for many postures, basically your main practice becomes one you do while seated. The time to get there depends on many internal and external factors, such as intensity of practice, dedication, qualities of mind and body, and your karma. So maybe you are completely new to yoga, maybe you have been doing some regular classes at a studio/gym but feel the need for depth, or perhaps you greatly dislike group sessions. Regardless, this course is for you if you want to find the depth that the ancients promised and that truly lies in the simplicity of the practice. Nowadays it seems that acrobatics is all there is to yoga. the truth is they are not essential. Yoga is not a workout, although, in some of its ways it may look like it, is since it uses and enhances the body to prepare and facilitate the flow of energy, but this does not mean that it is its purpose nor all there is to it. The physical benefits are a bonus. This course will provide the basic knowledge and understanding of yogaso that you feel confident when doing your practice safely at home. It consists on modules that can be practised individually and with time they can be joined together as a complete yoga session. You are meant to memorise them so that later on you no longer need the videos to follow the sequences. Then as you practice repeatedly your body transforms, the movements get integrated and it progresses into a meditative practice. Once here, you may stay with this sequence as your main practice or you may advance. Please note that “advance” does not mean more difficult postures, it may for some people and this is okay, but it refers to moving towards the subtle aspects of yoga. You may also complement your home practice with group sessions, other styles of yoga/meditation or one-on-one sessions with me, which are customised to your unique characteristics of body and mind. Remember that your home practice becomes your meditation. This course is based on classical Hatha Yoga, from the Yoga and Meditation School of India, and in some aspects of the traditional Ashtanga Vinyasa Sun Salutations A. It is directed to complete beginners or regular practitioners that want to take their practise to a more profound and advanced level. It is not the WHAT you do, it is the HOW you do it, what matters. The course will touch on the foundational principles and a bit on the philosophy of yoga and its application in the real life. May this course help you find your own shinning light. All the best, LoVE, Catalina Mendez, PhD.
