essentials: organic breath, essential core

When: Saturday, March 10
Organic Breath: 10 AM – 12 PM
Essential Core: 1 – 4 PM
Where: Northwest Wellness Center
Registration is here

Pr-requisite for Essential Core Workshop: organic breath workshop or attendance to at least one session of therapeutic yoga

Organic Breath: The Dance of Three Diaphragms

Pranayama – the practice of conscious breathing, more commonly known as “breath work” – is a corner stone of yoga practice. However, as I started teaching pranayama principles and working with my private clients, I realized that attempting to alter breath through mechanical exercises had limited effectiveness, since they did not change the underlying structures that support healthy breathing. Many of us, if not all of us, hold the same tensions and restrictions within our breath, as we do in our posture and our movement. So, of course, I set to investigate how tension transfers from our breathing and into our movement, and what we can do to change that.

What I found out was incredibly interesting and at the same time very disturbing. Subtle tension resides within our breath without us even noticing it.  It is there in the shallow breathing when we are stressed, but it is also there when we are relaxed or even on the yoga mat, trying to breathe deeper.

Chronic tension within our breath doesn’t go away, just like chronic tension within our body doesn’t disappear on its own. The two are inexplicably connected – you cannot change one without the other. In order for us to fully unwind and heal our body, our breath needs to return to its original flexibility.  

Delve deeper: you might not even notice that you hold your breath when you focus or restrict your breathing by constantly tightening your belly, and as a result you are constantly struggling with digestive problems or core stability issues. Maybe you don’t pay attention to your breathing at all but feel chronically tired, irritated, hurried or anxious – so much so that these feelings cast a shadow of all your daily activities. Donna Farhi, the author of “ The Breathing Book” writes: “When your breathing becomes unconsciously altered the autonomic part of your nervous system resets itself so that breathing becomes automatically disordered and automatically restricted”. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Join Satori Yoga for a fresh take on breathing at our Organic Breath workshop. Recovering the essential nature of our breath is a rich and rewarding process, for it is ourselves that we uncover. Right now, with very little effort, you can begin to experience the organic, essential breath. Come to Organic Breath workshop to learn how.

Workshop format: 15-minute introductory lecture, followed by 1hour and 30 minutes of experiential practice and 15 minutes of Q&A.

Essential Core: Things You Don’t Know About Core Training

“Core” has become a buzzword. After all, who doesn’t want a flat belly or six-pack abs?  A Google search will yield a million of web pages that tout strengthening the core. And, of course, there are as many methods to core training, as there are personal instructors and yoga teachers. So what is the core and which training method is the right one?

Try this quick experiment right now – I often ask the students to do this in the Therapeutic Yoga classes when we talk about engaging the core:

Engage your core. Now breathe deep. Can you do both?

Very often the core training programs simply use the term “ core” to mean the abdominal muscles – the “abs”. Strictly speaking though, the core of something is its most central and essential part. In the case of your body, the true core is the site of your internal organs. Surprise! Containing and protecting the organs are several layers of muscle that crisscross the abdomen like a girdle. These core muscles form two corsets – an inner one that has direct connections to the spine and the more superficial one that does not. Healthy posture and a strong core both depend on your ability to distinguish between these two very different types of core support.

Here are some hard truths about core training:

-True core strength is fluid and flexible; it allows you to move and breathe freely at the same time. If you weren’t able to breathe fully as you engaged your core in the experiment above, you are bearing down and tightening up.

-Your breathing and your core stability are intrinsically connected. Tension in your breath will make its way into tension within your core and vice versa, creating restriction and tightness in the whole body.

-The pelvic floor has a lot to do with your core. It is the center of your core stability and the foundational support of your abdominal organs. Pregnancy and childbirth, acute and chronic low back pain, an episode of stomach flu and even your bathroom habits will affect the functioning and tonus of your pelvic floor, and therefore your stability. Many back, knee, foot and other structural problems can be relieved through conscious training of the pelvic floor.

-Relaxation is crucial and essential. Often we don’t under, but over-engage the core muscles, not only losing range and fluidity of motion, but also making ourselves more susceptible to digestive problems, constipation, bladder infections, and pelvic pain.

-Uncovering the hidden tensions within the core is essential for women: many women respond to hormonal fluctuations by developing chronic tensions in the wrong abdominal corset.

Are you ready to discover your core connection? If so, Essential Core is for you. Join Satori Yoga for this deep, rich, informative and experiential workshop and uncover your true stability, balance and the freedom of movement.

Workshop format: 1-hour lecture, followed by 1 hour and 35 minutes of experiential exercises and 15 minutes of Q&A with 10 minute break in the middle.