Mindfulness for Yoga Teachers Immersion Training
With Mimi Kuo-Deemer
Triyoga, Camden
February 23 -24, and March 2 -3 2019
Open to teachers and teachers in training.
This four-day immersion is aimed at sharing mindfulness in a way that can be of benefit to yoga teachers as well as teachers in training. It is also focused on providing practical tools from the mindfulness tradition to students, enabling them to engage with their yoga practice in skilful, kind and insightful ways.
While mindfulness has become a catch-word in today’s culture, the roots of mindfulness stem from ancient and powerful ideas originally set forth by the Buddha. This immersion will explore the modern-day value of the Buddha’s teachings on mindfulness, and how they may support practice within the contemporary yoga world. Drawing on the Satipatthana Suttas, or Foundations of Mindfulness, each day of the immersion will explore one of the four foundations of mindfulness as it relates to āsana practice and teaching: Mindfulness of Body, Mindfulness of Vedana (sensations or feeling tones that are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral), Mindfulness of Thoughts and Mindfulness of Dhamma (the path, truth, as well as all thought, emotion and intention). Through a highly experiential and embodied approach, we will consider the ways our role as yoga teachers can be supported and guided by the benefits of mindfulness. It will also orientate us toward ways we can share what we love with qualities of metta (lovingkindness), vipassana (insight) and prajña (wisdom).
In addition to meditation practice, each day will include active practice of yoga āsana and some qigong (a Chinese energy art form). Emphasis will be placed on understanding how to approach and teach movement-based practices within a mindfulness framework. Structural and practical methodologies such as using language, introducing and developing themes and weaving narratives into class will be covered. Participants will be given techniques for presenting and sharing mindfulness in accessible, informative and enlivening ways.
Topics will include:
Course structure and times:
Day one – February 23 from 9.45-12.30 + 1400-18.00
Mindfulness of Body: Awakening the Wisdom and Intelligence of the Body
Day two – February 24 from 9.45-12.30 + 1400-18.00
Mindfulness of Vedana (feeling tone): The Gap Between Stimulus and Response
Day three – March 2 from 9.45-12.30 + 1400-18.00
Mindfulness of Thoughts: The Inclinations of Mind and Our Emotional Signatures
Day four – March 3 from 9.45-12.30 + 1400-18.00
Mindfulness of Dhamma: Living in the Light of Our Own Understanding
With Mimi Kuo-Deemer
Triyoga, Camden
February 23 -24, and March 2 -3 2019
Open to teachers and teachers in training.
This four-day immersion is aimed at sharing mindfulness in a way that can be of benefit to yoga teachers as well as teachers in training. It is also focused on providing practical tools from the mindfulness tradition to students, enabling them to engage with their yoga practice in skilful, kind and insightful ways.
While mindfulness has become a catch-word in today’s culture, the roots of mindfulness stem from ancient and powerful ideas originally set forth by the Buddha. This immersion will explore the modern-day value of the Buddha’s teachings on mindfulness, and how they may support practice within the contemporary yoga world. Drawing on the Satipatthana Suttas, or Foundations of Mindfulness, each day of the immersion will explore one of the four foundations of mindfulness as it relates to āsana practice and teaching: Mindfulness of Body, Mindfulness of Vedana (sensations or feeling tones that are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral), Mindfulness of Thoughts and Mindfulness of Dhamma (the path, truth, as well as all thought, emotion and intention). Through a highly experiential and embodied approach, we will consider the ways our role as yoga teachers can be supported and guided by the benefits of mindfulness. It will also orientate us toward ways we can share what we love with qualities of metta (lovingkindness), vipassana (insight) and prajña (wisdom).
In addition to meditation practice, each day will include active practice of yoga āsana and some qigong (a Chinese energy art form). Emphasis will be placed on understanding how to approach and teach movement-based practices within a mindfulness framework. Structural and practical methodologies such as using language, introducing and developing themes and weaving narratives into class will be covered. Participants will be given techniques for presenting and sharing mindfulness in accessible, informative and enlivening ways.
Topics will include:
- Cultivating the art of bringing mindfulness and the gifts of embodied presence, compassion and insight to the yoga classroom.
- Working with metta (care), vipassana (insight) and prajña (wisdom) in movement.
- Exploring how triggers within our experience of doing yoga can precipitate our habitual and reactive patterns, and understanding ways to become free from these tendencies.
- Learning to perceive and work with both our and our students’ tendencies toward skillful and unskillful thoughts and judgements.
- Fostering valuable resources and skills from within mindfulness to help meet some of the difficulties of being in the role of the teacher such as selfing (inflationary and deflationary tendencies) and working with the voice of the inner critic (comparison, judgement, and the imposter syndrome).
- Considering the obstacles as well as the freedom that arise from steady mindfulness practice.
Course structure and times:
Day one – February 23 from 9.45-12.30 + 1400-18.00
Mindfulness of Body: Awakening the Wisdom and Intelligence of the Body
Day two – February 24 from 9.45-12.30 + 1400-18.00
Mindfulness of Vedana (feeling tone): The Gap Between Stimulus and Response
Day three – March 2 from 9.45-12.30 + 1400-18.00
Mindfulness of Thoughts: The Inclinations of Mind and Our Emotional Signatures
Day four – March 3 from 9.45-12.30 + 1400-18.00
Mindfulness of Dhamma: Living in the Light of Our Own Understanding