The Inner Method of Ashtanga Yoga with Adam Keen

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The Inner Method of Ashtanga Yoga
with Adam Keen


May 26, 27 & 28, 2023


Have you found yourself on a plateau in your practice? Or, perhaps, you’ve been suffering from an injury that doesn’t seem to be going away? Maybe you’re simply questioning the constant chasing of postures, going from one to the next without ever arriving at the feeling you’d hoped for in your yoga.

Have you found yourself on a plateau in your practice? Or, perhaps, you’ve been suffering from an injury that doesn’t seem to be going away? Maybe you’re simply questioning the constant chasing of postures, going from one to the next without ever arriving at the feeling you’d hoped for in your yoga.

If any of this is the case for you, this workshop will provide some answers. All levels are welcome and will benefit from every session. Overall, the aim is that everyone will leave having a clearer idea of the following:

  • How to practice sustainably and avoid unnecessary risk of injury
  • What effective technique means; how breath and bandha work together as a profoundly transformative tool
  • An individual approach to practice; a discussion of the original teaching approach and why the generalised way we often found the method taught was never meant to be the case.


PROGRAM


FRIDAY, MAY 26th

18:30 – 20:00 Yoga Philosophy & Practice Chat
Yoga philosophy can often seem irrelevant to daily life. However, it is just as valuable as ever – especially in these challenging times of change. This talk will present a fresh approach to The Bhagavad Gita, taking in our modern lifestyle and interests with practice in an honest and humourful discussion.
Adam has a background in philosophy as well as a uniquely open and honest approach to how he has used the ideas of yoga philosophy to overcome his challenges in life. This is a great way to start the weekend, setting the context and attitude to what we are doing in practice. 


SATURDAY, MAY 27th

8:00 – 9:30 Led Primary with Instruction
A unique led class features the vinyasa count and instructions (with variations) for each posture. Everyone will be made to feel welcome and safe in participating in this class. You get the best of both worlds in this very popular class, a practice and a technique class! 

10:00 – 11:30 The Five Fundamentals of An Effective Practice
Learn the basic techniques to establish safe and sustainable progress. Through the following principles, using demonstration and partner work, you will be able to incorporate the following principles into your practice:

  • How to stretch safely through breath-based action
  • To instigate opposing forces in the body to build strength (as opposed to simply flexibility)
  • Side body stability; the importance of the medial stretch for scapula strength and mobility
  • What Bandha means as a tool to engineer diaphragmatic breathing 
  • A more effective approach to the idea of alignment in practice.

13:00 – 15:00 A new definition of backbends
The actual translation of the ‘backbend’ at the end of the Primary Series we are most familiar with is not, in fact, as a backbend at all. Instead, urdhva dhanurasana means inverted bow. So, taking this as our starting place, we can develop a fresh understanding of what is to be aimed in the movement if it is effective. 

Whatever your feelings about backbends, with a fresh understanding of the technique of these movements, in other words, bowing the body as opposed to what often happens in simply pushing into the lower back, a new approach is highly likely to occur. One in which the posture flows naturally, without force, and, most importantly, without causing back pain for the rest of the day! 

The technique discussed here will focus on three details:

  • How stretching across the body gives the spine space to lengthen
  • The fundamental importance of the legs in backbends
  • Where exactly to try to bend from – how to promote bending in the thoracic spine whilst protecting the lumbar spine.
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SUNDAY, MAY 28th

8:00 – 10:00 Ashtanga Yoga’s Top Ten
There are specific postures that stand out in the primary and intermediate series. I call them showstoppers: the big ones we all know and either love, hate, fear, or a mixture of all these emotions. 

In this workshop, we will look at these postures in detail. I will break them down into accessible bite-sized chunks in a way we don’t have the luxury of doing in the real-time of practice. 

We will round up the usual suspects; such postures as marichyasana D, jhuja / kurmasana and their transitions, kapotasana, eka pada sirsasna, mayurasana and pincha mayurasana and endeavour to take the sting out of their tails through careful and precise consideration. 

These will all be accessible with variations to include all body types. All postures have an essence graspable to everyone. Everyone can get this quality of the posture and then increase the quantity as the natural expression of their body. 

10:30 – 12:00 Jump Through & Jump Back – Lighter Lifts
Are you completely lost on how to lift your body weight? Or are you halfway there but getting stuck? Or, you can generally complete the movement but doubt the sustainability for your shoulders in the long run. If any of these relates to you, this workshop may provide some answers or, at least, a clearer idea of your path forward.

The basis of this workshop will be on understanding diaphragmatic control as the foundation of developing the strength to hold your weight in your hands. In other words, be prepared to discover that the work is not exactly where we think it lies – in stronger abs or arm muscles. Indeed, the technique is not so hard physically, but more mentally, in working with body awareness and the epicenter of this as the elusive muscle of the diaphragm.

So, whatever stage you’ve currently reached with this, come and experience what the next steps forward look like in a deeper understanding of the principle of bandha. Indeed, you’ve heard it a lot, but what does it mean? In this workshop, we will discuss it along these lines:

  • As a point of energetic awareness
  • The creation of pressure through the prudent use of breath and the diaphragm
  • As engendering a whole-body connection coming together in one movement.
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Price: €290

or €55 per session

Cancellation Policy

Payments of 30 euros or less are non-refundable.
An admin fee of 30 euros will be deducted for cancellations made more than 21 days before the workshop.
Only half of the sum paid will be returned 8 to 20 days before the workshop.
Sum paid is non-refundable 7 days before the workshop.
We don’t accept transferring of a paid reservation to another person after 2 weeks before the workshop.
We advise to those coming from out of Paris to purchase travel insurance as travel issues will not change this policy. Medical issues will also not change this policy.
As the teacher is confirming their presence and is guaranteed the amount of people who are attending 21 days before, we ask for your understanding of this policy.


* Early Bird discount is applied in the last step before payment.


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LOCATION

Ashtanga Yoga Paris
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ABOUT


Adam Keen
Adam Keen completed the Advanced A sequence of Ashtanga yoga in 2013 with Sharathji in Mysore (authorised level 2 in 2012). He has been a yoga practitioner since 1999, starting with hatha yoga while studying philosophy at university.

Adam has taught internationally and spent over ten years running a Mysore program in his native London, UK. His style is open, non-dogmatic and eclectic while remaining rooted in an appreciation of the tradition as taught in Mysore. He has a unique way of making everyone welcome and meeting students where they are with humour and kindness.

Adam is also the co-founder of Keen on Yoga, an online yoga platform hosting workshops and events, and the host of the Keen on Yoga Podcast and YouTube channels. He has interviewed most of the top Ashtanga teachers and philosophy academics in this capacity, leading to a unique overview of the modern yoga world and teaching approaches.

When not practising yoga, Adam likes to cook – in his earlier years, he was a chef, supporting himself in this profession in London whilst studying yoga. This took him to Purple Valley Yoga, where he was employed as the chef and met his wife, Theresa.

Still a philosophy student at heart, Adam shares his thoughts and experience daily on social media, where you can find him discussing many of the questions that come to our minds, but we’re often afraid or unsure how to ask. Find him on Instagram @adam_keen_ashtanga