Reawakening to Self

A Yoga Intensive Just for Teachers

Teaching yoga in its deepest sense requires teachers to hold space for others and to be aware, not only of the physical threshold of students, but of their energetic, mental and emotional state.

This places special demands on teachers that are difficult to meet when we ourselves are depleted. So much of a Yoga teacher’s practice can be subverted into generating content, sequences and themes for teaching that we may forget to focus on what we need from our time on the mat.

How do we refill our own well?
How to we nourish ourselves so that we can nourish others?

This intensive is intended as an antidote to burnout, renewing a sense of enjoyment, enthusiasm and pleasure in practice as well as offering opportunities for meaningful connection.

In this special gathering Donna will be sharing inventive and effective practices that can help to improve and maintain your mobility, strength and balance at any age. A special emphasis of this intensive will be a “ground up” approach to well-being with heightened kinesthetic awareness of the kinetic chains throughout the body, from the soles of the feet all the way up to the neck and head. As a way of renewing our connection to our own interoception, Donna will guide dyad exchanges of sensitive and nuanced touch.

There will be two classes each day. The morning sessions will be devoted to more active practice, and the afternoon sessions will include discussion, collegial exchange (some of which will include touch), Restorative Yoga, and deeply relaxing Yoga Nidra.

Whether you’ve just begun your teaching journey, have been teaching for decades or are taking a hiatus from teaching, this intensive is an opportunity to reconnect to yourself, reinspire your own practice, and be on the receiving end of the teacher/student relationship.

ABOUT THE TEACHER

Meet Donna Farhi

Donna Farhi is a Yoga teacher who has been practicing for 50 years and teaching since 1982. As a post-lineage pioneer, Donna has been at the forefront of generating a new model for teaching and practice that fosters self-inquiry through the cultivation a deepening trust in one’s own perceptions.

Through creating a warm atmosphere free of judgment and competition she invites her students to investigate their experience and to adapt and evolve their practice according to their individual needs. Incorporating the rigorous backing of anatomical principles for safe and sustainable practice, Donna offers progressive levels of engagement that allow people of all levels of experience and from all traditions to build their own authentic Yoga practice. Considered the “teacher of teachers” students return to Donna’s intensives year after year to be a part of the inspiring evolution of Donna’s own practice and teaching.

Donna’s livestream and online courses make her expertise accessible to teachers and students worldwide and, in 2021, Donna became the first yoga teacher to present the practice of yoga to a global audience through MasterClass USA. This e-learning platform provides classes taught by some of the world’s foremost minds and experts in their fields.

Donna is the author of four contemporary classics: The Breathing Book, Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit: A Return to Wholeness, Bringing Yoga to Life, and Teaching Yoga: Exploring the Teacher-Student Relationship. Her fifth and most recent book, co-authored with Leila Stuart, Pathways to a Centered Body: Gentle Yoga Therapy for Core Stability, Healing Back Pain and Moving with Ease is becoming the go-to text for Yoga teachers, therapists and somatic practitioners.

Donna lives on a 30-acre farm in the South Island of New Zealand with her partner Nicholas Lyttle. Together they have renatived large areas of remnant streams on the farm to establish habitat for wildlife and birds. Donna maintains an ambitious vegetable garden and a small flock of East Friesian milking sheep. When Donna is not on her yoga mat, she can be found in the kitchen baking bread, preserving food and exploring artisan cheese making.