Yoga For Living Productions

Doug Keller
www.doyoga.com

Doug Keller is one of the senior teachers in the Anusara School of yoga founded by John Friend. He holds graduate degrees in Philosophy from Georgetown and Fordham University, and began his career teaching philosophy at Fordham for several years. It was in India that he met John Friend, and trained intensively with John from 1993 onward as he developed the Anusara style. He is author of the books Anusara Yoga and Refining the Breath: Pranayama in the Anusara Style of Yoga, both of which have become standard texts in Anusara trainings. His teaching and writings are known for giving balanced attention both to the principles and biomechanical understanding that make our practice beneficial, safe and effective, and to the philosophy, practices and spirit of yoga that awaken us to the presence of God within our own hearts. Doug’s workshops are well known as fun learning experiences distinguished by his clarity, wit, and wise, insightful style.

6-DAY AFTERNOON INTENSIVE

Anusara Yoga: Embodying the Practice and Spirit of Yoga

The clear principles, teachings and intention behind Anusara is to uproot the boundaries we let spring up like weeds between our practice and our lives and fulfill our true and original nature as spiritual beings. Yoga does not so much dissolve and eradicate our limitations, but rather helps us to see and work through them to experience our true freedom and divinity.

This teacher training intensive will

offer a clear and comprehensive set of principles for practicing, teaching and assisting asana that have equal (if not even greater) importance for living a self-aware and non-injurious everyday life. These connections between practice and life, the inherent therapeutic value of the principles, and how to communicate these to your students will be part and parcel of the training.

give vital attention to the spiritual intention, self-awareness and heart qualities by which we return to a state of inner freedom in our practice and our lives. The philosophical background of this approach will be covered, as well as how to communicate this simply, clearly and powerfully through your teaching without offending or disrespecting students’ personal religious beliefs.

Technique will include significant practice of pranayama as well as the practice of the bandhas and breathing in asana, in the context of Anusara Principles.

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MORNING ASANA CLASSES

Track 1 (Gentle Focus)

Anugraha: Principles of Grace.
Hatha Yoga invites and invokes the experience of grace as one of inner confidence and strength, ease, freedom, inspired compassion and the awareness of Divine Presence and support. The principles of Anusara Yoga invoke and protect the experience of grace within the body, guiding us through a steady flow of postures that awaken and express the yearning of the spiritual heart to know itself. Clear instruction, explanation and demonstration of the principles in action will take you through a satisfying series of postures that will refresh, inspire and prepare you for a full day of yoga.

Track 2 (Challenging)

Tapas: The Fire of Grace
How do you step up the challenge (and enjoyment) of your practice without losing your focus and having it become an ego trip – or, conversely, an exercise in frustration and futility? Clear principles of practice keep you safe, centered and at ease in the midst of greater challenge while beginning to erase false boundaries between your practice and your life. Anusara principles provide the key to unlocking more daunting postures, while greater emphasis is placed on the power and use of the breath as well as invoking subtler qualities of love and strength that keep the mind one-pointed and the heart triumphant in the fire of outward challenges.

Track 3 (Advanced)

Atma Vishvasa: The Grace of Trusting in Your Self
We are not physical beings seeking a spiritual experience: we are spiritual beings having a physical experience – embodying the freedom of spirit even as we explore – and feel – our limitations. We explore and play the “edge” in asana to better know ourselves – both the positive qualities of the heart by which we prevail, and the inner knots by which we limit ourselves, stumble and become disheartened. Physical accomplishment is never really the point in practice; dissolving these inner knots is, all for the sake of knowing and being who we really are. A challenging practice calling forth one-pointedness, enthusiasm, steadfastness and enlightened compassion towards oneself. To fully enjoy, understand and appreciate the experience, please leave your ego with your shoes!

KEYNOTE

True To Our Heritage

Yoga is here to stay! Yet even as yoga evolves into so many forms in the fertile ground of our culture, we rob ourselves of its wisdom if we lose sight of the original inspiration of the yogis, or interpret yoga according to our own purposes. The yogis embodied spiritual passion while living in this world to the fullest, and bequeathed us a philosophical vision and culture that both embraces and goes far beyond Patanjali’s yamas and niyamas. What is the spiritual culture of yoga as a lived philosophy?
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