Weekend Hatha Yoga Retreat on Softening the Heart

Pinelopi is organizing a weekend long Hatha Yoga retreat dedicated to:

“Softening the Heart”

You are warmly invited to immerse yourselves in a weekend full of yoga, meditation, mindfulness and presence.
Hatha Yoga Retreat Berlin

Photo by Omer Salom on Unsplash

When:   Friday March 8th, 2019; 15.00 – Sunday March 10th 17.00

Where:  Rosenwaldhof  – This is a beautiful place in Brandenburg, 1.5 hours South-east of Berlin, on the river Havel, surrounded by nature.

What is included:

  • Four yoga sessions
  • Meditation instruction
  • Mindfulness walks to explore the river and nature
  • Bio vegetarian food: breakfast, lunch and dinner
  • Accommodation based on your preference

 

Prices:  Prices include all the above plus one of the following accommodation options:

  • Double room 245€
  • Single room 255€

** All bathroom facilities are shared. If you have a need for a private bathroom please inquire.

Who:

  • Up to 15 yoga students

Early registration discount:   15 € discount if you register before January 15th, 2019. To reserve your space, please send an email and deposit 50 Euro by bank transfer or paypal. *The deposit is refundable unless cancellation occurs later than 21 days before the retreat. Space is limited so register early before the spots fill up!

For more details, please write to:

pinelopi (at) englishyogaberlin (dot) com

Deep Yoga for Deep Tension: Yoga Nidra Explained

Yoga in English, Kreuzberg BerlinDepending on where you are from or how far you are in your own personal yoga practice, you may not yet be familiar with Yoga Nidra. But with all the stress going on in the world, and more specifically, in our everyday lives, finding ways to relieve deep tension in our bodies and minds is becoming increasingly important. At our English Yoga studio in Kreuzberg, what unites us as a collective is that we end every class no matter which style of yoga (Hatha Yoga, Vinyasa Flow and Tantric Yoga) with a guided relaxation using techniques inspired by Yoga Nidra. We also have an audio collection of recorded relaxations here on our website!

Yoga Nidra is the practice of conscious deep sleep.  It is a specific yoga in and of itself where we learn how to relax deeply by practicing pratyahara, or detachment, with the eventual goal of attaining a state of inner peace. When we practice Yoga Nidra we enter a state of very deep relaxation in which we travel through the layers of our conscious, subconscious and unconscious minds.

3 Types of Tensions
When you think about your life, you may think that there are a million kinds of tensions around every corner, just waiting to cause you stress. But the tensions that people experience could be divided into three basic categories:

  • Muscular
  • Emotional
  • Physical

Muscular tensions arise from the body itself, the nervous system and through endocrine imbalance. Emotional tensions arise from the duality of emotions such as love/hate, joy/sadness, success/failure, which we are not able to express freely. This inability to express our emotions means that they become repressed and get deeply rooted in our unconscious. Mental tension arises from excessive mental activity. The monkey mind can be a whirlpool of fantasies, confusions, and oscillations of thoughts which when uncontrolled can become a source of real discomfort and pain.

Techniques
Some of the techniques used in order to cleanse these tensions include the rotation of consciousness, concentration on different sounds, opposite sensations, rapid imagery and visualization. Through the practice of yoga Nidra the practitioner undergoes a cleansing of mental, emotional, and physical tensions.

focus is a technique used in yoga nidra

Rotation of Consciousness
The rotation of consciousness involves taking the practitioner’s awareness to different parts of the body. It is said that wherever we center our attention it becomes the place where we also center our energy. Bringing ones awareness to each part of the body increases the energy in that part and allows the participant to identify and relax tensions there.

Auditory Focus
Often in our Yoga Nidra class we concentrate on different sounds. This technique helps the students to withdraw from the other senses (vision, taste, feeling, smells) and only leave one channel, the auditory one, open. The idea is that the participant stays aware of the directions coming from the instructor, but practices detachment from all other stimuli. This focus can increase a feeling of inner peace because when the mind is not getting overwhelmed with input, it is less likely to create intense mental fluctuations and more likely to be calm.

Opposite Sensations
Students are asked to focus on experiencing opposite sensations in Yoga Nidra. For example heaviness/lightness, sadness/elation, cold/warm. As previously said, emotional tension arises from the duality of emotions. By asking the student to temporarily experience emotions that they are not presently feeling, and then to experience the opposite emotion, this technique is used to neutralize emotions. This often allows the practitioner to go into a deeper state of relaxation, one that lies beyond the limitations of their emotional world.

lucid dreaming often occurs with yoga nidra practiceRapid Imagery
Rapid imagery involves a number of different things being named in quick succession and the student being asked to visualize each of them, then let them go so that they can move on to the next one. Because the mind tends to wander on its own and create its own fluctuations, this practice can help regulate this activity. For example when the image “waves breaking on a deserted beach” is given, then one could start thinking of the last time they were on the beach. They then think of who they were with, the emotions this caused and then start analyzing that past situation. But before this can happen in Yoga Nidra practice, the next image is given, considered and then asked to be released. It is a method of learning how to guide the mind so that we can learn to visualize and to release images that produce subconscious reactions. This, taken into our everyday life, can decrease our levels of stress and help us to achieve a more consistent sense of wellbeing.

 

What is Tantra – Part 1

 

This is the first installment of a series of blogs discussing the ancient science of tantra.

The word tantra today almost invariably conveys notions of sexual practices, it has become synonymous with sacred sexuality or ritual intercourse. A huge industry has developed around this idea: books, videos, massage parlors, and countless lifestyle items that use the word Tantra simply as a marketing ploy.

tantraIt’s easy to take a cynical view of this idea of tantra as purely a sexual practice, but that wouldn’t be very tantric. At the heart of tantra there is an absolute tolerance and acceptance of other people’s beliefs. It’s not uncommon to find seemingly opposing viewpoints and methods existing side by side in tantra, for the tantric knows that all differences are only superficial.

But tantra is so much more than glorified sex! It is an all-encompassing science that aims at expanding our experience of everyday life. And as such it covers every aspect of life: from morning to evening; from birth to death. It informs our understanding and experience of the physical universe, the laws of society, the construction of buildings, the different levels of awareness, medicine, religion, rites of passage, yogic methods, etc., etc. In the words of Swami Satyananda, tantra “is a system that teaches us how to fully know and use the world we live in”. So naturally sex is included, just like everything else.

Tantra is a living heritage that has existed all over the world, in different guise, since prehistoric times. Did you think that tantra was exclusive to India? There is archaeological evidence of tantra in pre-columbian America, Egypt, pre-christian Europe as well as many Asian cultures. It was not invented or formulated as such, it did not originate from any organized system, but rather evolved and grew from man’s experience of the world. It sprang with each individual as the natural response to the primal urge of self-knowledge.

But what is it, actually? Because of its universality and its refusal of dogma, because of its immense scope and its willingness to be permeated by any system that works, tantra is not easy to define. At its core, is the understanding that spiritual awakening can be achieved by anyone, under any circumstances, at any level of existence. It aims to work within each person’s uniqueness using whatever methods are necessary to attain a higher awareness and a fuller day-to-day experience. It starts from the acceptance of one’s nature and it works with that nature without demands of any special conditions or disciplines. One doesn’t need to stop drinking or having an active sex life, one doesn’t need to become vegetarian or adopt any belief or moral code – spiritual evolution is possible regardless of one’s tendencies or way of life. Man should not oppose or resist nature; he should be spontaneous and flow with it.

Although the tantric sages have developed a sound and sophisticated philosophy through the ages, tantra is fundamentally a practical system. It is referred to as sadhana shastra – which means practice-oriented scripture. It is made up of a huge number of different practices to suit every type of person. Insight and development can only occur thought practical observation. Belief and intellectual understanding are useless if they are not validated by the proof of personal experience.

In the next part of this series, we will learn the meaning of the word tantra, based on its Sanskrit roots, and discover the two concepts that are common to all the different tantric traditions: Energy and Consciousness.

Soundwalk and Flow Meditation Workshop

feeling the cobblestones
feeling the cobblestones

When: Wed. 30. July, 2014 / 18h to 21h
Where: HeileHaus eV / Waldemarstr. 36, HH, 2.OG
Cost: € 15 (reduced rate €7 or more)
…or one stamp on a 5er card or one recuperation

When going from place to place, we often go through the world disconnected from our environment and with closed off senses – looking at mobile devices, listening to music on headphones, or simply with thoughts on other things than the present moment. We rush about, eager to get to the next place, rather than strolling along and observing – not only to what is happening around us, but also ‘within’ us – our physical sensations as well as emotional reactions to what we see, hear, feel, taste.

When we learn to become aware of our own sensations, we are more readily available to react to unforeseen circumstances and make better choices in the moment. This practice is often called ‘mindfulness,’ and it’s something that we learn to do during exercises of being present, ie; meditation, yoga and tai chi.

This workshop takes us out of a Berlin yoga studio and into the city (around Kottbusser Tor) for an outdoor walking excursion, practicing awareness of our surroundings, and ourselves within them. It blends together several traditions – Vipassana Walking Meditation, Vinyasa Yoga Flow, Chi Yoga and Soundwalking.

What is a Soundwalk?

A form of interactive audio-art where the audience member participates on a walk of a predetermined path set-out by the artist, either listening to a recording on a mobile device or listening to the environment. This workshop will draw from the variation developed by Hildegard Westercamp, which very much resembles Vipassana walking meditation, with a focus on silent observation of the present moment. Despite being called a “soundwalk,” people who are deaf, non-hearing or with limited hearing are encouraged to participate using other senses.

What is walking meditation?

Vipassana walking meditation and Buddhist walking meditation are two forms of walking meditation where the participant strolls along, silently observing their own way of walking, the details of their surroundings (like the sensation of cobblestones beneath their feet), as well as their own feelings in relation to them.

What is Chi Yoga?

Craig Perkins, a yoga teacher trainer and tai chi practitioner of the Yandara Yoga Institute developed a standing warrior sequence, specifically for practising yoga asana on the sand, that combines some tai chi movements with vinyasa flow yoga. His ideology towards yoga is as an anusara-inspired peaceful warrior – meditation, movement and balance in readiness for whatever comes.

The workshop facilitator:
Juli has been teaching vinyasa yoga since 2009 in Berlin, a practitioner of different traditions of yoga since 1998. She is also a filmmaker and sound designer, and has instructed media arts classes that often include soundwalks.

If you are interested in attending the workshop, please contact us to reserve your spot, and get more details on the workshop page

English Yoga Berlin is a collective of yoga teachers dedicated to providing community yoga in Berlin. We offer yoga classes in English, and we teach hatha yoga, classical yoga, restorative yoga, vinyasa yoga and yoga nidra. You can see our schedule here.

I’m No Barbie-Girl

Mighty JuliThe trajectory of yoga over the centuries has seen a variety of different practices, styles, and approaches. What was originally a method of exercise for elite, higher-caste men in order to sit longer in meditation to achieve enlightenment has been co-opted and altered for western consumption. We’re working on a more in-depth blog about this, so keep posted! But right now, I’d like to address the dichotomy in contemporary western yoga of body-image.

In our contemporary western understanding of what yoga means, we express terms like “union” or “connection” – to describe the approach of connecting mind and body, and sometimes soul. This is a very different approach than the traditional practice that Patanjali outlined of seeing the body as an abject material object to discard on the way to god-like status. Western yoga has adopted a mind-body approach whose history leads all the way back to the ancient greek philosophers, and is inspired by the American movement of transcendentalist individualism, illustrated by the romantic poetic works of Walt Whitman and D. H. Lawrence, and philosophies of Emerson and Thoreau.

Through these influences, westernized yoga had the potential to liberate us from the constrains of western culture’s obsession with attaining the perfect body ideal. It was headed on that track. Instead, through an explosion of commercialization beginning at the end of the last century, it has fed right into it. Today in the west, the most common image of a yoga practitioner is a skinny, feminine white woman in an impossibly-twisted position, wearing skin-tight trendy clothing. Where does that leave the rest of us who could benefit from a yoga practice that professes “freedom” and “body love?” Is freedom only available for those who can afford to purchase its accessories or strict food regimes, or for those who are impossibly flexible or skinny, or those who fit into racist standards of beauty? In her essay published in the book 21st Century Yoga: Culture, Politics, and Practice: A critical examination of yoga in North America, Melanie Klein writes about how she first got interested in yoga to help heal from the negative body-image that led her to anorexia, and then later as yoga bloomed into a full-forced commercial industry with yoga models at the forefront, she found it feeding back into those old thought patterns.

The industry behind the commodification of yoga is selling an impossible body-image back at us in order to sell more products, and make us feel dependent on material goods by creating feelings of low self-worth amongst yoga practitioners. I’ve heard other yoga teachers say that they don’t drink beer because it gives them a thick belly, or they talk about fat-burning yoga classes. It’s a shame that a practice that is supposed to be about loving one’s body has come to such body shaming proportions. The culture claims that fat is unhealthy, but they ignore the fact that so many people starve themselves, or exercise vigorously, or modify their bodies in order to look more like the image they see in magazines. In the west, we are taught to have control over our bodies, not love them. I love good food, and refuse to count calories. I also like to drink a few beers now and then. I refuse to comply with ridiculous expectations of what I should look like as a yoga teacher. At one point in my life, I tried to live up to these standards, but never succeeded, of which I’m glad. We can’t all look like Barbie, no matter how hard we try. I personally feel that carrying a little bit more weight feels healthier and stronger to me than when I was much skinnier. And it’s a misconception that bigger bodies cannot be flexible or strong. I’ve seen people much bigger than myself do a fierce ashtanga class.

I’d like to be able to say that I’m never ashamed of my body, but I am not outside the influence of societal pressure. There are some days when I look in the mirror and wish my belly was flatter, my legs less hairy, but most days I let it hang out, completely unfettered. And I love it the most when I walk into a yoga class and see it filled with people of all shapes, shades, sizes, and genders. I hope that my bodily expression is something that helps them feel more comfortable in seeing something of themselves reflected in the person guiding them through the class. My kind of yoga is one where people can work towards feeling comfortable residing in their bodies and minds, not controlling them, but feeling good about themselves as they are, and letting go of oppressive ideals and expectations.

Juli teaches Vinyasa Flow and Restorative Yoga at English Yoga Berlin.

Guest teacher Anastasia Shevchenko comes to our next Community Class

Anastasia’s yoga journey started over 10 years ago.  Throughout her growth as a yogi, she has experienced many different yoga styles, which she credits with deepening her understanding of the essence of yoga.

“In my personal practice and in my teachings, I enjoy combining static postures held for a prolonged period of time (Hatha-style) with more dynamic exercises, synchronized with the breath (Vinyasa-style). Both types of exercises have their distinct benefits on the physical, psychological, and mental wellbeing.”

On our next Community Class at English Yoga Berlin, she will guide a yoga lesson that everybody can relate to, with postures that build core strength, increase flexibility in the limbs, and relax the body and the mind. The class is open to students of all levels and abilities.
WHEN?    Thursday 21st November, 2013 (15.45 – 17.15)

WHERE?   English Yoga Berlin – Görlitzer Str. 39, Kreuzberg

HOW MUCH? Donation based / Pay What you Can

Yoga Summer Schedule at English Yoga Berlin

The summer brings changes every year and 2013 is no exception!  Since many of our students will be traveling to their far away lands during the summer months, we will be offering a reduced schedule for the months of July and August.  In September, when the temperatures fall again, the leaves start changing color and people are back to their routines we will open more classes again to accomodate everyone’s return to the beautiful city of Berlin.

Till then, we wish you all a beautiful summer! A summer full of relaxing moments, many sun salutations to the glowing sun who has finally graced us with its presence,  a couple of swims here and there, and lots of yoga whenever you find yourself in Berlin!

Here’s  our summer schedule for the months of July and August:

Tuesday

Thursday

 18.00- 19.30

Hatha Yoga

 18.00 – 19.30

Classical Yoga

 20.00- 21.30

Vinyasa Flow

 20.00 – 21.30

Classical Yoga

Layers: Yoga Nidra Techniques Explained

In our last blog an Intro to Yoga Nidra, we talked about this valuable technique of conscious deep sleep. With muscular, emotional and mental tensions to calm, and the conscious, subconscious and unconscious layers to sort through, Yoga Nidra must employ different methods to get through all these potential areas of stress to bring us positive change in our lives.

Rotation of Consciousness
The rotation of consciousness involves taking the practitioner’s awareness to different parts of the body. It is said that wherever we center our attention it becomes the place where we also center our energy. Bringing ones awareness to each part of the body increases the energy in that part and allows the participant to identify and relax tensions there.

Auditory Focus
Often in our Yoga Nidra class we concentrate on different sounds. This technique helps the students to withdraw from the other senses (vision, taste, feeling, smells) and only leave one channel, the auditory one, open. The idea is that the participant stays aware of the directions coming from the instructor, but practices detachment from all other stimuli. This focus can increase a feeling of inner peace because when the mind is not getting overwhelmed with input, it is less likely to create intense mental fluctuations and more likely to be calm.

 

Opposite Sensations
Students are asked to focus on experiencing opposite sensations in Yoga Nidra. For example heaviness/lightness, sadness/elation, cold/warm. As previously said, emotional tension arises from the duality of emotions. By asking the student to temporarily experience emotions that they are not presently feeling, and then to experience the opposite emotion, this technique is used to neutralize emotions. This often allows the practitioner to go into a deeper state of relaxation, one that lies beyond the limitations of their emotional world.

Rapid Imagery
Rapid imagery involves a number of different things being named in quick succession and the student being asked to visualize each of them, then let them go so that they can move on to the next one. Because the mind tends to wander on its own and create its own fluctuations, this practice can help regulate this activity. For example when the image “waves breaking on a deserted beach” is given, then one could start thinking of the last time they were on the beach. They then think of who they were with, the emotions this caused and then start analyzing that past situation. But before this can happen in Yoga Nidra practice, the next image is given, considered and then asked to be released. It is a method of learning how to guide the mind so that we can learn to visualize and to release images that produce subconscious reactions. This, taken into our everyday life, can decrease our levels of stress and help us to achieve a more consistent sense of wellbeing.

Accessible language in Yoga

Using accessible language to teach yoga in English makes yoga accessible to all cultures and peoples.

photo by Fern “Language can be a gate from which to liberate your thoughts and ideas”

When most people think of yoga in Berlin, they probably conjure up an image of a body contorted into wildly flexible shapes, or perhaps a solitary figure meditating. They might associate the practice of yoga with chanting, or maybe with the sound of a Tibetan singing bowl. But rarely do people consider language as a part of the practice–and almost never do they associate yoga with jokes, stories or slang.  Perhaps this is because of our cultural heritage in the West around spiritual practices. We expect them to occur in a sacred domain, and we can’t imagine something as everyday as language being involved. There is definitely a time and a place for silence, but I feel, actually, that language is an  incredibly powerful and important tool, in yoga and everywhere else in life, too! Teaching yoga in English has taught me  a lot about cultural translation–certain concepts, which have a lot of different layers of meaning in Sanskrit, have been ‘shorthanded’ into English and lost much of their content. The clearest example of this is the word ‘Karma’. English just doesn’t have the depth and breadth and subtlety of Sanskrit when it comes to discussing states of consciousness (though, to give credit where credit’s due, it’s a great language to talk about getting drunk in–so many adjectives!). This presents a very difficult challenge: how do you translate yoga ideas and yoga techniques from one language/culture to another?

It gets even more complicated in our yoga lessons, because we teach Vinyasa Yoga and Hatha yoga in English in Berlin, therefore often teaching yoga to non-Native English speakers. Thankfully, yoga concepts are often extremely simple. Not easy, but simple. This is where jokes, stories and slang come in–they make people feel comfortable, and comfort is half the battle when you’re trying to learn something new. They also make it a lot more difficult to take yourself too seriously! I really feel that accessible language is incredibly important in a practice like yoga.

Berlin Yoga: Terminology Tuesday

As a Hatha Yoga instructor in Berlin, I often use Sanskrit words during my yoga classes.  Sometimes I even like to take a pause after the sanskrit yoga word, and see if the older students know what I am talking about or if they are just waiting for the English translation.

In order to learn about yoga properly I find it important to aknowledge its roots in the Indian culture and the Sanskrit language. Taking the time to understand these words and their meanings makes your yoga practice a more complete experience and adds to the understanding of yoga and it’s origins.  That is why I started Berlin Yoga: Terminology Tuesday, a post where I explain the basic sankrit words used in my yoga classes. So in this blog I would like to explain the meaning of the word kapalabhati, a breathing technique we often use in the yoga class.

Kapalabhati –  is a form of Pranayama, or breathing technique. Kapala means “skull”  and bhati means “shiny” or “illuminated”. So Kapalabhati means “shiny skull”. It is a breathing technique we use to increase our Prana and clean out the air passageways before doing more advanced pranayama.