Ashtanga Yoga with Ty Landrum

The Sweetness of Ashtanga

With Ty Landrum

Ashtanga Vinyasa is often mistaken for a discipline, a way of reshaping the body and controlling the mind with a rigorous sequence of forms. But through all the reaching and bending, the binding and twisting, this delusion begins to break down. The conceit of control slowly dissolves, and something remarkably sweet comes to the fore. It rises from the center of the body, holding our attention and warming us from the inside, with the irrepressible force of life.

In this workshop, we explore some ways of working within the Ashtanga Vinyasa system to invite that sweetness to rise.  We learn a number of techniques from the Hatha tradition that imbue yoga practice with real potency—tracing internal currents of breath, balancing patterns of sensation, visualizing subtle anatomy, and moving the body from the inside.  Through these techniques, we find deeper intimacy with the body, and we invite the loving presence within us to come alive.

Friday 29 - (5:00-7:00PM)

THE BREATH OF ASHTANGA

Ashtanga Vinyasa is not about creating exotic silhouettes, but about opening the body to the internal movements of the breath, and making room for consciousness to breathe. In this foundational session, we explore this process through some fundamental postures and movement patterns from the Ashtanga Vinyasa system. More pointedly, we learn how to use the practice to balance prana and apana—the energies of expansion and contraction that animate all forms of life.  This session involves philosophy, somatic exploration, and a light but potentially revelatory asana practice.

Saturday Morning 30- (8:00-10:30 AM)

BACKBENDING WITH SUPPORT

The practice of backbending is about making ourselves vulnerable, and finding the internal support to handle that vulnerability with grace.  When we backbend with internal support, we create opportunities for deep psychical release.  In this session, we learn to work intelligently with the breath, the psoas and the diaphragm to create a long and supple spine that can reach gracefully into these difficult and exhilarating forms.  This session is open to practitioners of all levels.  It will involve an exploratory asana practice that presses gently into the second series, and traces a number of supportive sequences for working with difficult forms.

Saturday Afternoon 30-  (11:00-1:30PM)

THE SERPENT’S TAIL 

This session will explore the coiling pattern—the pattern of spinal flexion that is the natural counterpoint to backbending.  This pattern emerges all over the Ashtanga practice, and connecting to this pattern provides a strong ground of psychophysical support, by awakening the dissolving force that removes excess from the body and mind.  In this session, we explore the coiling pattern through deeper forward bending, twisting, jumping back, and (MAYBE?) putting the legs behind the head.  This session is open to all.  It will involve a playful but challenging asana practice.

Sunday 31-  (8:00-10:00AM)

MYSORE 

This is a traditional Mysore-style Ashtanga Vinyasa class.  We practice together, mostly in silence, following the natural cadence of our breath, and the brilliant sequencing of the Ashtanga system.  This is an opportunity for individual attention and support.  Beginners who know some basic Ashtanga sequencing (enough to practice!) are welcome.

Sunday 31- (10:00-11:00 AM)

PRANAYAMA AND GUIDED MEDITATION 

Pranayama is the practice of giving space to the breath.  When the movements of the breath merge together, they reveal their perfect continuity.  They suspend the mind in the liminal space between creativity and emptiness.  This session involves a guided practice of pranayama and somatic visualization to awaken the breath, and taste the sweetness that lies beneath.

Sunday 31- (11:30-12:30 AM)

PHILOSOPHY TALK: THE SWEETNESS WITHIN 

As we follow the inner movements of the breath, our bodies spontaneously realign, and we begin to recognize within ourselves the movement of an intelligence that we have been seeking outwardly.  We abandon the opaque dictates of tradition for something visceral, immediate, and more profound, which magnetizes our sense of wonder.  The practice becomes more generous, more forgiving, and replete with new possibility. It loses its egocentric objective, and becomes an intimate hymn to something within ourselves that is impossible sweet.  In this session, we think together about this crucial movement of yoga, and the necessity of following our own inner light.

BIO

Ty Landrum is a student and explorer of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga.  He lives with his wife and two children in Boulder, Colorado.  With a PhD in Philosophy, Ty has a special touch for explaining the theory of yoga with color and creativity.  His passion as a teacher is to share the brilliance of yoga with anyone who wants to learn.

Price: 150€ 

Booking ticket: 60€ (non refundable)