Art of Attention Teacher Training – Virayoga
100hr Continuing Education for Teachers
Directed by Elena Brower
100 hours devoted to inquiry, acknowledgement, abundance, and shared creativity. For those who are already teaching, who’ve had at least one 200-hour teacher training, and are sharing yoga as a means to serve and uplift humanity, we’ll have 7 weekends together, each weekend with a different focus, and many with visiting luminaries offering their expertise and vision to our studies.
Together we’ll study language, listening, philosophy… Anatomy for structural integrity with Jonina Turzi, manual Yoga Tune Up® Therapeutic ball work with Jill Miller, adjustments with Kate Bailey, Kundalini yoga with Hari Kaur Khalsa, Hatha yoga, vinyasa yoga, Yin yoga, pranayama, and the Chakra system: the heart of our practices.
We’ll learn subtle body awarenesses and self-healing bioenergetics with Louise Amar, we’ll examine our own possibilities via core Handel Method coaching concepts, and we’ll explore Restoratives with Abby Paloma. Using day-to-day Mindsight practices we will simplify our emotional experience, and together we’ll refine our teaching voices and practice regular meditation. We’ll spend time learning AND teaching, we’ll be making 2 ongoing art projects, and we’ll take away an abundance of inspiration with which to work for years to come
Week One: On Language, September 20-22, 2013
On languaging the relevant truths of your own practice in service of your students; listening practices, how to teach focused classes, your teaching voice, remixing inspirations, and creating a vision for your teaching.
Week Two: On Vortices, November 1-3, 2013
On the system of the Chakras and how to effectively teach the concepts in our own work, on the imprints we choose, and Jonina Turzi teaches anatomy for structural integrity.
Week Three: On Boundaries, December 6-8, 2013
On Kundalini yoga with Hari Kaur, my Kundalini teacher. On the interesting boundaries of sequencing to a peak pose, and a long-awaited Yoga Tune Up® Therapy Ball Training with Jill Miller, one of my heroes in the field of wellness.
Week Four: On Intimacy, December 20-22, 2013
How to use our work to stay close to ourselves, how to ensure that we stay in practice, and create the necessary intimacy to make us great teachers and leaders. With my dear colleague and skilled teacher Abby Paloma teaching her perspective on abgrounding Restorative practice, and my longtime sister and healer Louise Amar on bioenergetics and healing work.
Week Five: On Design, January 17-19, 2014
On designing our attitudes, our emotional experiences, and our relationship to time. Erica Jago, coauthor of Art of Attention, brings her Asanaglyphs and how to have fun planning and playing in our classes, and will share her experience of planning and teaching retreats, and learning how to profoundly love our bodies. Restoratives.
Week Six: On Presence, February 7-9, 2014
On presence as both means and aim. On safely teaching arm balances, hands-on adjustments with Kate Bailey, and more teaching practice.
Week Seven: On Leadership, March 21-23, 2014
On Love as leadership, “seeing” as leadership, discussion of limbic resonance; our art exhibit and closing presentation.
Inspirations that led to this training:
The more inner work is deepened, the wider external work should become, and the more external work widens, the deeper internal work should become.
From Theory of Conscious Harmony, Rodney Collin
Yoga should in the end be completely open-source, where open-source is the medium of empathy, so that everyone can read the code, reflect each other’s creations, and alter it towards their novel applications.
From Threads of Yoga, Matthew Remski
We do not realize how passive we are, always pulled along by events, people and things. We begin an activity with great interest, fully aware of our aim. But after a certain time the impulse weakens, overcome by inertia. Our understanding diminishes, and we feel the need for something new that will restore the interest, the life. Our inner work progresses like this in stages, and always depends on new forces. It is determined by laws. We must get rid of the idea that progress is continuous in a straight line. There are stages where the intensity diminishes, and, if we do not wish to fall back, a force must appear that is more active.
From The Reality of Being by Jeanne de Salzmann
The immense fulfillment of the friendship between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality impossible to describe.
-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
DAILY SCHEDULE:
FRIDAY
4-8pm CLASS
SATURDAY
11-12:30 (observe/take elena’s 11am class – we will rotate)
1-3pm BREAK
3-7pm CLASS
SUNDAY
9am-1pm CLASS
1-3pm BREAK
3-7pm CLASS
16 hours each weekend, 7 weekends total. Schedule is subject to slight changes, to total 100hrs
READING LIST REQUIRED*
- Threads of Yoga by Matthew Remski
- A Woman’s Book of Meditation by Hari Kaur Khalsa
- A Woman’s Book of Yoga by Hari Kaur Khalsa
- Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith
- Layayoga: The Definitive Guide to the Chakras and Kundalini by Shyam Sundar Goswami
- Reality of Being by Jeanne De Salzmann
- Relax and Renew by Judith Lasater
- Mindsight by Dr Dan Siegel (if you have kids, order the Whole Brain Child also)
- A General Theory of Love by Richard Lewis Thomas, Amini Fari, Richard Lannon
- The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga by Bernie Clark
- *A copy of Art of Attention is included, even if you already own it, to use and write in for this training.
READING LIST RECOMMENDED
[just good to have around for inspiration for your teaching and living]
- Poised for Grace by Dr Douglas Brooks
- Awakening the Spine by Vanda Scaravelli
- Original Yoga by Richard Rosen
- Spiritual Roots of Yoga by Ravi Ravindra
- Theory of Conscious Harmony by Rodney Collin
- Meditation for the Love of It by Sally Kempton
- May Cause Miracles by Gabrielle Bernstein
- Self Observation by Red Hawk
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
APPLICATION
Applications accepted until May 31st. Elena will deliver notifications of acceptance via email by June 30th.
Deposit for those accepted $500 will be due by July 31st. Tuition balance of $2800 will be due by August 31st.
Please answer each question and submit answers in full to Glenna at glenna.bedoya@gmail.com by May 31st, 2013.
Letter of recommendation to compliment your application may be sent by the writer directly to Glenna Bedoya at glenna.bedoya@gmail.com with subject “Art of Attention Letter of Recommendation for (applicants name)”
You may also leave any non-electronic submissions at Virayoga; feel free to be creative with your application if you’d rather hand-write or create things. Video answers are accepted as well, burned onto a CD and easy to access, or via private YouTube or Vimeo link with password.
Name
Address
Birthdate DD/MM/YEAR
1. How long have you been studying yoga?
2. How long have you been teaching yoga?
3. Please list your teachers, starting with the ones with whom you’ve spent the most time and approx. number of
hours, proceeding to the ones with whom you’ve studied tangentially but whom you feel have an influence.
3a. Please describe what each teacher has taught you, in one sentence.
4. Please describe your current practice. Home. Public classes. Retreats. Workshops. Give me an overview of how
much you are studying currently in any or all of those contexts.
5. Please describe your current meditation practice.
6. Please list your history of teaching yoga (or movement of any kind). Note years, duration and location, and
please note at least 2 references (folks I could call to ask about your work) within that list, and include their email
addresses.
7. Please list your history of seva (service); where have you taught voluntarily, donated your services as a teacher,
or raised money for a cause via your practice or teaching.
8. Please include 2 letters of recommendation, one from someone for whom you’re currently working, and one from
a dear friend, past employer, or colleague from another vocation.
9. Please tell us how you’ll be paying for your training : Check/ CC/ Cash (combinations are fine)
10. Please know how grateful I am to be offering this training and honoured you’re considering it.
TUITION: $3300
Deposit for those accepted $500 will be due by July 31st. Tuition balance of $2800 will be due by August 31st. Tuition includes a 6 month unlimited membership at VIRAYOGA, from the first day of our training until the last day. Tuition does not include workshops (for which our trainees will receive a 15% discount).
