Learn to align yourself from the inside out to transform your physical and mental wellbeing
When we move the way we move habitually, we are always figuring out how to reach farther with less perceived effort. Reaching farther satisfies our goal-oriented mind and makes us feel more accomplished. Unfortunately, reaching farther with less perceived effort REQUIRES us to deform our spine and compromise our breath, and makes our movements less effective?, less beneficial for our wellbeing, and less safe.
Moving to reach farther with less effort means never stretching what is tight, and never engaging what is weak, because both those actions feel like wasted effort. When we move habitually, we simply strengthen what is already strong, and stretch out what is already overstretched. Two classic examples of this: excessive neck tension, and an over-rounded, over-stretched upper back. The irony of course is that strengthening what is weak (the upper back) is significantly more important than strengthening what is already relatively strong (the neck extensors), so goal-oriented movement is rather ineffective at increasing wellbeing.
So how do we disrupt this detrimental pattern of wanting to move farther with less effort? We need to learn to prioritize the freedom of our breath, which ALWAYS requires more neutral spinal alignment. Gernot calls this Spinal Intelligence, which is prioritizing the creation of more neutral spinal alignment to free the breath.
We can easily experience this connection between spinal shape and the spaciousness of the breath by observing our breath while standing. Any spinal movement away from the natural double S-curve of the spine compromises our breath. This is true regardless of whether that movement is a backbend, side bend, forward bend, spinal twist, or some combination. When we focus on freeing our breath, we necessarily create a more neutral spine. Learning to choose a more neutral spine over reaching farther has a number of positive benefits, including
Learning to turn off the autopilot
Reducing overuse injuries of the spine
Disrupting neck tension and chronic stress
Reducing slouching and disrupting depression
Creating a more neutral lumbar shape and reducing lower back pain
Increasing range of motion in the shoulder and hip joints, which have lost the greatest percentage of their original range of motion
Strengthening the mind's synaptic connections to the core, which are notoriously weak
Building core strength
Increasing our capacity for mindfulness and joy
In this workshop, we will learn exercises that train spinal intelligence as we begin to notice how reaching farther with less perceived effort requires us to deform our spine. We will then explore a wide variety of yoga poses to learn to notice the temptation of moving farther with less effort in increasingly complex shapes, so that we can begin to replace that goal-oriented pattern with the present-centered act of freeing the breath through more intelligent spinal alignment. Learn a set of yoga exercises that can reverse an overly rounded upper back. Slouching or hunching is far from flattering, but more importantly, recent studies are confirming that a hunched posture is associated not only with increased neck tension and impaired mobility but also with increased risk of falls, shortness of breath, heart and lung disease, as well as depression and anxiety. The good news is that a hunched posture (hyperkyphosis) is reversible. Once you learn the key yoga exercises, all you need is 2 yoga blocks and 5-10 minutes a day.
Saturday 1p: Neutral Spine, Front-to-Back Alignment
Saturday 3:30p: Neutral Spine, Side-to-Side Alignment
Sunday 1p: Twists and Bends, Forward and Back
Sunday 3:30p: Complex Shapes, Arm Balances, and Accessible Inversions (no experience required!)
Gernot began practicing yoga in 1998, and has been teaching yoga full time since 2009. Besides teaching group and private yoga classes, Gernot works as a yoga therapist in Dr. Loren Fishman’s medical rehab practice in New York City. Gernot also maintains an active workshop teaching schedule, teaching yoga and anatomy workshops in Asia, Europe, and the US. Gernot holds a BA in Literature and Philosophy from Stanford, and an MS in Evolutionary Biology from Cornell.
Gernot has developed a teaching style that integrates techniques from Iyengar, Ashtanga, Anusara, Forrest, Freedom, and Kripalu yoga with his own insights gleaned from 25 years of yoga explorations. He also incorporates insights from yogic and Buddhist philosophy and from anatomy, biomechanics, evolution, and neuroscience into his teaching. The guiding principle for how he teaches is always the question: “How can I help my students make their practice more beneficial for their longterm wellbeing?”
One primary way Gernot does this is by helping his students notice how habitual movement patterns designed for achievement are often actually detrimental to wellbeing, and how these movement patterns actually reinforce mental patterns that are equally detrimental, like chronic stress and anxiety. Learning to notice these detrimental movement patterns is a mindfulness practice that results in better biomechanics and a more spacious breath. A more spacious breath in turn aids mindfulness because the present moment is always more pleasant to hang out in if you can actually breathe, even if you are working hard. Thus we gradually learn to replace the self-reinforcing cycle of striving for more and always falling short, with a genuinely joyful exploration of this moment in time, always asking the question: “What can I do right now to make this moment in time more spacious, more balanced, more joyful, more free?”
