This month starts a new, and hopefully regular feature in our Newsletters: Book Reviews. It is our intention to offer a review each month of a book that we find influential, informative and important. It may not always be a book about yoga, but it will be a book that speaks to what we intend to achieve through our yoga practice or that can help us in someway. This month, we begin this series with a review of provokingly new view of the ancient Yoga Sutra of Patanjali by Matthew Remski called, threads of yoga: a remix of patanjali-s sutras with commentary and reverie.
Are Yoga Teachers Making Us Fragile?
An essay about iatrogenesis, yoga and antifragility
Human beings seem quite fragile: we break easily. But there are many respects in which we can be said to be antifragile. Antifragile refers to a condition where an entity gains from randomness, stress and disorder. We could use the example of our bones: compared to a beam of wood, which breaks down over time (the wood is fragile), our bones get stronger with repeated stress. They are antifragile: they gain strength, to a limit, with increasing stress. Something fragile suffers from chaos and change. You are antifragile in so many ways, as long as you continue to seek out an appropriate amount of stress in your life. Comfort is the opposite of stress: modern living tends to seek conditions where we have no stress, where we are comfortable, but this comes at a terrible cost: fragility. Is your yoga becoming too comfortable?
We continue to create excerpts from Bernie’s latest book. There are now three available and you can find them, and all the new ones, on the G2G web page. The latest offering is called Om in Four Syllable. Enjoy!
Yin is In! And, it is growing in popularity. Yin Yoga has been with us since the beginning of Hatha Yoga centuries ago. But since the early 19th century, yoga has become more and more yang-like in nature. Everything requires balance: yin completes yang. Yin Yoga is the balancing practice for the more active, muscular yang yogas. There are more and more teachers offering Yin Yoga today, and more workshops and opportunities to learn how to become a Yin Yoga teacher. If diving deeper into the yin-side of life is on your bucket list, there are lots of opportunities for you.
Upcoming Trainings and Retreats with Bernie Clark
50-hour, 7-Day Yin Yoga Teacher Trainings November 10th-16th, 2014; Feb 9th-15th, 2015; May 11th-17th, 2015; July 27 – Aug 2, 2015; August 23rd-30th, 2015; November 9th-15th, 2015.
All of these will be at the Semperviva Yoga Studios, in Vancouver, Canada. The Yin Yoga Teacher Training Program offered at the Semperviva Yoga College is a unique way to deepen your yoga practice and touch tissues rarely worked in a more active yang style of yoga. For 200 hour certified teachers the credits of the course can be applied towards the 500 hour certification, and are eligible for CEUs with Yoga Alliance. (CEUs = Continuing Education Units and are required to maintain your status as a Registered Yoga Teacher).
For more details or to register, check the Semperviva web page or call them at 604-739-2009.
MEDITATION REVEALED With Bernie Clark & Nathalie Keiller
November 16th – 23rd, 2014; May 17th-24th, 2015; November 15th-22nd, 2015.
This course will examine what meditation is, why we do it (its many benefits, spiritually, psychologically and physically), and how to do it, from a variety of viewpoints: From Eastern Yogic and Buddhist views to Western Psychotherapeutic understanding. The course will include personal, one-on-one training in Deep Meditation, as well as group instruction, to give the student an experiential basis for the practice of meditation. Held at the Semperviva Yoga Studios – Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Learn More
Unsure of what flow to offer to your students in a Yin Yoga class, or just looking for some new inspiration for your own practice? Check out this thread offering many flows tried and tested by Yin Yoga teachers around the world. If you have a favourite flow of your own, feel free to offer it as well.
If you are having trouble finding a Yin Yoga teacher near you, or if you are traveling to somewhere new, try checking out the Directory of Yin Yoga teachers. We have hundreds of teachers registered from all over the world. If you are a teacher and are not in the directory, just send us your information and we’ll be happy to add you.
Paul Grilley, Sarah Powers, and Biff Mithoefer are each planning a full load of workshops all over the world. You can check out their schedules at their home web pages:
Many teachers around the world are creating Yin Yoga based workshops and retreats. Some of them are posting these activities on our Forum page. Check it out. There may be one happening near you. (If you are a teacher, feel free to add yours to the page!)
Book Review: threads of yoga by Matthew Remski
Bernie reviews Matthew Remski remix of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. The conclusion: Where the original sutra is impenetrable and for the most part unusable by modern Western souls, Remski’s remix is very accessible and applicable to all of us – if you had to read only one book about the Yoga Sutra, this would be the one …
