4 Phase Basic Training
Playing the Edge of Pain, Fear & Resistance with
Physical/Mental/Relational Yoga …
in the Many Dimensions of Life …
while Exploring & Creating Bio-Structural Balance
in Posture, Function & Movement … With an introduction to Yoga-based, Hands-on Structural Bodywork
Learn How To
GET CONTROL
of your nerves/muscles/fascia/joints/bones
By LETTING GO
of Tension, Stress & Habit Patterns
Learn How To
Feel, RELAX, Lengthen, Balance, Coordinate & CONTROL
the Muscles & Systems of Your BodyMind
Yoga for the WEST of Us … in a Good Way
In recent years, more individuals are attracted to yoga who in the past were put off by various ideas: it’s hippie stuff, I’m not flexible enough, I don’t want any foreign religion, etc. … The walls have been coming down, and many older and/or less healthy people are attracted to yoga, and far more likely to be injured, embarrassed, put off by mysticism or certain aesthetic practices, etc. … Or, younger, more aggressive people are pushing too hard and getting hurt, as well. … But now, even some of the more progressive and well informed doctors are prescribing yoga.
Maximizing Results While Minimizing Injury
The Basic Workshop & 4 Phase Trainings are all about how to prevent injury while, with the very same principles, maximizing positive results.
Though we of course do Yogasana … the DSL approach is NOT posture-driven. The Quality of Your Yoga is NOT in how deep you are into a pose nor how precisely aligned you are based on some external standard of alignment. Rather than externally applied positioning, this approach relies on meditative, internal feedback/response loops that guide your body where it needs to go. It’s about how well you Feel & Pay Attention to, and Respond to, your limitations (Edges) as they are in the moment.
Playing the Edges, combined with principles such as Lines of Energy and Breath, actually guide you to Perfect Alignment for you in that unique present moment, gradually directing you deeper into the pose as appropriate, without stress or injury. Your alignment needs continually adjust over your lifetime.
DSL Trainings Take You Back to FUNdamentals, and are designed to assist Yoga Teachers & Therapists to work more effectively with beginners, stiff bodies, therapeutic issues, or those who are open to far more conscious experiences, but prefer Western spiritual frameworks. And YES, with a little help from a few Essential Insights from the East, there’s plenty to draw upon from in the Western psycho-philosophical & spiritual traditions.
DSL is Scientifically & Philosophically Based, giving you a high level of RELEVANT knowledge & insight into how the human bodymind actually works in health, sickness and yogasana, yet without the mythology often accompanying many alternative health care practices, including yoga. At the same time, there’s a strong moral component derived in part from nearly unknown translations of Biblical texts with amazing similarities to Eastern meditative traditions such as Zen and traditional Buddhism.
Learn Why NO Pain Means MORE Gain!
Working with Minimum to Moderate Edges (it’s NOT about what you can tolerate!), along with proper sequencing, are The Keys to building a Psycho-Muscular & Bio-Structural Foundation and maximizing positive results while minimizing injuries and other negative consequences.
Microgenesis (Microgenetic Moments)
A phenomenon occurring when physiological impulses arising from the body meet descending brain impulses, producing a transformative healing moment, and a letting go of, to some degree, the mental, physical and/or emotional past.
The FUNdamentals of Physical/Mental/Relational Yoga …
And Their Therapeutic Applications
For the FEELING/THINKING Individual Working
Cooperatively with Other Human Beings
1. FUNdamentals of Let-Go & CORE/Structural Yoga
DeConstructing Yoga from the Inside Out
With essential, simple, yet seldom taught movement principles, learn how Yoga (Conscious Stretching) works internally. Discover what REALLY goes on in your bodymind. Learn to release Natural Forces of Effortless Great Posture in sitting/standing and creating fluid, coordinated, energetic movement. It’s all about learning how to Feel, Relax, Lengthen, Balance, Coordinate & Control your bodymind.
- Experience/Understand Elements of Yoga:
- Using Breath to Dissolve Tension
- Activate Parasympathetic Healing Systems
- Aligning the body via Lines of Energy
- When “Proper Alignment” isn’t Proper
- Creating Length before Bending for …
- Decompressing Nerves & Joints and …
- Initiating Movement from the Core while …
- Playing Edges of Pain/Fear/Resistance
- Working with Intensities of Sensation
- Working with Gentle & Simple CHAIR YOGA
- Understand/Resolve Many Myth-Conceptions
- Prevent & Deal with Pain/Injuries/Dysfunction
- Homeopathic, Minimum/Moderate Edgework
- Length/Strength/Coordinate from Center
Discover how core, postural muscles REALLY work & insights into what goes wrong, especially from excess tension, stress & habit patterns. You’ll learn to control muscles most responsible for maintaining proper posture & fluid movement with far less effort, without having to think about it. … Getting Control, yet Releasing the Power, of pelvic/lumbar relationships & AB muscles is a primary focus. Start the process of understanding & resolving basic pain & dysfunction patterns. Why muscle length breeds strength.
Evening Session #1
Basic Jnana Yoga & Structure of Mind
How MInd works and how feeling/thinking work in meditation and yoga & bodywork. Taking mystery out of and resolving conflicts in thinking, feeling, meditation & action working together.
2. Bio-Structural Analysis & Postural Assessment
Better Answers to the Puzzles of Posture, Pain & Dysfunction
Because every Human Being is unique, Let-Go Yoga™ & YogasAnalysis™ strive for higher levels of individualized attention for Students & Clients, a major key to healing & injury prevention. Precisely Seeing their Bio-Structure gives many clues to what’s needed, and/or what to avoid. Rather than rely on preset “routines” or “recipes,” asana can be designed or modified for unique structural/postural orientations or imbalances. Yet there are many Myth-Conceptions of posture & structure to watch for.
Learning to “See & Think Structurally” with Creative Understanding & Insights through precise applications of …
- Advanced Structural Anatomy
- Functional & Postural Kinesiology
- Neuromuscular Physiology & Neurology
- Myofascial/Musculoskeletal Physiology
- Physics & Geometry of Structures
- Homeopathic Principles in Yogic Medicine
A progressive method of Postural Assessment al-lows you to discover the Primary Contractors, the most over-shortened and stressed muscles, which are often NOT where the pain or apparent dysfunction is. You’ll learn to see how natural forces such as gravity (it’s NOT the enemy) and tensegrity affect Clients, and how they relate and react to such forces.
YogasAnalysis™: Yoga•Asana•Analysis
Ana-Lysis means to Loosen Apart. Learning to see asana in anatomical/kinesiological viewpoints allows you to create unique degrees, angles & alignments of asana most relevant to loosening apart the tensions you discover via Structural Analysis & Postural Assessment. It’s a major key to DSL Yoga Therapy.
Evening Session #2
Brain, Mind, Nerves, Muscle & Body
How various body/brain/nerve structures & function work & contribute to mind-body experience, muscle memory, etc. Microgenesis. More awareness while doing physical yoga.
3. Apply Principles of FUN & CORE Yoga to . . . (Everything!)
DSL Let-Go Yoga™ & Classical Yoga
Applying principles from Phases 1 & 2 to DSL’s Let-Go Yogasana Series (Low-Dose Asana) for all muscle groups of the BodyMind. More aspects of Let-Go Yoga will be explored in depth, as well. We’ll also work with applying the same FUNdamentals to several classical yoga asana including . . .
Yoga Asana Assists & Adjustments with
DSL’s EdgeTouch™ Techniques
Experience giving/receiving verbal & manual Asana Assists & Adjustments for deeper muscle release …
- Assists focus on & feel muscles more precisely
- Adjustments redirect positioning & movement
DeConstructing Classical Yogasana Beginning with Triangle Pose, learn to apply DSL’s principles & techniques in “effecticient”* detail, and SAFELY. We’ll deconstruct as many asana as time allows, with full emphasis on quality of kinesthetic experience, intellectual understanding & Therapeutic Applications.
(*Effecticient = effective + efficient.)
Tai Chi/Chi Kung Movement Therapy & Internal & External Ergonomics
Subtle Principles applying to movement, parasympathetic activation and transitioning to & integrative with overt exercise. … Brief discussions & examples of ergonomic issues in Work/Lifestyle, including workstation & household set-up/modification.
Hindu S.E.C. Fitness
Strength, Endurance & Cardio Fitness using Hindu body-weight exercise, yogasana, the breath, physical/mental/energetic martial arts principles & PACE program. Differences between Fitness & Health, Sports & Exercise, and their place in Therapy.
Evening Session #3
A Western Philosophy, Psychology & Science of Being Human:
A Yogic View
What elements of Western Science/Philosophy apply to Awareness & Yoga? Essential Insights from the East? … Right Livelihood.
4. DSL EdgeWork: Hands-on Structural Bodywork [18 hrs]
Expanding Your Dimensions Working with Brain-Mind-Nerve-Muscle-Fascia
Whether a yoga teacher, yoga therapist, or massage/bodywork practitioner, DSL’s approach to hands-on work will provide significant additions to your sensitivities, knowledge & skills of working with a bodymind. You’ll learn basics of EdgeTouch™, Structural, PsychoMuscular, Neuromuscular & Myofascial techniques from new and unique perspectives.
Yoga-based Bodywork As Externally Applied Physical/Mental/Relational Yoga
DAY 1 — Learn Basic Release Techniques
DAY 2 — Perform Evaluations & 3 hr Sessions
Give & Receive Full 3-Hour Sessions
Working with each other — under full supervision and assistance from DSL — for 3 hours each gives you a great opportunity to further expand your understanding and competence in working with The Edges of Pain, Fear & Resistance and varying intensities of sensation and DE-sensitization. By receiving bodywork, you’ll become more sensitive in Yoga and will have new realizations of how muscles feel & function, further enhancing your abilities to provide targeted asana adjustments. You’ll learn how little it takes, in most cases, to get myofascial units to DE-contract, relax and let-go of tension. This furthers your belief in the principle that Less quite often really IS more.
Relational Yoga In Bodywork
Expanded two-way verbal & non-verbal interaction & feedback/response between giver & receiver — primarily regarding the Edge — is invaluable, bringing Relational Yoga into direct focus. The ease or difficulty people have in feeling, interpreting and communicating about their edges can be an equally educational and enlightening experience for both.
Evening Session #4
Meditation, Emotion & Relational Yoga in the
Yoga-based, Hands-on Bodywork Process
What inner challenges & opportunities arise in bodywork as externally applied form of physical/mental yoga? New ways of feeling/response.
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