yoga with jeff
Based in household yoga practices of more than 40 years, Jeff’s yoga work will include group sessions, and additional content not focused exclusively on posture. That additional content will include 9 Minutes or LESS, and will include THE PRANA PROJECT. Jeff will share therapeutic, maintenance, and training that alternate between the Playful (Lila) and the Heroic (Vira). Look for an occasional Book Review, Interview, Creative Adventure, or Personal Note in realms practical and imaginative.
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Live Streamed on January 14, 2025 7:30 AM ET
Jeffry Farrell / yoga with jeff@jeffryfarrell
January 13, 2025
Tuesday Livestream Wake Up With Yoga
We enter the new year observing four principles of progress: Shtira, Sankalpa, Sukha, Dukha.
Shtira is a unified wholeness. It observes balance, strength, alignment, breath, and three planes of engagement. It is neither passive nor aggressive. It is the alert wholeness and fulfillment of every posture. Shtira can be present whether you stand or sit, kneel, lie on you back, in every starting position that you find yourself. When we recognize Shtira then we set our intention, Sankalpa.
Sankalpa is to decide our movement, our direction. To de-cide means to “cut away.” We cut away everything except our intent. It is a concentration. We decide and concentrate to move, to carry our Shtira. To carry Shtira well is to move with grace, with the appropriate energy required, with an effortless effort we call Sukha.
Sukha is the effortless effort. It carries wholeness. It uses not too much energy nor does it try with insufficient strength. Of course, as we begin we may drop Shtira. We may feel awkward or imbalanced and weak. However, we begin. We find Shtira and carry, and go back to Shtira and carry again. The difficulties, the resistance, the limitations are called Dukha, or pain. Pain is the teacher to awaken the Shtira.
We move in three planes, open the lymphatics, mobilise the joints all with breath. Let your lungs fill, let the breath fill the posture, every inhale awakens and identifies, every exhale liberates.
Ok! Come on in. . . .
00:29:59
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Picking up hand balances again after years away.
What is needed for hand balances? How do they build? How do we enter and exit? Where is shtira?
Beginning again means asking familiar questions and looking for the answers in the posture, observing what doesn’t work, and what does. Learning twice, and twice again in Beginners Mind.
00:00:52
Morning practice, Wake Up With Yoga
I recorded this last night because I must be on the road during our usual time. Here we observe three planes of functional spinal movement with breath. I invite you to recall warm-ups of this past week and to practice from whatever you can recall. If you cannot recall, then reboot yr favorite livestream recording and use that.
This week marks the start of a new endeavor at the SAMURAI INTI Martial Arts Studio in Frisco. I’ll be teaching i a group class there at Sendai Sebastian Mejias ‘ dojo on Monday and Wednesday mornings.
00:08:18
APRIL 2025 CLASS SCHEDULE UPDATE
Here's Jeff's updated schedule (please note the upcoming change to Saturdays). Below the schedule, you'll find payment links for the in-person group classes.
Mondays, 9AM in FRISCO at Samurai Inti Martial Arts, 7410 Preston Rd., #105, Frisco, TX 75034
Wednesdays, 9AM in FRISCO at Samurai Inti Martial Arts, 7410 Preston Rd., #105, Frisco, TX 75034
Thursdays, 8:30AM in DALLAS at Carpathia Collaborative, 10260 N. Central Expressway, #210, Dallas, TX 75231
UPDATE APRIL 13, 2025: Saturdays, 8:30 AM in DALLAS *WILL BE AT A NEW LOCATION VERY SOON! Will likely either be at White Rock Lake or Carpathia Collaborative, not the Hillcrest location. Confirmation coming soon! This update was posted on April 13, 2025.
PAYMENT LINKS FOR GROUP CLASSES (you can also pay cash in person at the time of the session; take note of your subscriber and payment level):
Locals community subscribers at the free level, and the general public: $35
https://buy.stripe.com/eVadTm24V3fi77O6oD
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Anatomy basics 2
This book was fundamental to body movement and awareness. Notice the three planes of functional spine.
Observing anatomy 1
If you ask a personal trainer, a pilates teacher, a yoga teacher, and a massage therapist about “core strength” it is likely you will get different answers.
We wish to observe the diaphragm as the central origin of neuromuscular action — activating channels of strength down through the lumbar vertebrae, hips, legs, feet. And likewise int he opposite direction up the spine through the thoracic spine, shoulders, neck and skull.
Here is an image for us to keep in mind and note how we humans hold together — feet to fingertips and eyes.
