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.
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
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, RYT, is a certified Professional Level Kripalu Yoga Teacher and practices Buddhism of the Theravada tradition. She has been teaching yoga and meditation since 1991 and is a transpersonal psychologist. In her yoga teaching, Kait encourages attunement to bodily feelings, sensations, and mental activity as objects of mindfulness. Kait is currently seeing clients at The Community Center for Health and Wellness in Palo Alto and can be contacted at kathleenphilbin@mac.com
Qigong
Qigong, which literally translates to "energy skill" or "energy manipulation", is the ancient art and science of working with one's subtle energy. Medical Qigong 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 graduated with a Doctorate of Medical Qigong (DMQ) from the International Institute of Medical Qigong, the overseas college of Henan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. He practices Taoist meditation and the healing arts. Tom also serves at the feet of his guru, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma), working to develop compassion and a heart of service to humanity. Learn more aboutTom's practice at www.qigongalchemy.com
Kim Allen studies and practices Qigong with teachers in the Bay Area and Seattle. Qigong has a 3,000-
year history in China, and is the root practice of both Chinese medicine and most martial arts. Kim explores
how Qigong can provide foundational support for vipassana meditation by deepening awareness of the body,
and for daily-life practice by encouraging relaxation and calmness during movement.
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.
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 practiced yoga for over twenty years and is a certified yoga instructor at the 200 hour level. Her training includes yin yoga certification with Paul Grilley and Sarah Powers. Renate has also been a Structural Integration bodyworker for over ten years. She sees clients in her office in Palo Alto. See www.azureheart.com for more information about Renate's work.