🌟🧡 Adam Keen - Ashtanga Yoga A Holistic Approach - 3 day Workshop (Sat - Mon)🧡🌟

This workshop will function to show how modern Ashtanga yoga can be understood and made to work for any individual and your strengths and limitations in a most practical sense. The aim is that you will leave feeling reinspired for your practice knowing how to make it work for your own body. You will also gain a deeper understanding of the context of how the practice developed which also makes a difference as to how we understand it.

SATURDAY

08.00 – 10.00: Ashtanga Led & Self Practice Combined
Adam will lead the class through the first part of primary and standing asana, after which you will move on to self-practice following the Ashtanga sequence at whatever level you are at. All physical levels are welcome, and you are free to follow from printed sheets. It’s a fun way into self-led practice.

10.30 – 12.00: Breathing Basics
The diaphragm, when connected to most effectively through a certain application of bandha, is what makes the breath in yoga unique. The result is not only a liberating effect on the deep muscles of the back, but, most importantly, the ability to put oneself into the sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous system at will. This is not the technique of ujjayi which tends to encourage a mistaken breathing in the throat.

12.00 – 12.30: Break

12.30 – 14.00: Finding Bandha in the Standing Postures
Using the standing postures, we will examine how we can use the legs to take the force of gravity up through the spine rather than down allowing for a most energizing experience and beneficial effect. We will also consider the relationship of the ‘sacred’ sacrum to the rest of the body; how and why this bone came to be known as such, and why it is essential to discover it here in these early positions.

SUNDAY

08.00 – 10.00: Mysore Self-Practice
This practice is based on individual exploration, kindness, and fun. Adam gives yoga assistance in a safe and non-intrusive way. He does not believe in forcing people into postures, rather, he uses verbal and light physical touch to open new directions for you to follow if you wish. All are welcome to the Mysore class. Adam is happy if you need practice sheets, but you should have memorised at least the sun salutations A and B and some of the standing sequence.

10.30 – 12.00: Jump Back & Jump Through for Everybody
Everyone can all do a version of this movement. And it doesn’t mean we need to ‘fly’ – although we may (or may not). There are unique benefits of this movement for both the scapula as well as the digestion. It’s simply a question of breaking the component movements down then into ‘bite sized’ chunks, so that everyone can effectively worked with it. You might feel your arms are too short or your tummy too big, but you’d be surprised how a few tips for this can change the whole experience for you, taking you from frustration and confusion to grasping what you need to do to keep developing these somewhat elusive movements.

12.00 – 12.30: Break

12.30 – 14.00: Modern Yoga Development in the 20th Century.
Whether we like it or not, modern yoga practice is, indeed, modern. On the other hand, it does have deep roots. They’re just not literally traceable from what we do now back 2000 years. But this doesn’t mean they aren’t still the foundational principles of what we’re doing now. Find out how key yoga teachers of the early 20th century; Krishnamacharya, Yogendra, Yogananada, Vivekananda to name a few, interpreted the ancient practice of yoga to fit into the modern context.

MONDAY

Safe and effective physical assistance
Whether you’re a teacher or a student, learning how to assist others helps you understand what you’re doing in your own practice. We will explore how to give assistance based on anatomical principles that is safe and effective and that don’t push a body past its natural limitations, rather affirms the individual’s body AS IT IS and works from there.

There is a way of approaching giving physical assistance that it not about ‘adjusting’ at all, rather using minimal pressure to guide an individual to feeling more space, stability and comfort in their bodies. This class is not based on giving one size fits all physical assists, rather looking at the individual and working from there.

7.00 – 9.00: Mysore Self-Practice
This practice is based on individual exploration, kindness, and fun. Adam gives yoga assistance in a safe and non-intrusive way. He does not believe in forcing people into postures, rather, he uses verbal and light physical touch to open new directions for you to follow if you wish. All are welcome to the Mysore class. Adam is happy if you need practice sheets, but you should have memorised at least the sun salutations A and B and some of the standing sequence.

9.30 – 11.00: Session 1 Safe and effective physical assistance
Whether you’re a teacher or a student, learning how to assist others helps you understand what you’re doing in your own practice. This doesn’t mean ‘adjustments’; pushing bodies further than they can naturally go, rather, a way of helping and individual, safely and non-intrusively, to connect more deeply and effectively to their own unique body as it is. Come and find out how we can use ‘physical assistance’ rather than adjustments to affect a more potent change than the outmoded ‘adjustment’.

11.15 – 12.30: Session 2 Safe and effective physical assistance

12.45 – 14.00: How to Create and Teach Short Practices for All Levels
Not all of us have the time, energy, or, even, motivation, to do our whole practice every day. But we still want to do a practice. However, it’s hard to how to structure a shorter practice that’s effective. So, here, we shall consider the fundamental principles of how to do so. Simple idea that, once grasped, will give you the sense of confidence to experiment with using the short practice format as and when you need or want to.

Adam has been a yoga practitioner since 1999 and has taught Ashtanga yoga internationally for over twenty years. His style is open, non-dogmatic and eclectic while remaining rooted in an appreciation of the benefits of the method of ashtanga as he learnt it in Mysore, India.

In 2012 he completed the Advanced A sequence with Sharath who granted him authorization to teach. Adam meets all students where they are, hopefully, with humour, kindness and inspiration, holding a safe and supportive space for personal enquiry. Equally at home teaching all levels, he gives all students attention and interest. He is democratic in his approach and kind and believes that the practice should not feel like a test.

Coming from an academic background in philosophy and a professional one as a chef, he is knowledgeable, practical, and relatable in his approach. Many consider him humorous too.
Adam and his wife Theresa run the online yoga platform Keen on Yoga and he hosts the Keen on Yoga Podcast interviewing many of the world’s most renowned Ashtanga teachers and philosophical academics.
Instagram: @adam_keen_ashtanga & @keen_on_yoga