OUR ETHOS
From a very young age our culture negates our actual experience by asserting how we should be, rather than who we are. We learn to ignore what we’re feeling and become disembodied. We aren’t taught, and don’t experience, the value and acceptance that comes with self realization. Many of of us become disembodied for different reasons, particularly from trauma. We get psychically knocked out of our bodies, and this makes it hard for us to trust our bodies and our internal experience.
Yoga, at its best, is an empowering path. The most important piece of Yoga tells us that without changing a single thing, WE are our own greatest teachers. WE are the individuals who can change our lives. We don’t have to wait for someone else to do it. We practice to be in rhythm with ourselves, to reclaim our own bodies, and to get to know the internal landscapes of the layers of our being. Yoga practice gives us the tools to recognize the depth of our humanity, to know that everything is relative, and to nurture that relationship. This sounds easy but it is actually really, really hard. This is the promise of Yoga, but to be clear, the promise of Yoga and the potential of Yoga are not synonymous with how Yoga is communicated. This is dependent on the kind of atmosphere that the teacher has created.
Most of our experience of yoga today is we are told what to do and we follow along with what is cued. The somatic underlying expression of the body has been removed from how we practice yoga. There is no opportunity to really feel the qualities of what the cues are offering us and how we process what we’re doing, so that we begin to bring them more deeply into a self-regulated process for ourselves where we are learning about our bodies rather than just going along. In other words, there is no opportunity for integration. That is not to suggest that this is a bad way to practice. It is to suggest that it has its limits, and takes away from the potential of the student to cultivate autonomy and connection.
The root of all inquiry, all investigations into the nature of who we are and our experiences is communicated through the body. You know that you have a body and that the world exists because you can see it, smell, hear, touch, taste, and feel through sense impressions, through sensation. Without the ability to sense deeply our own visceral experience we give up our inherent connection to our own intuition. We place our mental and emotional health, autonomy, and well being into the hands of others. Without this higher awareness we can’t evolve, we can’t sense, or feel, or act from moment to moment, year to year as we age.
Our guiding principles and teaching philosophy lies in the spirit and in the heart of the ancient tradition of Yoga as process, of Yoga as a deeply personal practice tailored to each individual. Yoga is a practice steeped in sensitivity and awareness and a process of embodied self inquiry. A practice rooted in inquiry gives the power back to the individual, restoring the connection to the natural intelligence of the body. It is not our intention to provide the answers. The answers are just a way to shorten the lifespan of the inquiry. It is our intention to encourage the inquiry. Every time we ask it, the question is refined. We learn to explore the question in different ways, our language becomes more granular, more articulate, and we have become more sensitive. Once this becomes a sustained practice it also becomes a state of being. Constant questioning, as ritual, for the sake of exploration rather than certainty in the answer, leads to the embodied understanding of Yoga as process. A practice rooted in inquiry is an open system which is always changing, always evolving. In an inquiry practice, we learn to listen to what the body has to say.
How is it practiced?
Attention to internal experience through breath, sound, and meditative awareness expands our experience of embodiment. Classes are taught as a mixture of structured and spontaneous movement inquiries as well as rest in meditative stillness. It is both dynamic and gentle, expanding your practice a little beyond the movements and the concepts of yoga as a postural practice. The pace of a class may be quiet and slow with participants exploring micro-movements. A class may also be lively, energetic, and strong, yet balanced with softness and ease. Movement is prompted as invitation, suggestion, or in the form of a question. Pauses in meditative stillness are frequent so that we may observe the arising and dissolving of internal sensation, thoughts, and emotions, and to allow for the mind to rest in simply recognizing what is already here.