Thank you for joining me and for expanding your community and impact by teaching SRY to yoga students and teachers of other styles!
Do NOT share this link with others. This information is for paid participants in this course. If you know someone who you think may be interested in studying with Kaya send them here.
You can listen to this again and again. I recommend you take notes to refer to! Additional resources are below for your reference. More on studying or mentoring me here.
This course is offered in two parts, the third part to come out will be on designing programs {workshops, series, etc. for yoga teachers}. |
Part 1 : The Inner Attitude
Included in Part 1
- Kaya's background in sharing SRY with yoga students and teachers of other styles
- What can happen when you offer someone a different framework
- Possible results of sharing SRY with yoga teachers
- Cultivating a Sattvic attitude {free from conflict or competition}
- Maintaining confidence in your expertise and role as the teacher
- Getting to know why they are coming to you
- Vata and Pitta - the Common Constitution of Yoga Teachers and Experienced Practitioners
- Using their needs and goals to your / their advantage in your teaching
- Common Complaints or Desires of Yoga Teachers of other styles {Reasons they may come to you and could benefit from SRY}
Part 2: The Practical Approach
Included in Part 2
- Key Pillars of SRY that are appealing to yoga practitioners and teachers of other styles
- Why what SRY is not about comfort and why that matters
- How and why to explain the technicalities of what we are doing
- Highlighting one or more of the key principles of what we are doing - including muscle release vs. ligament stretch, supporting an easeful Kundalini process, tracking the emotions, tracking and mapping the nadi and chakra system, opening up to a meditative or contemplative state.
- Why it is important to give information to teachers and how to do it
- Best practices - demonstrations, language and cues that are effective
- Best practices - poses, props and adjustments that are most effective
Recommended Reading and Sharing
- Is Restorative Yoga Remedial and Why Yoga Teachers Love it, Kaya Mindlin http://www.yogawithkayaresources.com/blog/is-restorative-yoga-fordhjfu-beginners
- The Biomechanics of Spinal Twist, Kaya Mindlin http://yogawithkaya.com/biomechanics-neck-spinal-twist/
- Containment Yoga – More Props for More Release, Kaya Mindlin http://yogawithkaya.com/containment-yoga-props-release/
- Hypermobility and Flexibility, Jenni Rawlings http://www.jennirawlings.com/blog/2014/9/4/hypermobility-vs-flexibility-do-you-know-the-difference
- The Lotus Dilemma, Leslie Kaminoff http://yogaanatomy.net/lotus/
Quotes from Texts and Teachers of Yoga
Yogaś citta vṛtti nirodaḥ Tadāa draṣthu svarūpe 'vasthanām {Patanjali Yoga Sūtras}
Yoga is the settling of the mind, so that you (the one with a settled mind) can abide in your true nature.
Kevalaṃ rāja yoghāya haṭha vidyopadiśyate {Haṭha Yoga Pradipika}
Haṭha Yoga (asana, pranayama) for the attainment of Raja Yoga (meditation, contemplation)
Prayatna śaithīlyānanta samāpattibhyām {Patanjali Yoga Sūtras}
To master the yoga pose, abandon all effort and meditate on the infinite.
“Modern yoga, is mainly physical. Its goals are fitness, weight-loss and physical performance. These agni forms of yoga are active practices aimed at young people, and are heating and detoxifying. Too much of this can deplete or disturb you. For deeper practices, we emphasize soma yoga - restorative yoga, pratyahara and yoga nidra. These help us contact our inner nectar. Soma yoga relates to the deeper aspects of yoga. The calming, rejuvenating side of yoga that slows us down, takes us within, and brings us to a state of nondoing and pure centeredness – that is a soma practice. - David Frawley
“Yoga practice is ultimately more a way of non-doing than doing. It is more a way of undoing. It is doing less, turning within, letting go, and surrendering. Yoga means discovering the healing essence that can draw us to a higher awareness naturally, in which we can let go of our stress, our anxiety, our negativity, our traumas, all these emotional factors that disturb us and keep us down. Inner yoga is that in which we move from activity to surrender and to cultivating the flow of grace.” – Dr. David Frawley
“Ligament is not like muscle. It does not have elasticity… I cringe when I take a yoga class and see people… doing 15 forward bends where the pelvis has hardly moved and the lumbar spine fully flexes, again and again. People who are hypermobile tend to participate in stretching programs because it is easy for them. The problem is, when entering into stretches, those with hypermobile joints actually rearrange their bones to bypass the [muscle] stretch. People with hypermobile joints actually have very (very, very!) tight muscles… Flopping into a forward bend and putting both hands flat on the ground is 1) a sign of joint hypermobility and 2) a sign of extremely tight hamstrings. With every excessively mobile joint comes a set of extremely tight and non-circulating muscles. – Katy Bowman, PhD Biomechanics
“It will seem like [hypermobile students] are moving very deeply into the poses, but the part that’s moving isn’t the part that’s supposed to be moving and the part that is moving is unstable. They’ll have difficulty later in life because of it – they will have pain, injury or a lack of mobility later in life. When you over extend a joint, the nearest area of the spine will tighten to protect the joint. When you stretch a joint, the adjacent area of the spine tightens to provide counterbalance and protection.” – Nirmalananda Saraswati
“Of injured yoga practitioners, 70% of injured yoga practitioners or women, average age is 40, and the most common injury {40%} are low back, mostly disc injuries and sciatica. I used to think we would see most injuries in inflexible men, but the reality was 100% opposite of that. The group with the highest occurance of low back injuries was women who were hypermobile. They were going to the end range of the pose, and then the teacher was going over and pushing them even further. These low back injuries take many months of recovery. One in five of the injuries we saw were in yoga teachers.” – Dr. Raza Awan, Sports Injury Prevention Specialist {working with yoga practitioners}
Yoga is the settling of the mind, so that you (the one with a settled mind) can abide in your true nature.
Kevalaṃ rāja yoghāya haṭha vidyopadiśyate {Haṭha Yoga Pradipika}
Haṭha Yoga (asana, pranayama) for the attainment of Raja Yoga (meditation, contemplation)
Prayatna śaithīlyānanta samāpattibhyām {Patanjali Yoga Sūtras}
To master the yoga pose, abandon all effort and meditate on the infinite.
“Modern yoga, is mainly physical. Its goals are fitness, weight-loss and physical performance. These agni forms of yoga are active practices aimed at young people, and are heating and detoxifying. Too much of this can deplete or disturb you. For deeper practices, we emphasize soma yoga - restorative yoga, pratyahara and yoga nidra. These help us contact our inner nectar. Soma yoga relates to the deeper aspects of yoga. The calming, rejuvenating side of yoga that slows us down, takes us within, and brings us to a state of nondoing and pure centeredness – that is a soma practice. - David Frawley
“Yoga practice is ultimately more a way of non-doing than doing. It is more a way of undoing. It is doing less, turning within, letting go, and surrendering. Yoga means discovering the healing essence that can draw us to a higher awareness naturally, in which we can let go of our stress, our anxiety, our negativity, our traumas, all these emotional factors that disturb us and keep us down. Inner yoga is that in which we move from activity to surrender and to cultivating the flow of grace.” – Dr. David Frawley
“Ligament is not like muscle. It does not have elasticity… I cringe when I take a yoga class and see people… doing 15 forward bends where the pelvis has hardly moved and the lumbar spine fully flexes, again and again. People who are hypermobile tend to participate in stretching programs because it is easy for them. The problem is, when entering into stretches, those with hypermobile joints actually rearrange their bones to bypass the [muscle] stretch. People with hypermobile joints actually have very (very, very!) tight muscles… Flopping into a forward bend and putting both hands flat on the ground is 1) a sign of joint hypermobility and 2) a sign of extremely tight hamstrings. With every excessively mobile joint comes a set of extremely tight and non-circulating muscles. – Katy Bowman, PhD Biomechanics
“It will seem like [hypermobile students] are moving very deeply into the poses, but the part that’s moving isn’t the part that’s supposed to be moving and the part that is moving is unstable. They’ll have difficulty later in life because of it – they will have pain, injury or a lack of mobility later in life. When you over extend a joint, the nearest area of the spine will tighten to protect the joint. When you stretch a joint, the adjacent area of the spine tightens to provide counterbalance and protection.” – Nirmalananda Saraswati
“Of injured yoga practitioners, 70% of injured yoga practitioners or women, average age is 40, and the most common injury {40%} are low back, mostly disc injuries and sciatica. I used to think we would see most injuries in inflexible men, but the reality was 100% opposite of that. The group with the highest occurance of low back injuries was women who were hypermobile. They were going to the end range of the pose, and then the teacher was going over and pushing them even further. These low back injuries take many months of recovery. One in five of the injuries we saw were in yoga teachers.” – Dr. Raza Awan, Sports Injury Prevention Specialist {working with yoga practitioners}