Match your yoga to your circumstance and watch yourself soar! By modifying your yoga practice, you can ease these symptoms of modern-day living: too much stress and anxiety, too much standing, too much sitting, muscle tension, and subsequent insomnia. Join us for six Kripalu Yoga themed-sessions and explore practical strategies to restore a sense of peace and steadiness to life.
This program began May 6, 2019 and enrollment has ended.
To learn more about scheduling a private program or to express interest in the next public offering, please contact Michael Patrick for more details.
Match your yoga to your circumstance and watch yourself soar!
If you are someone who attends yoga class regularly, you know how great you feel afterward. What is usually taught in a typical yoga class though just skims the surface in utilizing this incredible practice. There are many other ways to apply the elements of yoga -- breathing techniques (pranayama), warm-ups (kriya) and poses (asana) -- to everyday life situations and receive tremendous benefit. By strategically selecting and emphasizing certain elements over others, you can get much more out of yoga.
“Yoga for Everyday Living” Program Description
This program has been specially designed to help you incorporate yoga into everyday life. It matches the exact elements of yoga with the current life circumstances you may be experiencing. Six 90-minute themed Kripalu Yoga sessions explore practical strategies to restore a sense of peace and steadiness to life through the practice of yoga.
Session 1: “Turning Ackkk! Into Ommmm….” - Yoga When You’re Stressed Out or Anxious
Monday, May 6, 2019, 7:00-8:30 PM
When feeling stressed out or anxious, you can restore balance to your system by drawing the attention away from frenetic thoughts in the head toward the stabilizing ground below. By drawing downward, we magnify awareness of the solid place within; we realize that there is more to life than the scenario in mind. By engaging in slow, repetitive movements that are synchronized with the breath, we calm the alarm centers in the brain. This session explores reducing stress and anxiety through grounding yoga poses and calming, repetitive movement.
Session 2: “I Just Can’t Stand It Anymore” - Yoga When You’ve Been Standing All Day
Wednesday, May 8, 2019, 7:00-8:30 PM
Whether it’s standing all day at work or just having a full day on the move, yoga can really help you take a load off your feet! Through creative modifications and elevating inversions, this session approaches yoga in every position except standing. Explore warmups and poses from different orientations, and yes, even traditional standing-balance poses like Tree and Eagle. When you just can’t stand it anymore, keep your feet off the floor!
Session 3: “Sitting is a Pain in the Ass-ana” - Yoga When You’ve Been Sitting All Day
Monday, May 13, 2019, 7:00-8:30 PM
One of the by-products of modern existence is sitting for extended periods of time, whether in front of a computer, driving in car or slumped on the sofa for a Netflix binge. Sitting keeps the hips flexed, contracts the iliopsoas muscles and overstretches the muscles of the lower back (erector spinae, quadratus lumborum and gluteus). This session explores elongating with full body stretches and gentle back-bending to restore balance to the core.
Session 4: “Slacken Up A Little” – Yoga When All Of Your Muscles Seem Tense
Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 7:00-8:30 PM
Remaining in one position too long causes the active, flexed muscles to be contracted and feel tight, while the opposing muscle groups are overstretched and feel tight too. No wonder your whole body feels sore! Reverse this process by moving the major joints in circles to warm up the muscles and to get a sense of where the imbalances are. Then, through Postural Yoga techniques, relax the muscles while you relax your mind.
Session 5: “HiBEARnating Yogis” – Yoga When You Want To Sleep Better
Monday, May 20, 2019, 7:00-8:30 PM
Bears aren’t the only ones who need to rest, we do too. Sleep is an essential part of wellness. This session explores breathing techniques and calming postures to invite sleep. Gentle inversions, folds and twists are great poses to relax the mind and prepare the body for rest. The warm-ups done here are very slow and gentle to build enough warmth to prevent injury, but not too vigorous to avoid over-stimulating the body. Its a great way to shutdown for the day.
Session 6: “I’ll Do It Myself!” - Yoga When You Want To Practice on Your Own
Wednesday, May 22, 2019, 7:00-8:30 PM
For people who routinely attend yoga classes, this is often the most over-looked application of yoga, and, ironically, the one that yields the most benefit. It has the biggest impact on everyday living!
Once you have learned the effects of the various pranayamas, kriyas, and asanas, you can tap into your yogic wisdom to bring stability to your situation no matter what it is. You can select the elements that will be just what you need, when needed most.
This session explores how to design your own practice at home, which elements to include and when to do them. It puts into practice concepts learned in the earlier sessions. Now you can fly solo!
Interested in the program but can't attend?
Private-schedule instead!
By privately-scheduling your individual yoga program, you can customize it to meet your needs. You can choose the days, times and frequency of the sessions – all at the convenience of being in your own location. You can even customize the content!
New to yoga and interested in this program?
Explore the Beginner’s Tutorial Program first!
This program assumes that participants have basic experience in the practice of yoga. For those entirely new to yoga, the Beginner’s Tutorial Program may be a better fit initially. In the tutorial program, six 75-minute sessions introduce 4 breathing techniques, warm up exercises, 24 yoga poses with modifications, and the principles of Kripalu Yoga - all at a enjoyable pace!
About Kripalu Yoga
Many of us have attended yoga classes that seemed more like aerobics classes with Sanskrit flavorings -- merely exercises void of the inward journey of awareness and the power of transformation that yoga offers. Kripalu yoga emphasizes personal growth and transformation through the practice of yoga. As a result, it is slower paced and more introspective.
Kripalu Yoga emphasizes personal growth and transformation through the practice of yoga. Safety, personal responsibility and witness of the self without judgment are hallmarks.
It is accessible for all levels (beginners through advanced), where modifications and the use of props help each person find their ideal expression of the poses when they are doing them. While other forms of yoga certainly result in personal growth and transformation, Kripalu Yoga hones this focus in a gentle and accessible way.
This is not “work out” yoga, but rather “work in” yoga.
From the outset, a Kripalu Yoga class has the same elements as other yoga classes: breathing techniques, warm ups, yoga postures and final relaxation, and it results in strength, flexibility and peaceful feelings. However, Kripalu Yoga is done at a slower pace. This slower pace invites practitioners to fully explore the poses and be just at the edge of physical sensation in a safe and secure way. Each person determines how deeply they want to go into the practice. Kripalu Yoga also supports pausing periodically to integrate the positive effects that yoga brings, progressing at a manageable pace. The practice can be made more challenging by sustaining the poses for longer periods of time or with expanded expressions, but this is invited as skill and experience gradually develop
“The highest form of spiritual practice is observation of the self without judgment.”
One feature that characterizes Centered Presence, Ltd.’s yoga classes is the opportunity to explore “meditation in motion” near the end of the class. This allows the mind to make sense of and integrate the new awareness that yoga has brought during the session. This is a key element in harnessing the power of transformation that yoga can foster.
Kripalu Yoga encourages practicing yoga both on and off the yoga mat. Adapting to the yoga practice becomes a metaphor for adapting to life; indeed, concepts transfer in broader ways. For example, safely being at the edge of physical sensations that may arise while in the postures, observing them, feeling them, breathing with them, watching what happens and allowing it to happen has parallels to being with emotions that arise in everyday life and applying the same approach.
Kripalu Yoga is great for those who have not found the right fit in other yoga classes, because classes may be too vigorous, too fast paced or overwhelming.
In this program, the principles of Kripalu Yoga are introduced and practiced. Six 75-minute classes lead participants through essential components of embodied personal growth through the practice of yoga. Each class segues into the next, building a foundation upon which to grow in the practice of yoga.
About the instructor:
Michael Patrick, LMT, KYT, CPC
As a Licensed Massage Therapist, Kripalu Yoga Teacher, Certified Professional Coach and former Scientist, I bring all the gifts of who I am to my work. Driven by the desire to elevate others, my career initially spanned the biotech industry, interdisciplinary research and laboratory safety. Over the past decade, it evolved to wellness and now I work in my own company, Centered Presence, Ltd. As a presenter, my workshops are characterized by elements of touch, intimacy, authenticity, embodiment, grounding, presence, spiritual practice and cultivation of inner awareness, which result in personal growth and empowered movement forward.
Learn more at www.centeredpresence.com