The Five Movements Yin Yoga Teacher Training with Emma Peel
The Course:
This course is to develop a Continuing Study programmes 50 hours duration at The London Shambhala Centre, Clapham Old Town, London.
Delivery commencing in Late Summer 2021 with a second course scheduled for Autumn 2021, both using a structure of five interrelated modules.
Structural Breakdown
Modules are organised around Traditional Chinese Medicine’s Five Elements and their corresponding Seasonal structures, in sequence. Each module will follow a similar structure, focused on consideration of the physical movement and energetic movement associated with the relevant phase. Anatomically each module with take two specific myofascial groups, their role within the skeletal frame (i.e What role the muscle groups have in moving the skilleton), associated organs, sense organ, and sense action. Philosophically, each module will touch on how Indian schools of thought can also be integrated into this perspective, although the primary focus will continue to be on TCM.
Module 1: THE WHOLE
Contact hours: 7.5 hours
Total hours: 7.5 hours
What will be covered over the course of module 1.
The Tao begot one.
One begot two.
Two begot three.
And three begot the ten thousand things.
Module one will explore the Tao that is the potential from which all things arise, leading us to explore the dualistic Yin Yang theory which itself then illuminates a third quality - Qi. Module one’s intention is to explore ‘Form’ and ‘Formlessness’, to set a foundation from which to move from and to set in motion our framework of describing reality within and through the Five Phase process.
Module 2: WOOD
Contact hours: 7
Non contact hours: 0
Total hours: 7
What will be covered over the course of module 2.
Anatomy: Abductor & Adductor group (Gluteus and groin), pelvis
Yin Asana focus: Outer edges of the body - Inner and outer Obliques / QL & transverses, lateral movements of the spine, and medial side of the legs.
Yin asana: Crescent moon, Dragonfly, 1/2 Dragonfly, Frog, Squat, Shoelace and Square, Deer and Swan.
Season: Spring / Phase: Wood / Movement: Upward, spreading, stretching, boundaries, limitations, movement / Organs: Liver and Gall bladder / Sense organ and Sense action: Eyes. Seeing versus watching.
Philosophy: Intention, Seeing clearly, Know yourself
Module 3: FIRE
Contact hours: 7
Non contact hours: 0
Total hours: 7
What will be covered over the course of module 3.
Anatomy: Arms & shoulders, Thoracic spine
Yin Asana focus: Active Swan, Dog, Melting Heart, Camel, Bow, Wheel, back bending
Season: Summer / Phase: Fire / Movement: Outward / Organs: Heart and small intestine / Sense organ and Sense action: Skin and hands. Touch versus feeling
Philosophy: Kama / Action, Right action, Awakened thinking, Moksha / liberation
Module 4: EARTH
Contact hours: 7
Non contact hours: 0
Total hours: 7
What will be covered over the course of module 4.
Anatomy: Quads & hip flexors
Yin Asana focus: Dragon variations, Cat-tail, Sphinx, Seal & Lizard, Saddle, 1/2 saddle, antler, back bending continued and rotation of the spine.
Season: Late Summer / Phase: Earth / Movement: Centre / Organs: Stomach and spleen / Sense organ and Sense action: Digesting, tasting
Philosophy: Dukkha / Sukkha, Dharma,
Module 5: METAL
Contact hours: 7
Non contact hours: 0
Total hours: 7
What will be covered over the course of module 5.
Anatomy: Arms and shoulders continued and cervical spine / neck
Yin Asana focus: Graceful bow, shoulder rotation, branches.
Season: Autumn / Phase: Metal / Movement: Downward / Organs: Lung and Large Intestine / Sense organ and Sense action: Nose. Smelling (What I was looking for was right under my nose, Smell a rat, smell danger)
Philosophy: Compassion / Karuna, Knowledge
Module 6: WATER
Contact hours: 7 hours
Contact hours with another teacher: 0
Non contact hours: 0
Total hours: 7
What will be covered over the course of module 6.
Anatomy: Hamstrings, Lower spine
Yin Asana focus: Hamstring poses and forward folding, 1/2 butterfly, 1/2 frog, 1/2 shoelace, butterfly, caterpillar, dangling, Snail and seagrass, toe squat.
Season: Winter / Phase: Water (Returning to the source, Receptivity, reflection, reaching the depths) / Movement: Inward / Organs: Kidney and urinary bladder / Sense organ and Sense action: Listening versus hearing
Philosophy: Non-harming, Change V Unchanging / permanence V impermanent, Returning to the source
Module 7: THE WHOLE / BRING IT ALL TOGETHER AGAIN
Contact hours: 7.5 hours
Contact hours with another teacher: 0
Non contact hours: 0
Total hours: 7.5 hours
What will be covered over the course of module 7.
In this module we will look to bring all the parts that were separate out above, back together as an integrated whole and re-visit our idea of the Whole from Module 1. This aspect of the training will clarify and refresh aspects from each phase and look at how and where these phases sit within the whole as part of process and we will also touch on where these aspects of Chinese Philosophy dove-tail with regard to Samkya Yoga School. This aspect of the course will also be used for the final exam where each student will be required to present and teach one posture.
Each student should demonstrate a clear understanding of ‘Intention’, which aspects of the body are vulnerable and how therefore to meet the intention in a way that is clear, safe and effective.
Yin asana: The 7 archetypal poses of Yin Yoga and a refresh on how to adapt these poses according to their individual intentions.
Season: We will move through the cycle of the seasons
Course Objectives:
On successful completion of the programme, participants will:
Become knowledgeable in the complex range of purposes of Yoga Asana, developing their understandings through managing the uncertainties generated by challenges to their own ideas and perceptions and the ideas and perceptions of others.
Understand the infinite variety of skeletal variations in the human form.
Learn the art of adapting the seven archetypal Yin poses in order to develop an inclusive practice for every individual’s body.
Become knowledgeable about the roots of intention within asana practice.
Develop an appreciation of critical pedagogy as it applies to Yin Yoga practice.
Accordingly, participants will be able to demonstrate achievement of the following specific objectives:
Recognise substantive differences in individual anatomies.
Account for their distinctive features as they affect practice.
Analyse classic Yin seats in relation to individual need.
Devise appropriate variations to meet such needs.
Relate Five Element theory to embodied practice and to variations in seats.
Support learners in developing personal awareness of their embodied needs.
Critically evaluate personal practice goals for themselves and for their learners.
Communicate effectively their rationale for designing, guiding and influencing practice.
Indicative Reading:
Yin Yoga: principles and practice by Paul Grilley
Viewing of “The Bare Bones of Yoga”. This course is available online at pranamaya.com.
The Way of the Five Seasons: Living with the Five Elements for Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Harmony by John Kirkwood
Fee: £750. (Early bird £680)
A non-refundable deposit of 10% is required to secure a space
Description
The programme’s purpose is to develop a critical understanding of Yin Yoga. At its heart is a focus on the individual physiologies and psyches (‘body-mind’) that determine the possibilities and limitations of personal practice, both for teachers and their learners. In this invitation into uncertainty, participants will explore and discover the wide range of possibilities (‘affordances’) available for working with bodies which, implicitly, are not uniform.
Springing from Paulo Freire’s concept of critical pedagogy, the overall aim is to explore how participants can help their learners to engage with Yin Yoga more fruitfully, by developing awareness of their embodiment: an individual, unique and complex intersectionality of, for example, age, occupation, recreation, medical history, vital statistics, anxieties, ambitions, needs, and desires.
This approach positions learners as ‘becoming’, sustained by an interplay between the fixed conditions of their body-mind and the desire, necessity, and inevitability of its change. Practice therefore operates from a problem-posing perspective, rooting itself in a dynamic present, refusing the predetermination of ‘perfect poses’: instead of being ‘well-behaved’ it is playfully troublesome, and consciously creative.
The focus of teaching and learning will be on an integrated approach to the Five Elements, human anatomy, and Yin seats, exploring their interrelationships and the range of options for supporting learners which that reveals. At the heart of its approach will be a refreshed understanding of bone structures, muscles, and tendons at an individual level, as an embodied, highly variable, lived experience, beyond the simplicities and certainties of textbook diagrams. These embodied affordances will be linked to the Five Elements: as a cyclical progression; as a series of developing and diminishing relationships; and as a complex interweaving of checks and balances. The aim is for both of these explorations to support a more nuanced and playful approach to classical Yin seats, investigating the choices and opportunities they offer, and suggesting the variety of possibilities available for individual working. This will be achieved by separating out and then reuniting specific elements of the corpus of Yin-Yang theory, at key stages in the programme, in order to provide clarity on the purpose of yoga asana.