Traveling the Silk Road: Exploring the Yogic Practices of India and China

with Tony Briggs at YogaWorks, Larkspur Landing

Thursdays, 6:00-8:30pm - August 5, 12, 19, 26

$40 drop-in; $140 for 4-class series

It was not just silks and spices that travelled back and forth from India to China along the Silk Road in the Middle Ages, but also art, medicine, politics, and ideas and practices intended to heal and perfect human nature. Indian hatha yoga and Chinese chi gong (as well as Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine) greatly influenced each other for many centuries and share many roots and branches.

In this series of four workshops we will explore how these two powerful traditions overlap and illuminate each other. We will work with the hatha yogic winds – the vayus – along with Taoist conceptions of building and moving chi. We will learn to contact and observe the Chinese “three seas of energy”, and how they relate to the chakras. We will practice working with the Bandhas or energetic “locks” that both systems utilize. We will learn how the pranayama practices of the two systems extend and complement each other. We will move and be still.