Cape Men's Yoga & Meditation: Sunday 4 June 2017

Sunday 4 June 2017

Men's Naked Restorative yoga class

Restorative is a new hybrid form of yoga built on the tradition of therapeutic yoga. It combines elements of energetic yang yoga (typicaly of vinyasa and ashtanga) with still relaxed yin postures with an emphasis on relaxation and letting go.

Indian yoga was designed for greater spirtual awareness and meditative skill. 20th century yoga fused this with calesthenics and a physical education approach to balance out the increasingly sedentary life of working people. Restorative yoga speaks to our hectic lifestyles, stress levels and the challenges of finding stillness and a place of peace in life. 

Patanjali, the great yoga guru and author of the Yoga Sutras, emphasises that yoga involves two simultaneous states of mind: sukha (comfort or joy) and sthira (stability, effort, attention). These two concepts and mental states are deeply powerful and transformational. Within them much can be uncovered. Those who make no effort in life, drift like a leaf in a stream, often not discovering their true potential. In the most obvious sense, how many times do I hear: "I cannot do yoga, I am not flexible. I cannot meditate, my mind is too busy." It is only through effort that we overcome conditioning.

In one retreat, a member of the group had an epiphany. He realised that as a kid his conservative family had constantly emphasised what he could not do, should not do, would not be good at doing.

Sukha is a state of inner comfort, joy, happiness. Sometimes we throw are selves harshly at the world. We expect that change comes only from force. Sometimes we believe that there is something inherently not right with ourselves, and only through great effort and determination can we transform. Yoga will always teach you that change is gradual, incremental and comes in stages. One must walk before running, run before jumping and so forth. It is finding a state of inner understanding, a letting go of suffering, of stress, of an expectation of disatisfaction that we discover that happiness is with us all the time. It is not discomfort of a posture or a situation that is suffering, it is how the mind perceives it and responds. 

If you feel you need some restorative time for yourself, a need to cleanse and let go, come and join us for this unusual class of effort and surrender; of being and doing.


10.30 to 12.15 at our southern suburbs venue in Cape Town, South Africa
082 579 6868 on whatsapp
capemensyoga (AT) gmail.com by email.

Namaste