A yoga and Alexander Technique workshop for the hips and pelvis — where gripping ends and flow begins.
Your hips do an extraordinary job. Every step, every stair, every time you stand up from a chair, they carry you — quietly, mostly unnoticed. We rarely think about them until they complain: stiffness, a click when the leg lifts, tight hamstrings, a low back doing more than its share. Or until a yoga class asks them to open, and something unexpected comes up — a wave of feeling, an old memory, tears in pigeon pose.
How does “Hips & Pelvis: Finding Flow” work?
This is a single three-hour workshop. It will consist of:
- a quiet arrival lying down in constructive rest — the Alexander Technique’s classic position for unwinding
- experiential anatomy: finding the pelvic halves, the sacrum, the sit bones and the hip joints — with your own hands, not just on a diagram
- guided explorations of every movement the pelvis can make — tilting, hiking, rotating — in several positions, so these movements become something you know, not something you once heard about
- chair work: the Alexander Technique art of sitting down and standing up by folding at the hips, instead of tucking and gripping with the pelvis
- a slow, kind yoga practice to release the front of the hips and the back of the legs
- a closing rest, and space to share what you noticed
The workshop happens live at the studio only. The group is kept small so that everyone gets attention.
What is this workshop about?
There is a question I keep coming back to: why do we grip exactly where we are built to flow?
Most of us hold our hips tight without ever noticing. Watch anyone get up from a chair: the chest lifts first, the back grips, and the whole body hoists itself upward. Something in there is working overtime — and something else, the part that was made to do the moving, has quietly given up. I see this every day in my Alexander Technique classes. And I see what happens when people discover they can rise without any of it.
This workshop is about giving each part of you its own job back. Your hips are made to bend and swing. Your pelvis is made to carry you — not to clench. And the deep muscle that connects your spine to your legs — it’s usually the one gripping, and you’ll meet it properly in the workshop — finally gets to rest. When it does, things follow: the low back stops complaining, the hamstrings stop being blamed for everything, and the breath finds space it didn’t know it was missing.
There is also the less measurable layer. Yogis have always known that the pelvis holds more than bones: this is the home of the second chakra — flow, creativity, the capacity to let things move through us. A chronically gripped pelvis is a held flow. We will approach this the way I like to approach everything: honestly, gently, without dogma — and always through your own experience.
To be clear: this is not a stretching workshop. Nobody will be pushed into shapes. Most of the work is quiet, slow and surprisingly deep — release comes not from pulling on the hips, but from stopping the things we do that hold them.
Workshop topics include:
- finding your own anatomy — the bones and joints of the pelvis, with your own hands
- the quiet art of getting up from a chair with no effort at all
- slow yoga poses that release the front of the hips and the back of the legs
- what the hips hold on to — and what it’s like when they let go
— exactly where we go will depend on what the group finds.
For whom?
The workshop is open to everybody — my current yoga and Alexander Technique students, and complete newcomers alike. You do not need to be flexible. If you can lie on the floor and sit on a chair, you can do this workshop.
One honest note: if you are living with chronic pain, or in the middle of an acute flare-up — an inflamed hip, knee or IT-band situation — please write to me before signing up. Learning about your own anatomy and exploring gentle movement is open to you; some of the poses may need adapting, or resting out of. We can talk about what will serve you before you commit.
What to bring?
Wear comfortable clothes you can fold and lunge in. Mats, blankets, blocks, straps and chairs are provided at the studio.
When?
Thursday 15th of October, 18:00–21:00
Duration:
3 hours.
Price:
30 euros — VAT included.
Reduced to 25 euros for my regular students — if you’re currently in one of my classes or courses, or have taken one before, this is you.
Where?
English Yoga Berlin, Görlitzerstr. 39 – Berlin.
How to sign up?
Write an email to pinelopi (at) englishyogaberlin (dot) com
This Hatha Yoga in English class is a gentle yoga for all levels. 
