Doug Keller Full Day Sunday

9am — 11:30

From Hands to Heart: Spiraling into Shoulder Health through the Arms — with attention to the health of the wrists and elbows, and their impact on shoulder opening

Shoulder work in asana practice, with refined actions that spiral from the hands deep into the shoulders and heart, helps us to keep the shoulder joints aligned and free from damage and irritation, while maintaining the space of the upper body.

Just as the feet, with the actions maintaining their arches, support the health of the knees and hips, our hands likewise have arches — and actions practiced to maintain the health of the wrists will also support the health of the elbows and shoulders, facilitating the opening of the shoulders while protecting the health of the rotator cuffs.

Shoulder ‘opening’ is usually treated through stretches emphasizing external rotation of the arms, and moreover they focus on the action of the arms at the shoulder joint itself. But practice of both internal as well as external rotation is vital for freedom in the shoulders, and these rotations can be practiced more organically as ‘spirals’ which flow from the hands and wrists up to the shoulders.

We will cover the most common forms of movement problems, injuries (rotator cuff, cartilage and ligament injury) and pain syndromes involving the shoulders, elbows and wrists together, and will work with exercises and asanas for improving the ‘spirals’ by which we achieve greater freedom of movement, support healing from injury, and freedom from pain.

This will include self-care techniques based in Marma, which will be a complement to the focused practice of variations in arm and shoulder actions that can be introduced into yoga poses, as well as remedial exercises for improving shoulder health. Pain assessment as well as principles for working with different levels of pain and injury will be included, especially with regard to rotator cuff injuries and related limitations and pain problems arising from the AC joint and collar bone restrictions.

The emphasis is on simple actions that can be applied in the poses, as well as self-care exercises related to marma that can be incorporated into your practice, and used to maintain the benefits of practice.

11:45 — 1:15 Applications in Asana Practice

2:30-4:45pm

Neck and head alignment — and our own subtle habits in using our neck — have a great impact upon the health of our upper back and shoulders, and are the root of a great deal of our upper body pain. This includes jaw alignment and tension, as well as tension arising from postural shifts beginning in the lower body.

Yoga has plenty of principles for the head and neck, including bandha and mudra, that are related to the breath as well as asana, and which can be applied simply and effectively to address upper body pain problems, including neck stiffness and headache pain as well as breathing and functional disorders that affect our everyday health, including sleep.

Self-care techniques of marma will be especially helpful for neck, jaw, facial and shoulder pain, and applications will be covered in pranayama and relaxation techniques as well as asana.

4:45-5:00 Closing

$175 early bird / $225 day of