Annual Program Open House

Picture from our Open House for the Annual and Winter Intensive programs, Sept 8th, 2013.

Module 6: Practicum and Graduation

After a grueling 12 weeks of intensive training, students were asked to teach free, open to the public classes
as practice.

Module 6: Professionalism

As we transitioned from intro to teaching and into professionalism, we began discussing the issues facing the yoga world today.

Module 5 continued...

As we continued to discuss the details of teaching yoga, we began to integrate our prior lessons. We had the opportunity to discuss the philosophy of teaching yoga specifically with Adri's teacher Wanda. We discussed the various components, observational, intellectual, emotional, and educational, that go into teaching a class.

Students also had the opportunity to see in what ways Adri and Wanda are the same, and in what ways they are very different teachers. We discussed how the same foundations may manifest differently in each individual teacher, and how we can best use our own personal teaching perspective to form our teaching voice.

Module 4 and Module 5

Module 4:
We concluded our energetic view and mechanical review of asanas over the last week. While in Module 2 we combined asanas on their anatomical elements, in module 4 we wanted to focus on the energetics of pose classifications such as forward bends, back bends, twists, balances (including arm) and inversions. We also viewed things from classifications such as seated, standing, prone, and supine, and noted the overlaps and differences in viewing poses as anatomical, directional/energetic, and by stance.

Concluding Module 3 (Philosophy), Beginning Module 4

Module 3: Philosophy and Hatha Practices draws to a close...

Chanting, Mantra, Kirtan, etc...
Before the holiday we studied the role of sound and music in ritual throughout the history of Yoga.

Module 2 and 3 in review (weeks 2-4+)

Concluding Module 2: Anatomy and Asana...

During the Anatomy and Asana sections we reviewed major muscle groups using our textbook, coloring books, reviews, and Clayton's assistance. Previously Clayton had major leg muscles, hip flexors and adductors, and spine stabilizers of the hip. Here we've added the tensor fasciae latae/IT band, shoulder girdle, lattissimus dorsi, trapezius  deltoid, and the biceps.

We reviewed asana alignment relating to spine, neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists and hands before transitioning into...

A pictorial summary of the first ten days...

Upama Yoga Summer Intensive: 

Module 1 and the start of Module 2

We began the program by getting an overview of gross anatomy, basic physiology, comparative meditation techniques from Modern Secular, Buddhist and Hindu traditions, and lastly began our intro to Sanskrit pronunciation. While these are very intimidating ideas, we approached them from a pragmatic perspective and a fun, light attitude. We looked at what there was to know, isolated what we needed to know, and explored the ideas through a variety of concrete, experiential techniques.