Ayurveda Online
I’m presenting an ongoing series of Ayurlabs online through Instantpresenter to a global audience. Classes are on Sundays, from 11am to 1pm EST.
Instantpresenter allows registrants to view and hear me in a live video feed as I deliver a full powerpoint presentation on the topic of the day. Registrants can ask questions by text message or audio feed. Any wireless connection will work, although the stronger the better. If you have a hardwire or cable connection, this is most secure.
Here’s a review of the programming so far.
The labs cost either $20 or $25 to attend (depending on length), or they can be streamed later for $10 or $15. Payments are processed through Paypal.
Register for all live and streaming labs here.
UPCOMING LABS:
Ayurveda and Yoga Series:
12/ 16: Seeing/Practicing Asana through the Lens of Ayurveda
The embodied poetry of Ayurveda can add therapeutic richness to your yoga practice and teaching. Learn how elemental theory expresses and enhances the energy we express through asana and vinyasa, how the gunas roll through every movement, and how the doshas can balance physical practice with a harmony of stability, determination, and release. We’ll look at elemental and doshic zones of the skeleton and viscera, and how various postures stimulate or pacify space, air, fire, water, and earth. An essential introduction for practitioners who want to feel more connected to the natural environment, and for teachers looking for new therapeutic and self-observation tools to offer their students.
12/23: Constitutional assessment 101: Who’s in your class?
More and more, the difference between a competent yoga teacher and an excellent yoga teacher is the capacity to understand your students constitutionally, to better serve their unique and seasonal needs. Ayurvedic constitutional analysis gives quick and intuitive tools for discerning who is in your class, and what their various presentations of vata, pitta, and kapha might need to come into internal and environmental harmony.
12/30: Applying Ayurveda to Restorative Yoga
Restorative Yoga is all about pacifying the erratic, rough and drying qualities of air and space elements in the state of “vata aggravation”. Ayurveda has a lot to offer in this department and is a real service to contemporary culture. This presentation will focus upon key restorative yoga postures and their effects upon elemental experience and the flow of the doshas. We’ll break down approximately 10 poses in detail.
1/6/2013: Using Ayurveda to Support Yoga Practice
Up until yoga became a global phenomenon, it would have been assumed that a practitioner would be grounded in a naturopathic self-care practice, and would have solid insight into their individual constitution. In this presentation, we’ll not only review constitutional aspects of asana practice, but also the advice-gems of timing, recovery nutrition, and injury care that Ayurveda has offered to yoga practitioners for centuries.
________
PAST LABS:
INTRO TO AYURVEDIC WORLDVIEW AND PRACTICE
Yoga has its own medicine – Ayurveda — which seeks to illuminate our ecology, and to harmonize with it. This presentation will be a primer in the essentials of Ayurvedic holism, foundational energies (elements), modes (gunas), and bodily flows (doshas). The language of Ayurveda connects desires to the tissues, digestion to will, fertility to joy, and the body to the seasons. Together, we’ll explore basic intuition techniques, simple assessment tools for exploring constitution of self and other, and workshop whatever questions about personal health and balance arise from our discussion. A good preparation for labs that follow.
NOVEMBER 11: DAILY ROUTINE
Stressed? Disorganized? Looking for a natural rhythm? Ayurveda puts daily routine at the centre of self-care. This presentation will process on the timing of solar and digestive cycles, and how to smooth over the transitional moments in your day in which you may be prone to low energy, wild food cravings, or emotional burn-outs. Student, parent, executive — bring your scheduling challenges to this Ayur-lab…
NOVEMBER 18: DIGESTIVE EASE
In Ayurveda, food and the capacity to digest it mirror each other — which means that understanding what is right for you to eat is a very personal journey. Wouldn’t it be nice to build a supportive diet naturally, based upon who you are, rather than what’s in vogue? Ayurveda gives a powerful language for doing just that. We’ll look at the typical states of digestive fire, and what foods best nourish us in the tasks of cleansing, repairing, or building. We’ll look at tastes and timing, raw veganism and omnivorism and everything in between, and echo the fundamental Ayurvedic principle: “Food is the first of all medicines.”
NOVEMBER 25: MENSTRUAL EASE
Bringing the knowledge of the doshas to the lunar cycle can be revelatory. Understanding the building, “cooking”, and clearing phases puts the monthly journey into context. In the opening presentation, we’ll look at menstruation and constitution, signs of menstrual health, regulating cycles through diet, herbs, and exercise. We’ll also look at how to nurture menstruation through the perimenopausal stage. This lab always generates productive discussion.
DECEMBER 2: AYURVEDA AND PSYCHOLOGY
Every therapeutic intervention in Ayurvedic counselling psychology involves the expansion and sculpting of space element. Intersubjective and whole-body listening gives the space of non-reactivity, and then empathy. Appropriate diet gives space for the more complete digestion of life. Posture gives space to the joints and organs. Good breathing gives space for the circulation of vitality, and directly slows down sympathetic responses. Sensory control decompresses nervous overload. And meditation injects space into cognition and internal monologue, so that new choices may emerge, and deeper identities remembered. A look at the embodied psychology of Ayurveda, and how it may complement our much newer talk-therapy models.