Sensory Awareness Training for Yoga Attunement

Designed by Tias Little after 30 years of education, practice, study, and research, SATYA is a somatic practice that builds mindfulness through movement. We practice fine articulated movement to open new pathways of perception and feeling. Done mostly on the floor, SATYA involves sliding, gliding, stretching, unwinding, and core-building movements. The movements are a powerful tonic to reduce fatigue, strain, and holding in the body. The SATYA movements aim to increase circulation throughout all the tissues of the body. In this way, SATYA acts as a “prana pump” to oxygenate the bloodstream and irrigate the tissues.

While yoga today often emphasizes the “doing” of a posture, SATYA encourages “being” in a movement with heightened awareness. Our aim is to tap an inner potency and to help support the body’s innate intelligence and capacity to self-regulate. All movements increase proprioceptive awareness and neuroplasticity. This practice is a therapeutic, “yin" tonic for the body.

SATYA is very similar to contemporary yoga that focuses on vinyasa, combining breath with movement. In SATYA we synthesize breath with movement but without force. Done on the floor, SATYA supports connective tissue mobilization. Deep inner listening is required to heal both mind and body. To that end, SATYA builds meditative awareness while increasing physical vitality. Thus SATYA is mindfulness training through movement. As a movement meditation, SATYA builds vipassana (insight) into the sensory-motor pathways of the body. This practice builds deep relaxation and clarity. The SATYA movements replenish the body by “soaking” the tissues. Thus SATYA movements can be done in conjunction with savasana and yoga nidra.

This training covers the foundational movements of the SATYA practice. This week will revitalize your own body by reducing fatigue and increasing mobility in your fascia. At the same time, you will learn the key principles of the SATYA practice for the classroom. For yoga teachers who work therapeutically or with aging populations, SATYA is a simple yet highly effective system to help safely mobilize and repair the connective tissues.

Each morning includes guided meditation, sound resonance, dharma study, visualization training, and SATYA practice. We do yoga postures following SATYA to stabilize the joints and tissues of the body. Tias teaches anatomy of through an array of colorful slides. We study the muscular-skeletal system, the organs, nerves, and glands. Tias also integrates images from nature, sacred architecture, and art to describe the energetic flow of prana through the body. Tias brings his background in Sanskrit, cranial-sacral study, yoga philosophy, and mystical anatomy to provide a transformational week of practice and study.

When: August 3 - 7 | 9:30am - 5:00pm

Cost: $1,395 + tax (includes lunches)

“This course is extremely well run, well resourced, and comprehensive. Both teachers possess a fountain of knowledge and share with a passion in a friendly instructive way. The materials are excellent, downloadable, well written, illustrated, and easy to understand. The guided practices, meditations, poetry, and chanting are excellent and you can feel more attuned and more aware of your own signature shape, what works for your own unique body, and apply this to asana practice. I loved it and would recommend it highly.”

-Trish Campbell, UK