Yoga Retreat Weekend at Moody Gardens
Friday, October 31 at 7:00 PM - 9:00PM, Saturday, November 1 at 9:00 AM - 4:30PM, Sunday, November 2 at 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
These retreats with Doug Keller are becoming a fall tradition at Moody Gardens, and this year’s retreat will balance a learning component — for understanding and appreciating your practice more deeply — with manageable, refreshing, and insightful practice.
Each session has a focus on an area of the body, and will start with some insights into how that area of the body works, some of the challenges we commonly face in that area, and how to use your practice to find greater freedom, strength, and ease, both on and off the mat!
Then we get into practice, putting these ideas to work!
Friday Evening: Simple Keys to the Shoulders with “Champagne and Chocolate”
Friday, October 31 at 7-9 PM in the Floral Ball Room, 2nd floor of the Convention Center
There some secrets to knowing how to move the shoulders well for the sake of greater freedom — and it’s not just about stretching! We need to understand how the joints of our shoulder girdle work, and how it is lack of proper ‘joint play’ causes tightness as well as weakness and pain syndromes.
In this introductory session, Doug will explain the significance of ‘joint play’ and lay out a few fundamental principles for working with the shoulder joints safely and effectively.
This will be an all-levels class that focuses upon some main points (that will be explored more deeply on Sunday) while giving you a nice Friday evening experience of yoga, ending with a deep relaxation, and a treat afterward.
Saturday Morning: The Feet are the Keys to the Hips and Knees with “Health Fair”
Saturday, November 1 at 9-11:30 AM
Our nervous system regulates our flexibility according to the freedom it perceives in our joints. This ‘first principle’ for working with the body is called ‘Joint Play.’
We’ll begin by looking at how the feet are meant to work — and how the state of our feet profoundly influences the flexibility of our hamstrings, hips, and low back, as well as the healthy function of our knees and hips.
This session will start with simple movements and exercises for our feet that will be translated into principles for movement in asana — and will be essential to your working effectively with your hamstrings, as well as your knees and hips.
Saturday Afternoon: Keys to Basic Back Health
Saturday, November 1 at 2-4:30 PM
The most fundamental thing we do to maintain the health of our low back is the simple twisting action of walking — and yet we lose that movement over time, and our back suffers for it!
Twisting is simple and fundamental for our health, but many of us shy away from it in yoga, thinking it’s about deep spinal twists! It’s really about keeping the core muscles that support our low back free and fluid.
Yoga poses reinforce these simple, natural movements, and the breath adds yet another vital dimension to the health and resilience of the spine. This afternoon session will be a combination of refreshing and freeing physical practice, combined with simple and memorable breath practices.
Sunday Morning: Essentials for Shoulder Freedom
Sunday, November 2 at 9-11:30 AM
The shoulders are the most mobile joints in our body, and yet most of us get tight — causing pain in our neck and back, as well as suffering pain and limitation in the shoulders themselves. Even flexible people can have shoulder and neck pain!
There are secrets to knowing how to move the shoulders well, to achieve more freedom — and it’s not just about stretching! We need to understand how our shoulder joints work, and how lack of freedom in these joint causes tightness, as well as reducing the strength of our muscles. If we move the joints well, flexibility in our muscles will follow!
In this session, Doug will lay out fundamental principles for working with the shoulder joints safely and effectively in all of the different ways we move our shoulders in yoga.. The session on Friday gave an experiential taste of the essence of these principles. In this session we’ll be able to go into greater depth, and include work with the hands, wrists, and elbows, as well as getting into the relationship between the shoulders and neck freedom.
