Ongoing Training for Teachers
Friday 16th November to Sunday 18th November 2012
at Commonwork Farm, in Kent
We are very pleased to announce the content for this year’s Ongoing Training for Teachers weekend at Commonwork Farm.
This year we will have a special focus on scoliosis and spinal asymmetries with our special guest teacher Narelle Carter-Quinlan, who will be visiting the UK to share her unique and insightful teachings on scoliosis and spinal asymmetries as they relate to yoga teaching and practice, only her second-ever teaching visit to the UK. Come and learn from Narelle's hands-on work with people who have mild to severe scoliosis, and take home with you techniques and modifications for your own practice and teaching. Please read below the detailed description for Narelle’s sessions and her resumé. At this OTT weekend, Simon Low will lead asana practice and clinics as well as a teachers’ discussion forum (see details below).
Our schedule for the weekend is as follows:
Friday 16th November
| 10.30 am | Arrival |
| 11.00 am | Led class with Simon |
| 1.30 pm | Brunch |
| 2.30 pm | Session I with Narelle (short breaks included) |
| 5.30 pm | Break |
| 6.00 pm | Evening restorative class with Simon |
| 7.30 pm | Dinner |
Saturday 17th November
| 8.00 am | Led class with Simonl |
| 10.00 am | Brunch |
| 11.00 am | Session II with Narelle (short breaks included) |
| 2.00 pm | Tea and break |
| 3.30 pm | Session III with Narelle (short breaks included) |
| 7.00 pm | Dinner |
Sunday 18th November
A day of asana practice, asana clinics and a discussion forum for teachers with Simon Low.
Simon is frequently asked to facilitate ‘asana clinic time’ for refining and re-examing yoga asana, pranayama techniques and recently also mediation and mindfulness practices. These clinics will address a combination of requests from attendees sent in advance, requests put forward at the weekend and new or revised asana teaching points.
A common request has also been for Simon to facilitate discussion between teachers in a safe, open and honest environment, addressing issues that challenge or inspire us as teachers of yoga. Simon welcomes requests for subject matter in advance and will establish a few subjects which will be announced at the weekend.
Please send your requests for asana clinic and teachers’ discussion forum to Simon Low at info@theyogaacademy.org
Schedule for Sunday
| 8.00 am | Asana practice and clinic with Simon |
| 10.00 am | Brunch |
| 11.00 am | Asana clinic with Simon |
| 2.00 pm | Break |
| 3.00 pm | Discussion forum |
| 4.30 pm | Closure |
Yoga with Scoliosis and Spinal Asymmetry
“your spine is a long curving river....”
In scoliosis, and indeed in all spinal terrains, it is important to sense the course of the river, the riverbanks and the surrounding country, to encounter the inflow of the tributaries of the limbs and to observe their impact on the course of the river-spine.
In these rich study sessions with Narelle Carter-Quinlan, you will learn about the anatomy of the spine, common spinal pathologies (with an emphasis on disc and facet lesions) and scoliosis in particular. From a platform of scientific research literature on scoliosis and Narelle's longstanding asana explorations in the scoliotic landscape, we will explore the rationale of asana practice by challenging and finding functional balance in scoliosis. The work will be both cognitive and highly experiential.
The Friday afternoon/evening session will feature one of Narelle's signature PowerPoint presentations. Expect to be deeply informed, entertained and expanded!
In the first of the following Saturday afternoon sessions, we will dive into asana, emphasising standing poses as we discover potent pathways connecting the limbs into the spine, offering spinal decompression and de-rotation, and use the breath as a powerful spinal in-formant and challenge osteopenia. Alternate spinal support through the internal organ system, particular developmental movement patterns and some embryology will be integrated as appropriate. In this session, you will be shown how to modify some classic prop work in asana (such as the trestler and wall ropes) to work effectively in environments that do not have this equipment. Working with modified props, sometimes singly and sometimes in partners, offers clarity, stability and penetration of the body. You will also have the opportunity to observe the changing topography of the body, elicited by instruction, equipment and process.
The second Saturday afternoon session is an embodiment of spinal embryology and other experiential processes, including Narelle's Figure 8 with specific applications to scoliosis.
Narelle Carter-Quinlan
Australian-born Narelle Carter-Quinlan (BAppSc (Biomed; HMS)) has been passionately engaged with yoga, dance and embodied movement practices for almost 50 years. Originally an elite-level Ballroom dancer, now an independent choreographer, artistic director and performer, Narelle is an anatomist and scientist (research and lab) by academic training. She is formally trained in the Iyengar method of yoga, and has been teaching yogasana since 1988.
Inhabiting a scoliotic landscape herself, Narelle's work specialises in yoga and scoliosis; she is certified in Yoga for Scoliosis with Elise Miller. Narelle is currently teaching Spinal Anatomy and Pathology, together with her own scoliosis research, within Elise’s Yoga for Scoliosis Teacher Training.
Narelle’s personal practice and teaching reflect her on-going exploration of spinal asymmetry and its functional, structural, physiological and energetic sequelae. Her work is strongly informed by human developmental movement patterns and embodied experiential and functional anatomy, and most recently by readings, explorations and studies within Embryology and Biodynamic Osteopathy. Her on-going hallmark inquiry, and that which she ignites in her students, is of the body as felt, known, poetic space; ‘the Embodied Ecology of our interior terrain’. Narelle is renowned for her radiant PowerPoint presentations and deep, yet playful teachings on spinal anatomy; “the complex illuminated!”
Narelle continues to deepen her ongoing studies in yoga for scoliosis and back care. Since 2007, she has been researching and developing an innovative working of a fluidic Embodied FIGURE 8 through the body. This work profoundly impacts spinal and pelvic health, functional stability and alignment.
Narelle regularly presents her research work in spinal, sacroiliac and related issues and teaches asana at the Yoga Union Center for Backcare and Scoliosis in Manhattan; her sister Institution. She also presents her work in Europe and at international peer-reviewed conferences. She has attended Dr Gill Hedley’s dissection intensives and taught spinal and sacroiliac anatomy and pathology for Donna Farhi in her Teacher Training and Intensives in New Zealand.
A photographer, Narelle takes Embodied Ecology Photography © images, which are resonant echoes of the Land and our physicality.
For further information about Narelle, please visit: https://sites.google.com/site/narelleyogascoliosis/home
COST
£425 – early bird price until 1 September
£455 – after 2 September
Price includes tuition, full board and twin shared lodging over 3 full days and 2 nights.
A few single rooms are available with a supplement of £22.50 per night in the Old Stables and £28.50 per night at Bore Place House.
Contact Mary Elliott
info@theyogaacademy.org
07824 600619
Payments can be made by cheque. Please post your cheques to:
Mary Elliott
Administration Office
9 Derwent Close
Tangmere CHICHESTER
West Sussex
PO20 2FQ