Workshops and Retreats

VIEW FRIDAY NIGHT SPECIALTY CLASSES

Embodiment:
A Yoga + Arts Support Group
with Kara Maran
Mondays, October 3-December 12 (no class November 21) 
2:00-3:30 pm
$75 for the series

Register

Mondays, October 3 - December 12 (No class November 21)
2:00-3:30 pm
$75 for the series
 
Connect to the body, explore emotions through movement and story, and access playful intuition in order to help better support ourselves in our personal and professional lives.
 
This group is a weekly meeting of movement and creativity with therapeutic elements. Our sessions together aim to integrate the ancient practice of yoga with narrative therapy and other creative arts elements. Each group meeting will begin with a check-in followed by a story—either incorporating a story from India surrounding the origins of Yoga or stories directly from the lives of the group members. The group will then continue to explore the story through yoga postures, intuitive movement, and a verbal check-in. Finally, the group will close with a creative project and time for reflection.
 
Yoga is an art of uniting the body, mind, and spirit, and I hope you join us as we explore this union through movement, storytelling, and art.

About Kara:
I’ve engaged with the power of the arts and movement for more than two decades of my life. When I was a child, I found yoga and theatre to be powerful outlets for the trauma that I experienced after my parents’ separation. I continued to turn toward the arts and yoga during hard times as as I grew up, and eventually I realized that therapy doesn’t always have to be about talking and introspection—it can also be experiential, active, and bodily.


In addition to studying to become a yoga teacher at The Yoga Tree, I have also been working toward becoming a Marriage and Family Therapist and Drama Therapist for the past two years in an effort to better share these tools with others. My path has led me to discover the joys of creative expression. I continue to cultivate my abilities to better support my students and clients for the rest of my life. I hope that you’ll join us as we support each other’s stories and growth through the ancient art of yoga and creativity.

 iRest® Fundamentals:
​A 6 week series
with Susanne Hutchinson
Mondays, through October 24
​(Note: No class on October 10)
6:00-7:15 pm Pacific on Zoom
$80 for the Series or drop in to any single session for $16

Register

Mondays, continues through through October 24 (no class on October 10)
​6:00-7:15 pm Pacific, Online via Zoom
$80 for the series, or drop in to any single session for $16. You can also use your class pass for any single session.
Preregistration required. You will receive a Zoom link in your email prior to the start of class.
​CEU's for Yoga Alliance available!

Whether you are brand new to iRest Yoga Nidra, or have been taking classes but are wanting to spend a bit more time exploring the fundamental aspects of the protocol, this Fundamentals Series is for you.

Each week, Susanne will guide you through an in-depth exploration of a different step of the iRest protocol. Class will consist of some lecture, discussion, and a guided practice.

This series can serve as a great place to begin before taking one of Jennifer’s advanced series, or as a supplement to the weekly drop-in classes.

Week 1 - Inner Resource - Discovering our felt sense of security and well-being - September 12
Week 2 - Intention and Heartfelt Desire - Laying the foundation of Sankalpa: making commitments that support our heart’s longing - September 19
Week 3 - Body sensation - Sensing and welcoming the body as sensation - September 26
Week 4 - Breath sensing - Experiencing the breath as a flow of energy that moves through the body - October 3
Week 5 - Meeting thoughts and emotions - October 17
Week 6 - Joy and Well-being - Welcoming joy independent of objects or circumstance, and Realizing our Essential Nature - October 24

This series will run continuously, every 6 weeks. So if you miss one week, no worries! You can catch it the next time around, or drop in to any single session that you want to spend more time exploring.

Navigating Trauma with iRest® Yoga Nidra
with Jennifer Cabanero
Tuesdays, October 4-25
6:00-7:15 pm Pacific on Zoom
​$70 for the Series before September 30/$80 after September 30

Register

Tuesdays, October 4, 11, 18, 25
6:00-7:15 pm Pacific, on Zoom
$70 for the series if registered by September 30/$80 after September 30
Preregistration required. A Zoom link will be sent to your email an hour before each class begins.
 
There are many ways we might experience trauma in our lives, and our response to it might leave us with emotional, or physical symptoms that last a few weeks or many years.
iRest Yoga Nidra is a meditation that can restore our inner sense of ease and well-being. It can offer us a deep sense of relaxation, as well as providing tools for learning how to meet what life brings. With practice, we become less reactive and more able to make positive changes in our lives.

In this series we will be practicing the self-care tools needed to navigate challenging experiences: especially a strong connection to an Inner Resource, the ability to rest deeply, how to meet emotions, thoughts, and to recover or remember our Essential Nature that is already deeply okay.

In each class there will be time to check in, a short talk and plenty of time to practice iRest.

The iRest sessions will be recorded and sent each week via e-mail, so that you may continue to practice between classes.

Experiential Anatomy Workshop: 
Essential Breath
with Heather Danso Emanuel
Sunday, October 9
1:00-3:30 pm, $45

Register

Experiential Anatomy - Essential Breath
Discover Yourself Through Your Body, The Primary Way of Knowing
with Heather Danso Emanuel
Sunday, October 9 
1-3:30 pm, $45
This workshop is both in-person and on Zoom. Please select which option you will attend upon registration. Preregistration required. A zoom link will be sent to your email about an hour before the start of the session.

Befriend yourself, body and mind! Heather is excited to 
share these workshops which are rooted in the Feldenkrais Method® Awareness Through Movement, as well as yoga. Each workshop will have a different theme or focus. 
 
 Each workshop includes:

• An exploration of the structure and function of anatomy in the context of movement (how you do what you do, and why)
• Two or three movement sessions that will improve your relationship with yourself relative to the area of focus.
• Time to reflect and make connections/ ask questions
• Each session will be recorded and made available to participants.

Having greater awareness of our own anatomy and self-use can help us find greater strength, effectiveness, and also decrease and prevent pain. This awareness can improve your options for how you find poses in yoga, your golf swing, how you sit, and even how you think about yourself in movement. After class sessions, students report feeling like they are taller, experiencing a general improvement in their sense of wellbeing and comfort, greater confidence, and a sense of effortless posture. I recommend a quiet day after attending a workshop.

What you need to bring: To these, bring your curiosity, your awareness, your coffee or tea, a notebook if you would like, and wear your yoga clothes with layers for warmth. You will find your own deep insights through these facilitated lessons (think playful, slow, exploratory floor work), and an opportunity for learning that will influence how you move through life.

All levels welcome!
Join us for upcoming sessions:
October 30 - Towards a Flexible Spine
December 4 - Towards a Comfortable Seat
January 15 - Freeing the Shoulders
February 12 - Happy Hips
March 5 - Balanced and Easy Neck

​Gong Restorative Yoga
with Amanda Mitchell
Friday, October 14 
6:00-8:00 pm, $40

Register

with Amanda Mitchell
Friday, October 14, 6:00-8:00 pm
Space is limited to 14, preregistration required
In-person only, $40
 
Gong Restorative is a deeply relaxing and nourishing class, combining the release available through a Restorative practice with the soothing vibrations of the gong. After a brief introduction to the gong and the power of sound healing followed by a light warmup, Amanda will play the gong while you are supported on your mat, allowing you to fully experience the powerful effect of vibration. Not only will your body and nervous system relax and replenish, but by adding the gong to this practice, your energy field and cells will also be affected. This is an excellent and welcoming introduction to the benefits of sound, with time for asking questions and sharing your experience (if you wish).

Back as a monthly offering! Upcoming dates: November 4, December 9 -  Look for it on the weekly class schedule!

​Being Peace
with Anne Douglas
Saturday, October 15-Sunday, October 16 
2:00-6:00 pm Pacific both days, on Zoom
$200 Early Bird until October 1/$225 after October 1

Register

Saturday, October 15 - Sunday, October 16
2:00-6:00 pm both days, PDT
This workshop will be streamed live via Zoom. You will receive a zoom link in your email prior to the start of the workshop.
$200 Early Bird Price until October 1.
$225 Regular Price after October 1.
A recording will be sent to you after the workshop if you are unable to attend live.

Being Peace
Peace is the very essence of who you are. It is the back drop upon which every moment of life is experienced. Yet most of us are swept away by the busyness of life and its accompanying barrage of thoughts and emotions, that we forgot our True Nature as Abiding Peace. The yogic practices can be a nourishing balm in our fast paced, 24-7 hectic lives, and help to remind us to come home to the Inner Peace that we already ARE.

Enjoy this workshop to experience:

• Deep healing and rest
• The deep peace that eternally abides within
• How to take this practice and its benefits into your own life
• A variety of yogic practices that include
• Yoga
• Yoga Nidra
• Meditation
• Breathing practices / pranayama

Anne Douglas has been offering transformational workshops, retreats and trainings internationally for over 30 years. Her boundless enthusiasm, wisdom & radiant heart create a rich & inspiring environment for insight & awakening.

Embodied Heart Meditation Series
with Marcia Miller
Wednesdays, October 19-December 14 
2:00-2:30 pm, $99

Register

Wednesdays, October 19-December 14
2:00-2:30 PM Pacific Time
On Zoom (The session will be recorded and sent to all who register, if you cannot attend live.)
$99 for the Series

At this transitional time in the world, we need tenderness and toughness, compassion and courage. Meditations of the heart can train us in these skills. In this 8-week course we will learn and practice several heart-based meditations including Loving Kindness and Tonglen. We’ll begin with tenderness and care for ourselves to form the foundation for the strength to offer the same to others, including those who are challenging for us. We’ll practice touching into our heart’s longings as a way to know our place and work in the world. We will feel into loving another and into being unconditional Love, not dependent on anything or anyone. We will practice knowing our capacity for giving and receiving in any moment as we honor our history and traumas. We will feel and enhance our inner strength, the needed support for an open heart. With this foundation in place, we will explore the powerful and transformative practice of Tonglen—the taking in of pain and the return of love. This will not be a course in spiritual bypassing; rather we will look squarely at the world and meet what we find with skill and grace.

​Yin Yoga w/Healing Touch
with Aubra Heller
Friday, October 21 
6:30-8:00 pm, $35

Register

with Aubra Heller
Friday, October 21, 6:30 pm
Space is limited to 12, preregistration required
In-person only, $35
 
This workshop will combine Yin yoga and Thai Massage. Find meditation and release in guided self-massage and restorative yoga postures. Students can also opt in to feel-good assisted stretching and massage offered by the instructor as they soften into yin poses.

Now a monthly offering! Upcoming dates:  November 19 (Saturday) - Look for it on the weekly schedule tab!

Therapeutic Breathing Workshop Series
with Linda Oshins
Saturdays, once a month beginning October 22 
10:00 am-12:30 pm Pacific, on Zoom
$319 for the series

Register

Saturdays: October 22, November 12, December 17, January 21, February 18, March 18
10:00 am-12:30 pm Pacific 
The sessions are live-streamed over Zoom and recorded, so if you can’t attend in-person you can still benefit from the workshop.
$319 for the series
 
While pranayama, the yoga breathing practices, are therapeutic in themselves, they are not focused on correcting dysfunctional breathing patterns, and many of them should not be practiced unless you or your students normally breathe in a healthy way.
 
This series of sessions will look at common dysfunctional breathing patterns and give you practices that lead toward a balanced everyday breath. If you are a yoga teacher, you can work this material into your weekly asana classes over time, lead workshops on how to take a healthy breath or work with private clients to address their concerns. But all students are welcome, yogis or not.
  
The prerequisite for this course is The Tour of the Breath Muscles workshop. If you didn’t attend that in person you can purchase the recording from The Yoga Tree (contact Susanne at )info@yogatree.com) and do the exercises on it prior to the first therapeutic breathing session.
 
We’ll look at what scientific researchers have said about how we breathe, but we will also devote our time in this study to helping ourselves and those around us probe, in this gentle way, into self-knowledge. Our breath is reactive to our thoughts, emotions, beliefs and the state of our physical body every moment—breath by breath, sleeping and waking. To look into our breath patterns is one way to look into ourselves. To move toward full, slow, relaxed breathing is to move toward relief and resilience and supports the ability to do our work in the world.
 
This workshop is, as always, experiential.
 
Linda has lead workshops on establishing healthy breathing patterns and on pranayama for the past 25 years.

Friday Night Yoga Nidra
​with Jennifer Cabanero  
October 28, 6:00-8:00 pm Pacific
$40, ONLINE via ZOOM
​preregistration required 

register

Based on the ancient teachings of meditation, Yoga Nidra is a transformative practice that leads to psychological, physical, and spiritual healing and well-being.

​Its practice is integrative as it heals the various unresolved issues and traumas that are present in your body and mind, and restorative as it enables you to recognize your innate peace of mind that is always present amidst all changing circumstances of life.

The Friday night Yoga Nidra class is a nourishing way to start your weekend. When we are in harmony with ourselves this changes our experience of the world. We become more at ease, less reactive to life, and more responsive to the others around us.

What to expect:
There will be a short lecture, a BodySensing movement practice, and a full Yoga Nidra practice.  BodySensing has also been referred to as Non-dual Yoga or Kashmiri Yoga and is a meditative practice that uses movement as a way to connect with ourselves and to open into peace, well-being, and our inherent wholeness. 

All levels of experience are welcome
Preregistration is required for this class
Please bring comfortable clothes that will keep you warm and perhaps a pillow for extra coziness!

Upcoming dates: November 18, December 16

Seasonal Yin Yoga for Autumn
with Jennifer Kenworthy
Saturday, October 29 
1:00-3:00 pm in-person and on zoom
$40, preregistration required

Register

Saturday, October 29
1:00-3:00 pm
Both in-person and on Zoom. Choose which option you will attend upon registration.
$40
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Autumn is the beginning of the yin season as the world begins to change around us and we begin to turn inward. Throughout this two-hour workshop we will connect with the seasonal element of Metal and the associated organs and meridian lines of the lung and the large intestine. By connecting with these elements within ourselves, we will learn to let go as we move forward with courage and resilience. We will begin with a short lecture and then allow ourselves to let go as we enter into an extended yin yoga practice, noticing the effects on our bodies and minds.

Yin yoga is the perfect balance to an excess of our yang lifestyles. It targets the deep connective tissues, bones, joints, fascia, and ligaments in the body through mainly floor-based supported postures held for time (1-6 minutes).

Props will be provided in the studio. If at home, please make sure to have lots of supports available for your comfort. All levels are welcome. 

The Path of Nondual Meditation:
An In-Depth Year-Long Live Online Course
with Richard Miller
begins January 2023
Use the Promo Code YT50 before checkout to save!

Register-Use promo code YT50

SEE PROMO CODE BELOW TO SAVE AN ADDITIONAL $50 ON THE COURSE!
Inner peace, profound clarity, and a sense of constant joy and wellbeing are innate. Developing a nondual meditation practice can help reveal these qualities by shifting our experience of life into one that is relaxed, loving, and balanced.
This path of liberation has served millions of people, and it’s available to you too. If you’re curious to learn more—or seek to deepen your practice—we invite you to join iRest Institute Founder, Richard Miller, PhD, for The Path of Nondual Meditation: An In-Depth Year-Long Live Online Course.This course grants you direct access to your teacher, a leader in nondual meditation, and lays the foundation for a lifelong practice.
Save an additional $50 USD when you use the coupon code YT50 before checkout.
Use this link to learn more and register: https://www.irest.org/.../2023-jan-dec-irest-path-nondual...

VIEW FRIDAY NIGHT SPECIALTY CLASSES