Jul 10, 2011 | retreat, Yoga
An exploration of the mind and body through the healing medium of water, using yoga, meditation and the techniques of elite free-divers.
This special retreat is for people with an interest in the transformative power of Yoga and the healing energy of water.
For both complete beginners and more advanced students alike, the retreat will be a fascinating exploration of the mind and body.
This very special retreat is a journey of self discovery through two related elements, water and air. It’s a journey during which we will re-discover our aquatic heritage and transform our relationship to water, deepening our awareness of our own minds and bodies and the invisible bridge between them, the breath.
The tools for this adventure in self-understanding are the ancient insights of yoga and meditation supplemented by the modern techniques of elite free-divers.
We will practise yoga asana, pranayama and meditation to come into the subtler aspects of the breath and we’ll use the techniques of elite free-divers to harness our aquatic potential. We will focus on developing aquatic comfort, using water as a healing medium. This is not a competitive free-diving course, the free-diving aspect of the retreat is entirely optional.
Asana
Our Asana practice will focus on exploring the qualities of stillness and motion, opening up the channels of the body to move in a more fluid way. In held poses we’ll find the subtle movement even in supposedly static asana. In flowing vinyasa we will explore the inner stillness that comes with breath awareness and Bhandas(psycho-muscular locks .)
Breath
The breath is the bridge between mind and body, the conscious and the unconscious. To develop control over the mind and body first we must understand and control the breath.
Using the know-how of elite free-divers we will also learn how to access the breath in new ways. We will learn about the physiology of the breath and learn how use that to influence the mind and body, along the way transforming our relationship with water.
After tuning into the physical breath we shall explore subtler aspects of the breath, with the use of Asana and meditation we’ll tune into the breath as energy and move towards the healing power of Pranayama, the vast science of the cultivation of Pranic energy.
Water
We’ll take our fresh understanding of the breath into the healing medium of water. All terrestrial life was born in the ocean, just as we are born in the waters of our mother’s womb. When we understand our latent aquatic ability and learn to be in water it’s with a sense of home-coming or reunion. It is this sense of inner union that is the essence of yoga. Essentially what we will be practising is a form of oceanic yoga.
The training offered will include;
Daily Asana practice with a focus on fostering a personal practice through self understanding.
Aquatic Meditation in the pools and ocean and dry meditation in the wonderful yoga sala of Villa Boreh
Breath-work; focusing on developing understanding of the respiratory process and using the breath optimally, using it to influence both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
Yoga Nidra; this wonderful technique of guided meditation is a very effective way of communicating with the deep unconscious. We will be using it to effect deep emotional release and create inner states of peace.
Mantra meditation; exploration of the deep power of Mantra over the mind and body and in removing emotional blocks.
Theory of Tantra and Chakra system; An exploration of the Chakra system with focus on the second Chakras relationship to water.
Bhandas; we will train in the three principle psycho-energetic locks of Yoga to develop more conscious control over both the muscular and energy patterns of the body.
Pranayama; we will explore the ancient yogic art of energy cultivation through the breath. This is one very powerful path into subtle awareness, meditation and the art of healing with Prana.
Instruction in Basic Free-diving; an exploration some of the techniques used by Elite free-divers to develop control of the autonomic system and become more fluid and comfortable in the aquatic element.
There is also the option of 2 days extra training to do some more advanced Free-diving with an excursion to free-dive at the glorious ‘USS Liberty’
In Villa Boleh we have a special place to embark on this adventure, a wonderful Spa resort with three different pools, including a therapeutic Watsu pool. Just in front of our sanctuary we have our oceanic playground. Little current, rich waters and good visibility make this the perfect place for to enjoy newly re-discovered aquatic heritage.
Also on hand will be the well-respected and highly experienced Thai massage teacher and healer Felicity Keebaugh. She will be offering health assessments and therapeutic treatments in various healing forms including Thai massage and Ki nei san, a very powerful Taoist healing art.
Dates October 15 to 22 Villa Boreh, North Bali.
Jun 21, 2011 | Freediving, Yoga
Free-diving and Yoga as existential tools for living in anxious times.
We live in uncertain times. Our predictions cannot keep up with our pretensions. The world around us shrinks as our need to consume grows ever more insatiable.
We carry phones that are more intelligent and sophisticated than we will ever need to be, but use them mostly to keep up with the growing demands of social networks.
We can see into the furthest reaches of space and deep into the smallest particles of matter, but we find it very difficult to look into ourselves.
Human living has become incredibly sophisticated as our tools for living have become ever more intelligent. If intelligence is a measure of how skilfully one can manipulate and interpret information it can be said that our tools have become intelligent than us.
Intelligence can apportion values but does not comprehend ultimate value, a computer cannot give the meaning of a beautiful symphony nor the moral tragedy of a war-orphaned child. A sense of beauty and meaning cannot come from technology, it comes only from the wisdom of the human heart.
In this time of economic crashes and natural and man-made calamities we will never find meaning or happiness from our rapidly mutating technologies. We must find it in the same place as we have always found it, inside ourselves. Not in egocentric wallowing, but deep inside ourselves where we are all the same human, regardless of culture, class or colour.
We must find our freedom inside the mind and body and to do this we need to know the mind and body. The mind and body are not fixed entities, they are in constant flux. The human being is an infinitely complex interplay of physical, energetic and mental phenomena.
Our problems arise when the interplay becomes stagnant or rigid, resulting in physical and mental sickness and emotional unhappiness. When our body is clogged with toxins and our thoughts become rigid and inflexible, the body loses health. Life loses spontaneity, becoming suffocating. When that happens even a brand new I phone won’t help.
In this age of uncertainty, on so many levels the key to surviving on this Blue planet is fluid living. We must look to the water and learn from it.
With yoga we can bring fluidity to the physical body, with free-diving, pranayama and meditation we can look inside, developing fluidity on the mental and energetic levels. On a social level as our world changes in ways we can barely believe we must flow with the changes and develop new answers, without clinging to the comfort of our habitual reactions.
(DISCLAIMER; Obviously if I said that Yoga and free-diving were the answer to all the ills of the world, I would have to be taking the piss. But the qualities that Yoga and free-diving cultivate when practised with the right mindset are ones that are very useful as we hurtle deeper into the twenty first century.)
If it’s not inside you you’ll never find it outside.
Come to Amed in Bali and learn yoga and free-diving. They are life enriching activites and very useful tools for coping with the impending apocalypse ;).
May 1, 2011 | Freediving, Yoga
Since the heyday of Jaques Mayol the vast science of yoga has been touted as the key to inspired free-diving. The benefits in this area are undoubted, from mental clarity and thoracic flexiblity to emotional well-being. The list of Yogic benefits to the Free-diver is long, less talked about are the benefits of free-diving to the student of yoga.
The benefits of free-diving to the Yogi, when practiced in the right spirit, are equally profound. The most obvious of course is the control and understanding of the breath, free-diving as a door into the science of pranayama. The Aghori Tantrik Vimalananda apparently trained in Pranayama by submersing himself in the Indian ocean and Chinese masters of Tao developed breath-based energy practices with long breath holds in pools.
It’s clear that the aspects of Yoga that deal with the breath are enriched by free-diving but it’s the less obvious benefits that this Blogger is interested in, such as the way water allows for movement in a gravity free field. When coupled with a mature yoga Asana practice the forgiving nature of water allows us a fluid realignment of the body.The nature of water is that effective movement in water is fluid movement, something which every yogi or body worker aspires to.
In Yoga Asana, we work the body, disciplining it and realigning it. We test it and push it to break rigidity, to develop flexibility and make space. The body becomes fluid in its nature with movements like containers that the body flows into and fills. And this fluidity is not a thing only of ligaments and muscles, it is a thing of energy. We don’t do this for the sake of sitting in ever-more complicated postures, we do this so the body’s subtle life juices can flow better.The body becomes more permeable and energy flows better, resulting in health and a sense of lightness.
With free-diving our focus is precisely on this type of fluid movement, to move like water through water. We learn that rigid movement is wasteful movement.
A useful working definition of a yogi is one who does not waste energy, by their thoughts, words or actions. Be it holding tension, or expressing negative thoughts, the dedicated yogi tries to avoid using energy in a wasteful or self defeating manner. This conservation of energy on all levels is an essential part of free-diving.
Through meditation the Yogi slowly learns to avoid the nagging of the non-essential and to be present in the passing moment. With Free-diving we practice the art of letting go to the moment, of disciplining the body and breath so that sometimes you may go beyond the body and breath. When we dive we may feel contractions, the mind may say go up, go up, but we don’t resist, we absorb, we let the sensation move through us and any associated mental reaction is calmly observed. We observe and enjoy sensation, even so called unpleasant sensation. We become permeable to it and liquid in our reactions.
Time is limited but sometimes the moment draws out and becomes something eternal. The non-essential is left behind and there is a sense of union. This drawing together of mind and body into one focused moment is some of the essence of yoga.
Free-diving when practiced in the right way is actually a form of Oceanic yoga. Finding the stillness in fluid movement and the peace in a moment of pressure. See some training principles…
The Ritual of the long line and the deep Blue.
In Bali Yoga is the work of shamans, a communication with spirits. It’s a ritual balancing act of courtesies paid to both the Gods of Mount Agung and the low spirits of the Sea and other dangerous places, such as crossroads.
The sea is considered a place of many dangerous spirits yet also a place of purification. In a romantic way we can see free-diving in the Balinese context as a ritualised confrontation with the our ‘low spirits’ of fear and needless anxiety.
When we free-dive sometimes the mind turns against us becoming mischievous or fearful. we can become plagued by our own inner ‘demons of doubt’. But with the ritual of our weighted line and safety procedures and our faith in physics we can see beyond the doubts to the deep blue face of mother nature. Then we free-dive mindfully, infused with calm and a sense of home coming.
Mar 4, 2011 | Bali, Meditation, Yoga
Traffic was stopped today at crossroads all over Bali for picturesque scenes of demon appeasement, as Balinese gathered in their ceremonial dress laden with offerings for the restless forces of nature. Wholes villages sat on the ground in their finest clothes while offerings were made to maintain the cosmic balance between man and nature.
When it got dark, after the purifications and offerings, the demons came out to play. The children and teenagers came screaming through, carrying huge papier-mache Ogoh-Ogoh monsters mounted on bamboo platforms. They bounced them and span in circles, making them come alive, sometimes charging so close to the crowd they left scrums in their wake, all the while howling. Some Ogoh Ogoh were comical and some were frightening enough to give children nightmares. All of them took many hours of work and were preceded by gamelan bands playing percussion while kids as young as ten chugged on kerosene and spat fire.
These demons symbolise the disruptive power of nature and the evil in man. After raising a unholy chaos at the crossroads they are taken away and burnt.
Balinese love a show and it was good one, which is just as well because tomorrow there is nothing going on. As in nothing, no work, no cars, no electricity and no leaving your house, there aren’t even flights into the international airport, you’re not even supposed to have sex.
During the silent day of Nyepi, Balinese will practice Yoga Semedi and Catur Berata Penyepian meditation, Amati Geni, which forbids them; from lighting fires and switching on lights, Amati Karya, from working, Amati Lelanguan, from enjoying leisure activities and Amati Lelungan, from leaving their houses.
After tonights carnival Bali will be darkened and silent for the whole day, while the devout will fast and pray, contemplating Sunia, the sacred silence within. This is Yoga, Balinese style. Ritual chaos, purification by fire and water followed by silent union between man and his universe.
Free-diving and Yoga will resume the day after tomorrow on the first day of the new year.
Mar 2, 2011 | Freediving, Yoga
Some mildly esoteric training concepts for those readers that are that way inclined…
Fluid body:
- Free-diving: Divers should move like water through water, without tension or rigidity, creating minimum resistance.
- In yoga asana: Continuously probe the form of the asana with gentle exploration of our limits, using the breath as a tool of postural investigation and to consciously release tension.
Fluid mind: An unresisting, tension free mind, actively engaging in every new activity without pre-conceived ideas or mindsets.
Silent witness: We practice awareness of the body’s sensations and our thought processes in each passing moment with the attitude of curious, but calm observer, present but non-reactive.
Stillness in motion: We find inner stillness even in movement, with an inward centering of our awareness.
Motion in stillness; developing awareness of the subtle movements that happen in the body even when it is still, for example the movement of the breath, the build up of tension or the slow releasing of tightness.
Feb 27, 2011 | Freediving, Yoga
There are days on the deep line when the waters of Bali are so full of translucent life that the ocean seems like evolutionary stew. So many different jellyfish and combjellies, wriggling, pulsating and spiralling elementary forms of life. If you look closely the shapes, bio-luminescence and varied means of propulsion are all mesmerising. They seem unchanged by millions of years of evolution.
Some days Amed bay is thick with these delicate and unlikely creatures. One is reminded quite forcefully that the ocean is the place where all life began, the womb of Mother Earth. The ocean is a source of livelihood, a playground and even a dumping ground, but above all it is a birthplace.
There are free-dives when one is particularly relaxed and centred in the moment. When time seems to slow down, the mind becomes quiet and a sense of uterine peace unfolds. Even as the body runs low on air, and contractions start in the belly, curious feelings can arise, spontaneous womb-like comfort or a strange sense of home-coming. These subjective experiences are in a evolutionary sense true. The ocean is essentially the womb of Mother Earth and the first home of all life on this blue planet.
The training offered will include;
