The Yoga Body, Then and Now:

A Weekend of Yoga Philosophy and History with Matthew Remski

We are pretty dang excited about this one. Matthew taught a wonderfully informative weekend workshop last April on the world of Ayurveda and everyone has been asking for his return ever since. He will be back for a weekend workshop on how we as yogis evolved through history including discussion on the Chakras, the Koshas, the Bhagavad Gita and much, much, much, more…and not only is Matthew knowledgable, he’s also a super sweet guy.

The focus of this weekend is on opening the doors of yoga philosophy and history for lifelong study. In the study of yoga as well as in many YTT programs, this material is simply glossed over, but as the industry grows and changes, the students and instructors who grow and change with it are those who can creatively engage the deepest questions the Yoga tradition asks. The culture is broad and its literature is vast, but every new instructor can get a clear foothold on its territory through considering the texts and practice contexts of four eras:

1. The world-renouncing asceticism of the Yoga Sutras;
2. The enigmatic challenge of the Bhagavad Gita to embody states of devotion and flow;
3. The exuberant body-breath-mind experimentation of the medieval Hatha Yoga period; and
4. Modern Hatha Yoga in the globalization era — which is what we’re most familiar with. It carries the echoes of everything that came before, but in a contemporary context that offers new possibilities and challenges.

Over the weekend, we explore these four historical zones and their key ideas, and workshop how their ideas resonate with practice today. The weekend will be lecture format, but we will also discuss, journal, and explore the various “bodies” of the Yoga tradition. The overall goal is to workshop a contemporary synergy of yoga’s past with our current aspirations for a practice that is safe, therapeutic, and social justice oriented while retaining the threads of mystical inspiration that are as old as time. A reading list and journaling assignments will be available as well.

Schedule:

Friday 6 to 8:30 pm

Saturday and Sunday 11am – 4pm (with a break for lunch)

Sept. 29th – Oct. 1st

Cost:

Early Bird cost $205 // Sept. 15th and after $225

> > > Register HERE! < < < <

Matthew Remski has been practicing meditation and yoga since 1996, sitting and moving with teachers from the Tibetan Buddhist, Kripalu, Ashtanga, and Iyengar streams. Along the way he’s been certified as a yoga therapist and an Ayurvedic consultant, and has maintained a private practice in Toronto since 2008. From 2008 through 2012 he co-directed Yoga Festival Toronto and Yoga Community Toronto, non-profit activist organizations dedicated to promoting open dialogue and accessibility. He currently facilitates programming for yoga trainings internationally, focusing on yoga philosophy, meditation, Ayurveda, and the social psychology of practice.

He is the author of eight books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction including Of Threads of Yoga: a remix of Patanjali’s Sutras with commentary and reverie.