The Therapeutic Wisdom of Yoga: Yoga and Optimal Aging

A training-intensive for yoga teachers and inquiring students

The focus for this year’s online August training concerns optimal aging: how yoga provides a toolset for addressing the challenges and obstacles that come with age.

Aging is a lifelong natural process, and it’s never too early to refine your practice for healthy aging, and never too late either! This is not a ‘yoga for old people’ training, though it will be designed to be accessible and enlightening for older participants And teachers working with older students. 

We have a broad palate of practices to draw from, though asana is usually the most emphasized. With regard to asana, we’ll take a different perspective from the usual emphasis on flexibility, emphasizing fundamental principles of fascial fitness that will transform your perspective and approach to asana practice.

The fascia is central to the fundamental systems of the body which suffer inflammation with age, and yoga practices including asana make use of our built-in anti-inflammatory mechanisms. These mechanisms are not just part of our work with muscles, tendons, and connective tissue, but also of our work with the breath, which are accessed in particular ways in breath practices. 

It follows that we’ll be broadening our perspective beyond asana to include pranayama and more.

The ‘more’ is an added dimension that is all to often ignored in yoga is that of mudra and drishthi (the gaze or focus of the eyes). We will be exploring the dimension of mudra especially in connection with its usefulness in breath practices in special after-sessions, which follow after the main lecture topic each day.

Daily Schedule

The training will extend over 5 days (see below for Daily Themes), and the structure of each day will be:
 

(15:30-16:30 UK time) Guided Asana Practice 

A guided asana practice centered around the theme of the day, which illustrates in its instructions and sequencing how this theme can be approached and incorporated into practice. Participation in the asana practices is optional, and they’ll be designed to be interesting to all-levels practitioners and teachers, with some fresh ideas for your approach to asana practice.

(16:30-17:15 UK time) Break

(17:15-20:45 UK time) Main Lecture 

The lecture topic for the day. Each day will cover a dimension of the topic of optimal aging, and specifically and experientially relate it to yoga practices. This will include principles of fascial fitness, as well as the fascial lines or ‘sutras,’ and their role in both asana and functional movement for maintaining the health of the joints and systems of the body. The lectures will get into the health of specific areas of the body, such as the wrists, hips, knees, and so on, and the best work for maintaining the health of these areas. 

(20:45-21:15 (UK time) Break

(21:15-23:00 UK time) After-Session: Breath Practices for Optimal Aging, and the Helpful Role of Mudra 

 An after-session focused specifically on the role of the breath in healthy aging — which is indeed quite significant for all of the topics being covered in the training, including reduction of inflammation, cardiovascular health, neurological problems, and even bone density. This will include covering the relevant pranayama practices and what should be emphasized to maximize their benefits along these lines. 

• A further dimension of mudra will be added as helpful in this treatment of the breath, and on a very practical level. We most often think of mudra in terms of hand gestures; but in the original hatha yoga tradition, mudra encompassed all aspects of hatha yoga — asana, bandha, drishthi, and levels of meditative states, as well as being specifically supportive in pranayama. 
• Our treatment of mudra in connection with pranayama will be step-by-step and logical, tying the practice of mudra to your experience of the breath and meditation. The variety of mudras can be overwhelming, and sometimes seem arbitrary; these lectures will focus on the most immediately helpful, memorable, and practical mudras that give you a solid foothold in the practice of mudra and of pranayama. 

The Daily Themes

Wednesday: The Key Role of the Joints — the Starting Point for Fascial Fitness

The first day introduces the dimensions of optimal aging that will be discussed throughout the training — keeping in mind that the principles being laid out are applicable to good yoga practice at any age, and for most groups of people.

The main topic is joint play — which is the key to working productively with our muscles, as well as for achieving greater mobility and freedom from pain. Relatively passive ‘joint freeing’ actions play a vital role in reducing inflammation, as well as encouraging muscles to release their stiffness while increasing their strength.

The main focus will be on the feet, ankles, knees, and hips (more time will be devoted to the wrists in connection with the shoulders on Saturday). We’ll cover typical problems in these areas that limit mobility throughout the body, and we’ll lay out the principles for joint play that provide a foundation for intelligent sequencing that are vital for making progress in asana practice as well as general joint mobility.

Most problems of muscular imbalance as well as stiffness, weakness, inflammation, and pain start in the joints, so it’s quite appropriate to start here, understanding how joint play is key to reducing or managing the problems that come with age — and the importance of starting early in refining our practice and teaching!

Thursday: Principles of Fascial Fitness — Maps for Movement

The second day moves into working specifically with our skeletal muscles, from the perspective of fascial fitness. 

We usually associate the idea of ‘fitness’ with cardiovascular fitness, but even more important than that, from the perspective of aging, is fascial fitness — especially since cardiovascular health rests in large part upon it. 

We will lay out what ‘fascial fitness’ is, the principles for increasing and maintaining it through accessible asana practice, and what the benefits of fascial fitness are. Our skeletal muscles play a key role in our vitality as well as hormonal balance, producing crucial anti-inflammatories — if we know how to use them.

This session will focus on how functional movement is reinforced through asana practice, with additional principles of fascial fitness to clarify how asana can be practiced to realize these benefits. This will include going into the myofascial lines or ‘sutras’ that govern functional movement as well as posture, which are to be emphasized in asana practice and used as a guide for sequencing.

Specifically we’ll be working in the lower body, from feet to knees and hips, focusing on joint and muscular health and mobility.

Friday: Bone Health, the Spine, and the Role of Muscles — Functional Movement

The third day continues on the theme of muscular action along myofascial lines in the torso, and will add the dimension of bone density as well as neurological coordination (specifically about balance). 

The specific focus will be the health of the spine, but overall we’re looking at muscular action as a contributor to bone density - which will also dovetail with the discussions of the breath in the afternoon sessions following the asana portion.

Bone density and the issues surrounding osteoporosis and osteopenia are broad and complex. I don’t propose that yoga offers a complete solution, and other modalities, such as weight or resistance training, need to be included in lifestyle and practice. This session offers insights into how yoga can and should be included in this, both on the level of asana and breath.

In particular, attention needs to be paid to the health of the spine as supported by (rather than endangered) by yoga practice — with proper consideration of safe spinal extension, flexion, and twisting, and the related myofascial lines involved in asana practice that maintains the health of the spine.

Saturday: The Upper Body: Health and Movement of the Shoulders (and Neck) as well as Wrist Health [grip strength]

The health of the spine and neck, as well as breathing patterns, is greatly impacted by issues surrounding the shoulders — and these issues are relevant at any age. This session will go into detail on the fundamentals of maintaining shoulder mobility and health, especially as it impacts posture, the health of the spine, and the breath.

This will include consideration of the myofascial lines or sutras governing the shoulders, as well as the alignment and action necessary for good ‘joint play’ in the shoulders that is necessary to avoid inflammatory conditions and injuries. These provide guidance for sequencing as well as manageable shoulder routines.

In connection with this, grip strength is a recognized indicator of health and longevity, as a reflection of the health of skeletal muscles crucial for healthy aging. While grip strength is an accepted biomarker, it is rarely explained that poor grip strength is a manifestation of overall dysfunction in the arms and shoulders. 

By looking at the ‘big picture’ of the shoulders, we can improve wrist and hand function, and thereby grip strength, understanding it to be a signifier of shoulder health and overall functional health.

Sunday: Space for the Breath — the rib cage, diaphragm, and the Breath

The final session continues on the theme of the upper body, shoulders, and arms, and looks more closely at relating these biomechanical issues to breathing patterns and the health (and space) of the rib cage. In short, the shoulders and arms can be tools for better breathing — or a great hindrance.

The session continues with remedial work for the arms and shoulders, and principles for practice — and also ties together the themes of the breath in relation to healthy aging which have been covered in the after-sessions. And we’ll include the role of mudra in asana as helpful in opening the space of the breath through asana practice, and increasing healthy diaphragmatic function.

This final session is a meeting of breath and movement, which is the ultimate key to optimal aging.

Learning Materials — the Manual

A manual for those participating in the full training will be made available in pdf form one week in advance of the training, in case you want to print it out. Each day will have a set of slides illustrating the points of the training, which will be available to those taking single days, as well as to those registered for the whole training. The manual is a more easily printable version of those notes.

Video Recordings — available for one year

All sessions are recorded with high quality video and sound, and the recordings will be available for a year — and can be downloaded to keep indefinitely. 

While the Zoom recording will be available immediately after broadcast for those who are not able to make the sessions (such as because of time differences), the high quality edited versions will be available through Vimeo, and are usually ready within 24 hours of the broadcast. The links for both the Zoom recordings and the final versions of the recordings on Vimeo will be sent to you via email.

Who is this for?

This training is for yoga teachers, yoga therapists and other professionals working with the human body.

For those who have taken this annual training in the past, this will be a refresher and an update, with fresh perspectives for moving forward as teachers in step with our times.

For those joining us for the first time, this will be an accessible introduction to a very modern and practical perspective on yoga. New teachers have comfortably put ideas from the training to use right away, and continued contemplation on the themes of the training has nourished their teaching for years afterward.

Continuing Education Credits

The training will grant continuing education credits, both for Yoga Alliance (Doug is ERYT500) and as an approved IAYT (International Association of Yoga Therapists) APD course.

Meet the Teacher

Doug Keller has been teaching workshops and trainings in the therapeutic applications of yoga for a decade, and is known not only for his effectiveness in communicating this ever-evolving approach in these trainings, but also for his extensive writing on the topic in magazines, journals and his two-volume work on Yoga As Therapy. He is also, in addition to his travelling and teaching, a Distinguished Professor at the Maryland University of Integrative Health in their Master’s Degree programme in Yoga Therapy. This programme is state-approved and accredited for granting a Master’s degree in this field, and is fully accredited by the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

Doug has degrees in philosophy from Georgetown and Fordham Universities in the United States, and taught philosophy at college level for several years. He also spent a total of 14 years in Siddha meditation ashrams worldwide. He has produced three highly-respected books on asana, pranayama and yoga philosophy. Doug’s teaching is focused on the yoga of ‘Swatantrya,’ the yoga of one’s own inner expansion and awakening, and is rooted in a vast and inclusive perspective of study and practice that honours the insights of the many streams of wisdom that flow into the river of yoga.