Class: SATYA

Sensory Awareness Training for Yoga Attunement

In a totally unique way, SATYA practice opens doorways into the interior, providing new pathways of perception and feeling. It guides students away from “doing” movement and toward sensing, receiving and “being” movement. As an adjunct to yoga practice, somatic awareness leads to embodied wisdom.

All the movements are done on the floor in a flowing fashion, without force. The SATYA movements cultivate inner listening and heighten proprioceptive awareness. Our aim is to counter “sensory-motor amnesia” and to gain awareness in places where there has been numbing or freezing. This awareness is the body’s innate intelligence. By increasing our capacity for sensory awareness, we become more sentient, wakeful beings in the world.

By training the field of our sensory-motor system, by listening and developing a more receptive mind, we tap the body-mind’s innate intelligence and capacity to heal. The exercises are non-weight bearing and involve sliding, gliding and circular movements to reduce myo-fascial holding in the body. The exercises help mobilize the joints, remove fatigue from the body, balance asymmetries and align the right and left sides of the body. The SATYA training, along with yoga postures, involves neural-muscular re-education. Like in vinyasa training, breath is combined with movement in order to deepen the respiratory rhythm. All movements support profound physical rest of the body and prepare for savasana and yoga nidra (the yogic sleep).