Winter Solstice Workshop - Yin Yoga and Deep Relaxation

The Novara Centre, Bray Seafront
Sunday 17th December  6:30pm - 8:30pm

​As we approach the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, it’s the perfect time to turn inwards and spend some time in reflection… Reflecting on the year gone by… your successes and challenges… taking time to celebrate your achievements and to see what you have learnt from your more challenging situations… What skills have you learnt?  What worked, what didn’t work…? What are you ready to let go of…? And then turning your attention to the year ahead… What would you like to cultivate during the year ahead? What seeds can you plant now, in the darkness of winter, this time of incubation,  so that they will be ready to come to life in Spring?
 
With this in mind, I will be teaching a Winter Solstice workshop to help you come back to yourself, to turn inwards, to reflect, and to check in with your deepest self to find what it is you want to cultivate over the coming year. That might be a quality in yourself…happiness, kindness, gratitude… or it might be a new job or a new relationship…
 
Using the powerfully deep practices of Yin Yoga and Deep Relaxation we will come together in the candlelight on the evening of Sunday 17th December.
 
What is Yin Yoga?
The Theory of Exercise tells us that all the “tissues in the body require healthy, positive levels of stress to maintain their strength, resiliency and health” (Josh Summers). Too little stress leads to atrophy of the tissues and too much stress brings us to a breaking point. Most of the exercise we engage in is Yang in nature, focusing on building strength and flexibility in the elastic tissue of the muscles through rhythm and repetition. Our Hatha Yoga practice falls into this Yang style of exercise. Using our muscles like this we keep the joints stable and there is no “letting go” in the joints. Yin Yoga, on the other hand, focuses on the dense connective tissue around the joints. We do this by using long holds of yoga poses, in which we allow the muscles to relax, so that the dense connective tissue can be brought to a mild, gentle level of stress. This level of stress is therapeutic for the joints and brings more freedom of movement to the joints. The intention of a Yin Yoga practice is to maintain or regain natural, healthy range of movement.
Yin Yoga is therefore a wonderful complement to any Yang style of exercise.
 
These long holds of Yoga Poses will give us the opportunity to turn inwards, to meet ourselves, to reflect and to dream about what we want to cultivate during the year ahead.
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We will finish this workshop with a Deep Relaxation to allow the body, mind, heart and spirit to rest deeply and integrate the work we have done during our Yin Yoga practice.

The Novara Centre – Sunday 17th December 
6:30pm - 8:30pm
Cost: Early Bird €25 before Wednesday 13th December, €30 thereafter