YogaCity NYC Deeper Learning Series
Thursday, March 19 • 6:30-8:00pm at The Breathing Project
Learning About Your Body Through Yoga and Other Movement Modalities
A Discussion of how somatic teaching both work with and differ from a yoga practice
Have you heard the names Body-Mind Centering or The Alexander Technique from one of your yoga teachers? Do you have a friend that swears by Rolfing or The Feldenkrais Method ? These are just a few examples of somatic methods that help students understand how the body works.
An all-star panel of four senior yoga teachers who also specialize in these somatic arts will discuss how they can help you integrate and improve movement with understanding, embodiment, grace, and poise.
Our panelists Witold Fitz-Simon, Debby Green, Amy Matthews and Joe Miller will talk about how they teach these techniques to students and explain to yoga teachers how to integrate them into their classes. After the formal discussion, questions from the audience will be encouraged.
This Deeper Learning panel discussion is part of YogaCity NYC’s commitment to open serious dialogue between diverse schools of yoga in New York City because we want to foster a greater sense of community, as well as understanding of the different traditions we all represent.
The series, led by moderator Brette Popper is held at rotating studios to give students a chance to visit places they may not be acquainted with.
This discussion is FREE, open to all.
Members of the audience should be prepared with questions because the second part of the event is dedicated to an open discussion. This program is free, but seating is limited and advance registration is suggested.
Contact
Katie JehensonYogaCity NYC
admin@yogacitynyc.com
The Panelists:
Witold Fitz-Simon is certified to teach yoga as a graduate of the Yoga Room, Berkley's Advanced Studies Program under Donald Moyer and Mary Lou Weprin. He is a nationally certified teacher of tehAlexander Technique, having graduated the American Center for the Alexander Technique's 1600-hour, three year program in 2013. Witold combines both with his studies of embodied anatomy and developmental movement into a lively somatic approach to asana. He trains yoga teachers to use the principles of the Alexander Technique in his program Skill and Poise in the Art of Teaching Yoga, and is author of two books–the Yoga Practice Journal and Practicing Freedom: The Yoga Sutra of Patañjali (Dedo Press). His instuctional website Yoga: Art+Science is visited by more than 90,000 readers annually and read in over 20 countries.
Debby Green has been studying yoga since 1984. When she encountered Iyengar yoga 10 years later, she realized that she would have to start all over again. Her main teachers are Kevin Gardiner, James Murphy and the late Mary Dunn. she went to Pune in 2011 to study with the Iyengar family. She teaches a serious subject with lightness and humor, so that students can enjoy the intensity of Iyengar yoga. Debby is also a certified and gifted Rolfer. The Wall Street Journal has recently featured an article on Debby's work.
Amy Matthews, who holds a CMA, IDME, BMC Teacher, RSMT/RSME, has been teaching movement since 1994. She is a Certified Laban Movement Analyst, a Body-Mind Centering Teacher, an Infant Developmental Movement Educator, and a movement therapist and yoga teacher.
Amy is the Program Director for the Embodied Developmental Movement and Yoga and the Embodied Anatomy and Yoga BMC® programs in the United States. She co-taught with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen in Berkley, CA for five years and was on the faculty of the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies for ten years. She has taught embodied anatomy and movement workshops for programs in New York, Philadelphia, Berkley, and Nebraska, and internationally in Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, England, Israel, Slovakia and Japan.
Amy co-authored with Leslie Kaminoff the best-selling book Yoga Anatomy, and is the Education Director of The Breathing Project in New York City, where both Amy and Leslie teach. Amy also works privately, integrating Laban Movement Analysis, Bartenieff Fundamentals, yoga, Body-Mind Centering and Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF).
Amy is certified as a yoga teacher by Yoga Union and Heart of Yoga, and is registered with SIMETA as a Somatic Movement Therapist and Educator.
She has studied with a range of inspiring teachers: dissection workshops with Gil Hedley, neuro-muscular reeducation with Irene Down, Body-Mind Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, full-contact karate with Michelle Gay, and yoga with Alison West, Mark Whitwell, Genny Kapuler and Kevin Gardiner.
Joe Miller's passion is teaching how the body works. In 2013, after a four-year training program, he became a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner. The Feldenkrais method, developed by Israeli scientists Moshe Feldenkrais, helps people re-learn easier, healthier and more effective movement, and is particularly helpful for those with injuries or chronic pain. Joe sees private clients for one-on-one Feldenkrais Funtional Integration sessions in New York City.
A yoga teacher since 2000, Joe teaches teacher trainings as well as anatomy and physiology for yoga teachers around the U.S. and internationally. After completing teacher training at New York's OM Yoga Center, he taught there for 12 years. Currently, he teaches at several locations in New York City, including Now Yoga at the Shala and Sacred Sounds Yoga. In 2009, a lifelong interest in biology and anatomy led him to a master's degree in applied physiology from Columbia Univeristy. Joe writes extensively about movement, yoga, anatomy and health for websites and print.
Brette Popper is the Publisher and Foudner of YogaCity NYC, New Yor's premiere website for local yoga news, reviews and events. She is also a 500 Hour ERYT.