FeatheredPipe Yoga Workshops

Making that investment to go on retreat could be a daunting and intimidating prospect for someone new to yoga. But actually it’s the ideal way to start yoga. Being immersed in the yogic lifestyle with a chance to learn techniques and about the philosophy is a great introduction and an ideal way to establish a yoga practice. Yoga Retreats allow a beginner sufficient time to tune into their body and their personal needs. It would make for an unusual and exciting holiday with a chance to try something totally new. A retreat can provide a fun personal challenge and learning experience, where you can gain new perspectives, meet new people that come from all walks of life, who come together in a shared interest.

For those people that are all too familiar to upward and downward facing dog, yoga workshop offers the chance to go deeper into their yoga practice, Intermediate, learn more about the principles and techniques of yoga to initiate or deepen their yoga practice.

For the adept yogi, a retreat is an annual pilgrimage, a necessity to re-sharpen their focus on cultivating inner stillness, strength and balance.

Ultimately, ideal yoga retreats are totally based on personal preference and often you can wind up making a choice based on a ‘gut feeling’. Whichever option you choose, a yoga retreat can really allow you to develop a new sense of yourself and create space for perspective so you can assess what’s important in your life. Peace, strength, serenity, renewed lust for life and better health are just some of the souvenirs that you’ll bring home.

FeatheredPipe Yoga Therapy

                      At FeatheredPipe we are committed to deepening our understanding of yoga. The FeatheredPipe workshops and special events are led by international, national and acclaimed local teachers with a passion for sharing their practice, whether its asana, ways of caring for our bodies, how to breathe or the philosophy and history of yoga. Please join us in celebrating the infinite variety of yoga in these informative and often transformative workshops. 

                    This workshop is an exploration into the forms of attachment and grasping, obsession and addiction as they may present themselves in our lives.  We will use some investigative tools to discover how these attributes manifest themselves.  Self awareness is a vital key to addressing the negative impacts.  We will do some exercises that will enlighten us.   Using the wisdom of Yoga Therapy we will find ways to lessen the grasp of troublesome negative behavior.  We will find balance between doing the footwork and letting go, between effort and ease.  Gaining tools in this workshop you will be better able to identify and address situations that are born of obsession, attachment, grasping or addiction and follow a path to proper self knowledge and personal growth.  

                    Strong and flexible arms, shoulders, and legs create the foundation for safe, joyful, and open backbends. In this Yoga Workshop, we will awaken and integrate our roots in order to safely free the spine and open up in our backbends. We will look at healthy shoulder and pelvic alignment to help us open the front body more easily and spaciously, while maintaining length in the back body to protect our lower back and the entire spine. Expect a rigorous, invigorating exploration of the various elements that come together in creating the deepest, safest, most sustainable backbends.

Yoga Travel Bag

"Yoga's a wonderful exercise that doesn't require any special equipment yet helps with strength and flexibility,” Now, more than ever, yoga enthusiasts have plenty of options for maintaining their routines on the road, yoga instructors and hospitality industry experts say. A number of hotels offer classes or in-room equipment. And if they don't, yoga instructors say, there are many ways to practice the craft even on a plane, in a hotel room or outdoors at a park or beach. Many travel mats are now lighter than the ones you typically get at a studio. Yoga Travel can be fun.

Yoga Therapy

YOGA THERAPY is suitable for everybody regardless of age, fitness, state of health or belief system. In yoga therapy a personal practice is prescribed according to the physical, emotional and physiological needs as well as the circumstances of the individual. For example, a practice may be designed simply to maintain health and fitness, or to help remedy asthma, a back or knee problem, an hormonal issue, an emotional disorder, a chronic physical or psychological condition or disability, or to facilitate meditative practices.

The tradition of yoga encompasses a lot more than postures with physical health benefits. It offers a number of tools that can be employed towards the objective of total health and wellbeing, physical and mental. These include asana, postures for the body; pranayama, regulation of the breath to balance the physiology; dharana and dhyanam, meditative practices for psychological and emotional wellbeing; yama and niyama, guidance for a healthy and harmonious life; and many other subtle concepts to reflect the inner self.

The art of Yoga therapy is to combine a selection of the available tools in accordance with the needs of the individual. Each personal practice must be logically planned and prescribed in accordance with the needs of the individual, their attributes and where they are at the time they commence. Yoga Therapy is about removing obstacles.

What sets yoga therapy apart from almost all other health modalities is that it operates on all levels, influencing all aspects of the individual, and enhancing the ability to cope with the stresses of life. Further, yoga therapy recognizes that everyone is different and that no single approach or practice will be appropriate for all.

It is a common misconception that yoga is only for the fit and able. The reality is that almost the whole spectrums of human conditions are able to be accommodated by an appropriate and intelligent practice. Even a person with severe physical restrictions can do, and will benefit from yoga, physically, physiologically, and emotionally.

YOGA THERAPY is now an accepted health modality in Australia, offering people experiencing a wide range of ailments or disabilities guidance and personal tools that they can use to enhance their life.

Half-Wheel Pose (Ardha Chakrasana)

Half-Wheel Pose (Ardha Chakrasana)
This posture is extremely helpful in completely stretching the abdominal and spinal muscles and can be performed as the great precursor to the Hand-to-Foot Pose.
Step One
Stand straight on the mat, with your arms extended above your head.
Step Two
While inhaling deeply, gradually bend backwards with your arms still outstretched and you fingers interlocked.
Step Three
As you feel the tension in your ribs, bend as far backwards as possible forming an arch with your spine.
Step Four
Hold this position for 5 counts and return to your starting position.
Step Five
Once you are back to your starting position, lower your arms and let your body relax.
Rest for 10 counts and repeat.

The Eight Limbs Of Yoga

The Eight Limbs are:

1.     Yama (The five "abstentions"): Ahimsa (non-violence), Satya (Truth, non-lying), Asteya (non-covetousness), Brahmacharya (non-sensuality, celibacy), and Aparigraha (non-possessiveness).

2.     Niyama (The five "observances"): Shaucha(purity), Santosha(contentment), Tapas (austerity), Svadhyaya (study of the Vedic scriptures to know about God and the soul), and Ishvara-Pranidhana (surrender to God).

3.     Asana: Literally means "seat", and in Patanjali's Sutras refers to the seated position used for meditation.

4.     Pranayama ("Suspending Breath"): Prana, breath, "ayama", to restrain or stop. Also interpreted as control of the life force.

5.     Pratyahara ("Abstraction"): Withdrawal of the sense organs from external objects.

6.     Dharana ("Concentration"): Fixing the attention on a single object.

7.     Dhyana ("Meditation"): Intense contemplation of the nature of the object of meditation.

8.     Samadhi ("Liberation"): merging consciousness with the object of meditation.

These 8 Limbs are a must for every Yoga Workshop.