Kripalu is offering an early-bird special of a 10-percent discount off my February weekend workshop. If you’re wondering, “Who or what is Kripalu?” the answer is that it’s a lovely yoga center in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, not far from Albany or Hartford. The grounds are beautiful, especially covered with February snow, and you can see ice fishermen on the lake in the distance as you eat the amazing food and sip hot tea.
My workshop description is as follows:
- Improve strength, flexibility, and focus
- Increase physical and mental endurance and balance
- Avoid injury and recover faster
Many athletes are turned off by yoga because it’s too hard, too easy, or out of sync with their training. Over this weekend, coach and teacher Sage Rountree will demystify yoga and explain exactly how it fits with training and competition. Yoga’s emphasis on form and breath will translate to increased efficiency and focus in your sport and your life.In this weekend workshop, appropriate for all levels of yoga and athletic experience, we’ll learn poses to increase range of motion and flexibility, especially in the hips and hamstrings. We’ll spend some time cultivating sport-specific core strength and playing with balance, and we’ll examine yoga as mental training, learning how incorporating yoga’s approach to the body and mind can make us better athletes.Discover how to include yoga in your annual training plan, choosing sequences to complement your training both in season and during the off-season. Practicing the poses and techniques you’ll learn in this workshop will increase your flexibility, core strength, stability, balance, and physical and mental endurance, while lowering your recovery time and risk of injury.Weather permitting, we’ll head out for a run one or both mornings. Recommended reading: The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga and The Athlete’s Pocket Guide to Yoga, both by Sage Rountree (VeloPress, 2008 and 2009).
This past February, I had the pleasure of joining a wonderful group of yogis and athletes for the first version of the workshop. There were teachers of yoga for athletes, gym teachers, some hardcore runners who’d never done yoga, some fans of gentle yoga who’d never felt very athletic—a wonderful mix of the full range of experience (from much to none) with sports or yoga. If you’re wondering whether you’ll fit in: yes! You will. You’ll learn a lot about your body, mind, and spirit over the weekend, and you’ll get to enjoy the wonderful feeling of being on retreat, where someone else takes care of the cooking and the dishes, and where when you are done with practice, you don’t have to rush to anywhere.
I hope to see you there. Sign up by January 3 for that early-bird special. (It’d make a great holiday gift for yourself or a friend!) Register via this link.