Let’s invite the poses/postural practice home to their/its yogic womb of spiritual and philosophical context. For all yoga practitioners and teachers, those curious about the yogic path, and those wondering how the postural practice of yoga functions within a spiritual context, here’s the course for you! It’s actually the course I wish I had been able to take many years ago, and it’s a response to the strong draw many people are feeling towards meaning, insight, depth, and connection. As Ram Dass said, “the most important work you can do is in the privacy of your own heart,” and any of us who love postural yoga know the great opportunity that time on our mat presents. I’m sharing the concepts that I use in my postural practice and teaching. connecting poses to …..the rich earth of yoga’s spiritual and philosophical context. I am not inclined to frame this as “yoga off the mat",” because it is important to understand that throughout history yoga has always been off the mat (it’s only in very recent modern Western culture that we decontextualized the poses). Drawing heavily from the teachings of T. Krishnamacharya, I want to help you plug your postural practice back into its mothership, even in some small but meaningful ways.

If you like, skip down to the course outline below.

I have practiced postural yoga for over 20 years, of various traditions and styles, studied yoga through an academic lens, and through India. Most importantly (to me) I work to integrate the teachings dear to my heart. So I’ve learned some things that I’d love to share with sincere souls on their own paths.

There was a time that I came to understand the postural practice was not the whole story, and I was determined to do some deep inner work and reverse engineering to plug my physical practice back into its womb of Yoga. I was filled with confusion and was eager to learn! But, there’s a great deal of cultural clutter about yogic philosophy in modern yoga worlds. There’s limited ability to discuss yogic concepts in a 60-75 min studio class format. And an original yogic texts just felt over my head. So I started looking anywhere I could to untangle some answers - in India, in books, academic coursework, and with my own teachers. I hope my time and devotion to the path can offer others some clues / breadcrumbs for you.

This course is not focused on a specific lineage of yoga, and it is certainly not intended to create a hierarchy of modern postural yoga vs “traditional” yoga, but rather I’ve pulled together key themes & threads that have most important to me in the process of contextualizing the physical practice from the big ocean of yogic practices and possibilities that extend well beyond asana (the physical poses). It is important to understand that there is more.

This isn’t a certification. I can’t certify anyone as “spiritual.” And there’s no certificate of completion, because none of us are ever “done” on the path. But it IS a doorway for your own deeper discovery, an invitation to take a few steps further on the path. Yoga has always been a wisdom path born from direct personal experience, knowing that information alone will never yield integrated insight. But, we certainly need a light and some crumbs to follow. So my aim is for this series can be a launchpad, to demystify any confusion and to give a really good foundation and plant some seeds of inspiration - and that you’ll maybe do what I did and keep following your curiosity to learn more. Not in any way trying to be a complete study of yoga, I’m opting to make this a broad brush stroke You’ll have the recordings for 6 months so you can rewatch and excavate what makes your heart sing!

Some of this content (maybe 20%) is what I get to share in yoga teacher trainings and at retreats/trainings, but I have a wholehearted belief that the depth of yoga should be more available to ALL sincere students of yoga. This format also affords me the ability to bring in more content and to really tune the dial towards practitioners. I don't like to keep the study of yoga behind a curtain, which only perpetuates the decontextualization of postural yoga, stifles students’ inner growth, and hinders the seekers from seeking. With the grace of my teachers and my devotion on the path, I want to share what I’ve come to know, far and wide.

There’s a lovely compound word in Sanskrit: yogastha, meaning ‘one who stands in yoga.’ We need more practitioners rooted in a deeper sense of yoga (which is not one way, or one lineage, there is big open field of possibility and inspiration).

When it comes to developing new yoga teachers, I’ll be honest, I often see things happening a bit backwards. Rising teachers most of all need guidance and mentorship to deepen their own studentship: studentship should be at the center of learning to teach yoga. Our personal experience with yoga and meditation - the study of our own inner workings - should be the foundation for teaching. It takes a great deal of time, guidance, and practice to understand yoga. In Session # 4 we’ll actually spend some time talking about how to get started with an independent self practice.

But maybe it’s all actually happening just the way it should be, because I am happy to report that I get a delightful number of emails, text messages, and DMs from curious yoga practitioners asking some form of, “How do I go deeper? where do I start? I feel like there’s more.” I take this as a deep honor and I want to rise to the integrity of this inquiry. And, here we are, you can start here! This is your answer to The Call :) I’ll be excited for you to come along with me.

“It takes dedication to keep the quality of yoga alive. AQuality is a way of living a spiritual life, that’s what we are seeking from yoga, a more spiritual way of being in the world.” - Maty Ezraty

I’ve divided the content up into five sessions: historical context, the Soul (Self), the mind, the body, and devotion. There’s also a bonus module geared towards teachers (though all are welcome to attend) in which I’ll share my reflections on some ways to approach weaving yogic wisdom into teaching studio classes.

Please note: I am even smaller than a small business…I am a teeny tiny business. So I am unable to offer refunds.