Insight Meditation South Bay offers a variety of programs that integrate movement, creative activities, energy arts, and healing processes with mindfulness-based meditations to enhance embodied awareness.

Movement disciplines are introduced during IMSB Day-Long Retreats in which guest teachers join Shaila to combine the teachings of Insight Meditation with one of the movement disciplines featured below. You can find biographies of guest teachers with the movement descriptions.

All programs are suitable for experienced and beginning practitioners. Students participate to the extent they enjoy, and may replace the movement session with an individual walking meditation if they wish.

Please see the calendar of events for upcoming programs.

The Alexander Technique -- The Posture of Meditation

The Alexander Technique is a simple and practical method for improving ease and freedom of movement, balance, flexibility, and coordination. Using everyday activities such as standing, sitting, and walking, the teacher helps students become aware of habitual movement patterns that cause tension and undue stress, and replaces these patterns with conscious, efficient movement. Clinical studies have shown that the Alexander Technique improves breathing capacity and posture, modifies stress response, and can be used for long-term pain relief.

Stephanie Walsh is certified by the American Society of Alexander Teachers and has received over 1600 hours of individual and small group training. She has been teaching for over five years and has worked with yoga teachers, massage therapists, lawyers, chiropractors, mothers, working professionals, actors and musicians. She currently lives and works in Santa Cruz. Stephanie also teaches TriYoga® and breath work (see below).

Lynn Hoyle Lynn Hoyle has been a teacher of the Alexander Technique for 4 years. She applies the principles of the technique to her interests in ballroom dancing, yoga, hiking and meditation. Website: home.comcast.net/~lynnhoyle/

Dynamic Awareness -- Expressive Movement

Laban Movement Analysis offers a non-biased language for describing human movement, thus encouraging a full exploration of our expressive range. Anton Chechov's work with psychological gesture explores the movement of emotion when triggered by shaping the body. By directing the mind inside, allowing, and practicing detached observation, one can become present with what is and develop a sense of community around a shared humanity. These workshops at IMSB bring together a deep exploration of movement with silent meditation and have generated enthusiasm for developing this unique approach and applying it to subtleties of the inner life.

Lisa Tromovitch has 22 years experience as a professional theater director and is a professor of theatre arts. She currently serves as Founding Producing Artistic Director of Livermore Shakespeare Festival and is on the faculty of the University of the Pacific where she is the movement coach. Lisa has trained in Laban/Bartenieff work with Integrated Movement Studies in Berkeley and has an interest in Michael Chechov's psychological gesture. Lisa has directed over 30 stage productions in six states and has trained hundreds of university and conservatory students in expressive arts. Learn more about Livermore Shakespeare Festival at Theatre Arts with Lisa Tromovitch

Feldenkrais Method -- Awareness Through Movement

The Feldenkrais Method® is a learning process that uses simple movements to encourage new ways of moving with comfort and ease. The group form of the work, called Awareness Through Movement®, uses movement sequences that deepen our capacity for awareness and guide us toward freedom from self-limiting habits. While students lie on the floor, respectful of themselves and their comfort, the teacher verbally guides them through simple movement sequences. Through this "giving space to your self" students gain freedom of movement, relief from discomfort and a sense of well being.

Deborah Dutton is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner and has been teaching the Feldenkrais Method for ten years. Deborah was introduced to the Method® as a result of a shoulder injury. She found the technique so effective and engaging that she continued to take classes for seven years. She then entered a four-year professional training program in New York, from which she graduated after 800 hours of training. Deborah's teaching is influenced by her 20 years of meditation practice. Learn more about Deborah's practice at www.umovebetter.com

InterPlay

InterPlay is a practice and philosophy of living life with ease using the body's wisdom. We are invited to move our bodies and use our voices, in the moment, creating as we go. Using simple forms, accessible to all, we notice what happens and allow an atmosphere of play and affirmation. In this gathering we will play with the relationship of quiet and voice; of stillness and movement.

Penny Mann is a 15 year practitioner of InterPlay, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and has over 30 years experience leading individuals and groups in creative discoveries. She performs with Wing It!, a performance ensemble which uses the forms and wisdom of Interplay in a performance context.

Kripalu Yoga

Kripalu Yoga is rooted in stillness -- the deep inner stillness that arrives when the mind is at peace, the body is free of stress, and the emotions are in harmony with the moment. We begin to touch this core stillness when we seek out and release those physical tensions that restrain our bodily energies and separate us from our true nature. Yoga postures, combined with breathing techniques and a focused, yet compassionate attitude, are used as vehicles for finding and releasing these energy blocks.

Kait Philbin, a certified Professional Level Kripalu Yoga Teacher, has been teaching yoga and meditation since 1991. Kait integrates the Kripalu method of discerning inner awareness of feelings, sensations, mind activity balance and alignment with insights acquired from her studies of Shiatsu, Five Element Theory, and the Taoist system of Yin and Yang. Kait practices Buddhism in the Theravada tradition and maintains a daily meditation practice. She is working on her doctorate in Transpersonal clinical psychology. Learn more about Kait's practice at www.kaitphilbin.com

Qigong

Qigong, which literally translates to "energy skill" or "energy manipulation", is the ancient art and science of working with the electrical and energetic circuitry of the body. Medical Qigong treatments realign the electrical and energetic patterns of the body to optimize health. Medical Qigong practice incorporates simple yet profound postures and movements, along with the breath and the focus of one's mind to achieve greater health, awareness, concentration, balance, and stillness of mind.

Tom Leichardt holds a Doctorate degree in Medical Qigong, teaches at Five Branches University, and has a private practice in San Jose. Tom is a traditional healer and instructor in the Medical Qigong branch of Traditional Chinese Medicine. By unwinding patterns of disharmony on the physical, mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual levels, Tom promotes health and balance of the whole person. This is achieved through Qigong treatments as well as the prescription of therapeutic exercises that move and balance the Qi. Learn more about Tom's practice at www.inneralchemycenter.com

Raja Yoga

Tamara Perkins is a certified Raja Yoga teacher, filmmaker, and activist. Inspired by the opportunity to ease suffering and open paths to healing and empowerment, she teaches in diverse environments including men's and women's prisons, grief support programs, schools, and youth development conferences. Childhood exposure to Yoga and Tibetan Buddhism through her father has helped form the foundation of Tamara's practice. Tamara is founder and director of Apple of Discord Productions, a film production company born of a combination of creativity, service and activism (www.appleofdiscordproductions.com). Find out more at www.tamaraperkins.com.

Reiki and Medicine Buddha Healing Practices

Reiki is a Japanese technique for relaxation and healing. The medicine Buddha healing practices come from Tibet. Both techniques are used by a trained healer to send good energy and to remove bad or stuck energy to create energy balance. Unlike acupuncture or acupressure, Reiki and medicine Buddha healing can be used without a hands-on touch, and are similar to psychic/prayer healing used in many parts of the world.

Smita Joshi finished her Reiki training in the Usui tradition in 1999, and her Medicine Buddha empowerment in 2004. Smita likes to use a combination of Reiki and Medicine Buddha healing techniques to aide friends and family. “I use meditation and yoga to heal myself. However, Reiki and Medicine Buddha techniques allow me to do something for others—an active expression of compassion which sustains my overall spiritual life,” Smita says.

Triyoga -- Meditation & Breath Work
The Conscious Breath

TriYoga® is a complete hatha yoga method which unifies posture, breath and focus (asana, pranayama, and mudra). TriYoga fundamentals include relaxation-in-action, wave-like spinal movements and economy of motion. Through sustained awareness on all aspects of the practice, the movement of body, breath and mudra harmonize and the inner flow naturally emerges. The result is increased physical, mental, and spiritual energy that provides the mental clarity to live with greater awareness.

Stephanie Walsh is a certified TriYoga teacher Basics through Level 2. She has studied extensively with Kali Ray, the founder of TriYoga, and assists at many teacher training events. She has over 500 hours of intense training. She currently teaches at the TriYoga Center in Santa Cruz.

Yin Yoga

Yin Yoga is the relaxed practice of floor postures for three to five minutes at a time. The practice emphasizes release of connective tissues of the hips, thighs, pelvis and lower spine. Because floor poses allow each of us to find a stretch that allows opening, yin yoga works well for novices and experienced yogis. Because the poses are held, yin yoga allows us to explore sensation with kindness and patience and prepares the body and the mind for longer meditation practices.

Renate Kempf has been a bodyworker for seven years and is certified at the 1000 hour level with a focus on Structural Integration. Renate has practiced yoga for over twenty years and completed yin yoga certification with Paul Grilley and Sarah Powers. See www.azureheart.com for more information about Renate's work.