The Original Body: Primal Movement for Yoga Teachers - Softcover

The Original Body addresses the physiological experience of yoga. The soft tissue, skeletal, fluid and spatial sensations experienced in practice are considered in sequence and collectively as the reader becomes drawn into a depth of feeling and understanding that lies beyond practice. Yoga teachers are shown how to use a deeper 'feeling' to unveil an innate powerful physical wisdom. This includes bringing together anatomical visualisation and imagination, the development of awareness as a movement, and the management of sensation. This book focuses on honing and harnessing the practitioner's essential experience in order reveal a more profound style of teaching from within. Teachers are invited to consider the impediments to a deeper practice and will be taken through the common factors inhibiting sensory pathways. These include conditioning, habit, trauma, anxiety, non-essential thought and the effect of technique and methodology in teaching. Teachers will learn about the principles of mechanical freedom in postures and movement and they will find out about the parallels and differences between yoga practice and the osteopathic approach to bio mechanics. The Original Body invites the reader to put aside Sanskrit terminology and well-trodden paths and dig deeply into themselves and discover the unconditioned body at its deepest level. This book supports its reader through the understanding that group work thrives on their inspiration. This book inspires and provides an essential addition to the library of all teachers of yoga, movement and bodywork.

John Stirk has been teaching Yoga for 40 years. He graduated as an osteopath in 1983 at the College of Osteopaths in London where he subsequently lectured in Biomechanics and Practical Osteopathy and was made a fellow of the college in 1995. The influence of R.D.Laing, with whom he ran body/mind workshops, B.K.S. Iyengar, Vanda Scaravelli with whom he had personal tuition for several years and J. Krisnamurti has confirmed his belief in finding it in and for oneself. Consequently his style of teaching Yoga emphasises an enquiry into how one is during and after physical practice. John is the author of two books, Soft Exercise and Structural Fitness; and has published numerous articles. He runs classes, workshops, and residentials for yoga students and teachers throughout the UK and internationally. He is currently based in London and East Sussex, UK.