Where Asana and Philosophy Meet–at Tim Miller’s

South we go!

We’ve got an exciting week ahead here at The Confluence Countdown household. I’ll be heading down to Tim’s on Friday for his end-of-day Intro to Second. Then, on Saturday, Steve and I will be going to a workshop for the Sean O’Shea Foundation. The Sean O’Shea Foundation works to bring the benefits of yoga to at-risk youth. Tim has titled his workshop, “The Physics and Metaphysics of Asana”—right up our alley (more here). Here’s part of the description:

The yogic tradition speaks of five bodies, or sheaths, which are known as the Pancha Koshas. The common metaphor used for the Pancha Koshas are the Russian dolls that fit within each other. The physical body is just the outer layer, or doll. As we penetrate more deeply inward we encounter the energy body, the emotional body, the intuitive body, and finally the spiritual body.

Tim’s workshops always seem perfectly timed for our practice, and this one’s no different. It was a Sean O’Shea workshop with Tim that really got Steve hooked on the practice. This one is coming right at the point where we’re both exploring the deeper implications of asana, and nobody is better at linking asana with philosophy than Tim. Here’s a bit more:

As we begin to unravel the knots in the energy body we begin to encounter certain habit of and feeling that keep us stuck in dysfunctional patterns. We will explore how we can use asana to help us face unpleasant emotions like fear, anger, and sadness so we can break through to the layer of the intuitive, or knowing body—which is characterized by its intelligence, expansiveness, compassion, and non-attachment.

What could possibly be a more valuable workshop for an Ashtanga practitioner than learning to use the practice as a healing tool, as a way to learn how to live? I’m sure we’ll both be writing more about the workshop, so…more to come.

Posted by Bobbie