15-17th March 2024

Living the Eight Limbs

with James Boag

A weekend whole life yoga immersion with James Boag

•Deepen your understanding of the time-proven foundation principles of yoga and how you can work with them to help harmonise the whole of your diverse human experience.
•Experience how the eight limbs work together and and how you can work with them in all aspects of daily life and all types of yoga practice technique.

Yoga seeks to bring unity where we may otherwise experience division and fragmentation, to bring clarity and cohesion where there was obscurity and delusion. The eight limbs provide a robust, adaptable structure to help us do this, one that has been proven in the furnace of time.

The eight limbs of classical yoga – the aṣṭāṅga – constitute a cohesive and robust body of practice: eight members of a single body, eight constituents of a whole. This immersive weekend offers the rare opportunity to work closely from the original Sanskṛt teachings in an active, pragmatic, accessible and highly inspiring learning environment.

James has been studying and practising this text for over twenty years and works direct from the original Sanskṛt. He is renowned for his capacity to bring the ancient scriptural teachings of yoga to vivid life so we can make them our own and work with them skilfully and authentically in our own lives and practices.

The eight limbs provide robust support for any type of yoga practice technique or method and a perennially reliable structure to help us cultivate greater harmony and awareness through all the challenges, changes and cycles of life.

Weekend overview

We will learn and deepen our understanding of:
-The eight limbs as a frame/structure/support for ongoing, deepening practice
-The vast practical teachings encoded in Patañjali’s description/presentation of the eight limbs in the yoga sūtra
-How the eight limbs fit into the yogic method established in the opening chapter of the yoga sūtra and elaborated in chapters 2-4.
-How to work with the eight limbs in daily life and when working with different yoga practice methods and techniques
-The essence of all haṭha and physical/energetic yoga practices as distilled by Patañjali in the aṣṭāṅga section of the Yoga Sūtra
-The eight limbs as essential members of our personal practice team.

The eight limbs applied to:
-Being human, living and dying well
-Movement, embodiment, health, fitness
-Inquiry, communciation, relating,
-listening, learning and sensemaking
-Yogāsana, prāṇāyāma and meditation practices

We’ll work, playfully and with a spirit of inquiry, over five sessions, exploring in many different, mutually complementary ways to facilitate integration of our learning.

Friday 15th March

6-8pm Introduction

Practical introductory session including simple movement and practical exercises with thorough introduction to the eight limbs in the original context of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra working from the original Sanskṛt.
Whether you are new to practical yoga philosophy or have been steeped in it for decades you will leave this opening session with a richer understanding of the eight limbs and how we can work with them in all aspects of life.

Saturday 16th March

9-10am Chanting

Optional recitation time: invocatory singing and recitation of sections of Yoga Sūtra

10am-12:30pm Yogic movement exploration

Practising and moving for all layers of our being; body-based exploration of key aṣṭāṅga* practice principles

*NB. This is not ashtanga-vinyasa practice, but applying the eight limb principles to broad spectrum yogic movement, principles that you can use to inform, support and enhance any āsana, movement or physical practice!

Some people have said that Patañjali says very little about yogāsana. It is true that he only devotes three sūtra-s/twenty-eight syllables to āsana, but in these syllables so much is encoded. We will apply this in a practice exploration to help us understand how we can work skilfully with these time-proven principles to maximise the holistic benefits of āsana, movement and embodied practices.
Expect principle-based yogic movement work that can inform and support all types of physical practice.

2-5pm Yama-Niyama and a Compass to Live by (part 1)

The yoga sūtra can be considered a user’s guide to a human incarnation. It works with the map that is set forth in Sāṅkhya – a perspective/darśana that yoga texts assume familiarity with. We will deepen our familiarity with this Sāṅkhya-Yoga map in a very practical way, through active, pragmatic learning games and exploration. We’ll then further explore and deepen our understanding of the yama-niyama principles.
Meditation as a lifelong practice: The eight limbs and yogic meditation: working practically with the principles of yogic meditation as laid out by Patañjali in the Yoga Sūtra. Building a meditation practice that can continue to deepen and support us through the travails of life and as practice asks us to refine and go into previously uncharted realms.

Sunday 17th March

9-10am Chanting

Optional recitation time: invocatory singing and recitation of sections of Yoga Sūtra

10am-12:30pm Yogic Movement: yama-ing and niyama-ing our pulsating, cycling energy and power

How the yama-niyama compass can guide and empower our work with the miraculous powers of our own bodies, senses and awareness. Harnessing physical practice and exploration for more robust vitality and balance, all life long.
Expect dynamic movement work stimulating reflexes and recruiting multiple intelligences to foster neurogenesis and renewal.

1:30-4pm Yama-niyama and a Compass to Live by (part 2)

What to do when we don’t know what to do? This is one of the main concerns of the yogic perspective. Building on our explorations thus far and our understanding of the Sāṅkhya-yoga map of the human condition, we’ll dive deeper into the rich supports of yama and niyama and how we can work with them as a compass to stay true to our deepest longings and draw on deeper wisdom through the inevitable ups, downs and whirlings of life.
Kīrtan, sound practices and the eight limbs: we’ll close sharing the nourishing practice of kīrtan, yoga singing, with an understanding of how it can work with the aṣṭāṅga principles to invite the harmonising power of yoga deeper into our being.

Fees:
Whole Program: £216 or £172 early bird
Single day £92 or £84 early bird
Single session £48

Early bird ends 10/2/24