Price: $300 per course (4 classes in each 1-month course. 1 class per week)
Each 4 week course may be taken separately, Series must be taken in series.
This 12-week class series teaches Yoga as a practical tool that supports health & renews vitality. Yoga Renewal Series with Summer focuses on working with and listening to our bodies, including any limitations or difficulties, and gently building up strength and supporting you in reaching your personal wellness goals.
Beginner-friendly, good for all levels and taught in small groups @ Soma Yoga Shala.
75 min. classes weekly on Thursdays @ 6:00 PM, and Saturday @ 10:30 AM
Course 3 begins April 24th – Sign up below
Select a course, ‘4 sessions’, and then choose April 24th (for Thursdays), or April 26th (for Saturdays).
You will be booking 4 weekly classes on the same day. You may exchange a Monday for a Thursday.
Learn how to move and breathe with ease, build strength and support from the ground up.
This course includes classes which cover simple yoga postures for rebalancing, better support, more stability, and beginning the exploration between breath, posture & movement.
Weeks:
Yoga Foundations
Yoga isn’t only what we see in a photo or video. Learn the important principles of why it’s a special practice available to all. Begin or enhance your journey with Yoga.
Moving and Breathing with Ease
Learn how to move and breathe with ease. This class introduces simple yoga postures to release, lengthen and rebalance your whole body. It explores how to free tension in the hips and pelvis and find strength in the legs. It invites you to listen, slow down and rest. The gift of space, breath and inner calm. You will explore lying, kneeling and standing poses.
Building Strength and Support
Learn how to build strength and support from the ground up. This class focuses on the connection between your feet, legs, pelvis and spine. It introduces the importance of good posture and how to find length and strength in your spine. You will investigate how to feel grounded, supported and stable in movement, and how the benefits of yoga cross over into real life. You will explore lying, kneeling and standing poses and a simple flow sequence.
Practice & Integration (or make-up as needed)
Integrate the lessons. Instruction and guidance while you practice.
Course #1 Starts the week of February 3rd. Sign up here.
Course #2: Yoga in Practice – Breath, Support & Balance
In this course you will learn to expand on the yoga fundamentals by learning about the importance of the spine and the support & balance it can provide when nurtured through a yoga practice.
Weeks:
Aligning the Spine
Discover how your spine supports you. This class explores what makes you feel strong and stable in yoga postures. It investigates how to mobilise and stabilise your spine and how amazing and unique your spine is. It explores how to create relaxation and vitality through your breath, and the relationship between breath, posture and movement. You will explore lying, kneeling and standing poses and a simple back bend.
Moving from Centre
This class focuses on how to move from a stable, yet fluid core. It examines the connection between your core and the rest of your body. It explores how to move freely in areas that feel tight, tense, stuck or painful. This class offers you an opportunity to experience how your breath moves your body and how alignment is always an inside job. You will refine your knowledge, explore a balance pose, and learn a longer sequence called a Sun Salutation.
Making Friends with Back Bends
This class focuses on dynamic strengthening practices that contribute to easeful, upright posture and movement. It takes the spine through a full range of motion to restore each part to optimum balance and combat the strain of prolonged desk work. Continue to investigate how to breathe for optimum support as movement becomes more challenging. Learn how to be safe with yourself and practice with self-care and kindness as you progress your yoga practice. You will progress your Sun Salutation and learn another spine strengthening sequence.
Practice & Integration (or make-up as needed)
Integrate the lessons. Instruction and guidance while you practice.
Course #2 Starts the week of March 3rd. Sign up here.
Course #3: Towards Renewal & Thriving
Enhance your yoga practice, improve what it can do for you. In this course we move towards advanced renewal, consistency & thriving.
Weeks:
Unwinding with Twists and Spirals
Learn how to unwind your body. Twisting movements can be complex – especially if you have a current or past injury. This class explores how to move safely into twisting in a way that honours your unique anatomy and plays to your strengths. Discover how support precedes movement and find comfort and ease as you twist. You will explore Sun Salutations and a new standing pose, as well as seated poses in this class.
Creating Space with Side Bends
Learn how to create space in your body and find length in your spine. This class refines your understanding of how to move from your centre in a balanced way. It explores how to move through areas of your spine that may feel stuck, stiff or rigid, and how to unlock new levels of freedom in your breath. You will learn a new breathing technique and refine your learning in lying, standing and seated poses.
Coming Home to Yourself
This class explores how to gently release tension in the hip and pelvic region. Learn practices to lengthen the spine and deepen your connection to your breath. Move, breathe, rest and enjoy your newfound knowledge. You’re not just practicing yoga – you’re coming home to yourself.
Finale: wrap up theme / move forward in life empowered and renewed
Course #3 Starts the week of April 7th. Sign up here.
Yoga Renewal Series Schedule & Terms
Weekly classes are to be offered twice during the week. Guided Practice & Makeup days are offered every 4th week (or on request as available).
Organized around the moving principles from Donna Farhi’s book, Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit, this is a Yoga Fundamentals Course with references and assigned reading in the book to complement the course. In this series, we move through developmental movement repatterning to discover the origins of your best alignment in yoga practice and everyday life movements to reduce strain, promote longevity, and reduce injury.
This journey is an opportunity for a rebirth of yourself. It is an opportunity to repattern your habitual posture and movements to your original patterns of wholeness and harmony, dismantling patterns that do not serve you and establishing a new way of being in your body. How we practice yoga can be a blueprint for the rest of our lives, moving forward with support, clarity, stability, and ease.
Books by Donna Farhi recommended for the series include:
Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit
The Breathing Book
Bringing Yoga to life.
After completing the 12-week series, you can expect to:
Establish a personal yoga practice and get the most out of your practice time in a public class based on your unique structure and individual needs, intentions and goals.
Be empowered with yoga, breathing, meditation, and restorative practices and tools to support your specific intentions and requests based on the sensory memory bank you develop during the series.
Feel confident in your understanding of yoga as a beginner or have a deeper understanding of yoga as an experienced practitioner.
Feel more comfortable in seated meditation positions for longer durations.
Have better balance and stability in everyday life movements and yoga postures.
Have a deeper understanding of yourself, an expanded awareness of your embodied somatic experience, and deeper listening skills within your interception.
Improve your daily posture.
Reduce strain & tension in your body.
Understand your breath, dismantle patterns that inhibit free breathing, and re-establish healthy, natural breathing patterns in the body.
Understand your optimal alignment.
Experience yoga as your everyday way of life and improve your relationships with yourself, your community, and our world.