Swara Yoga School 5 Elements Yoga Teacher Training
VENUE
Mala Dhara Yoga Retreat Center Chiang Mai Thailand
TIME
Start: 2:00 PM - January 5, 2019
End: 12:00 PM - January 26th, 2019
Swara Yoga School
5 Elements Yoga Teacher Training
Mala Dhara Yoga Retreat Center
Chiang Mai Thailand
January 5th – 26th 2019
This unique training combines an in-depth anatomical and biomechanical understanding of yoga taught within the holistic framework of the 5 Element system of Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda and underpinned by the philosophy of Classical Yoga and Tantra. At the end of the course students leave having learned essential tools and life skills to enhance their health and through which they can inspire others.
Taught in a traditional ashram style, we place a strong emphasis on interactive and experiential learning. The training encourages each student to listen deeply their own process and undertake specific practices for self-inquiry held within the group experience.
Facilitators
We cover a variety of styles during the course as we work with the different Elements, so the style serves the purpose of experiencing the Element that we are specifically working. From alignment based Hatha and Vinyasa Flow to the more subtle energetic practices of Yin Yoga, Yoga Nidra and Mindfulness, students will learn different ways of practicing and teaching.
Morning classes are more dynamic and alignment based. Afternoon practices are a combination of restorative Yin Yoga and meditation.
The 5 Elements is an ancient philosophical tradition which facilitates a deeper understanding of Yoga through infusing your yoga practice with specific movement and intention. In the 5 Elements philosophy Earth grounds, Water flows, Fire energizes, Air lightens and Space expands.
In this Yoga Teacher Training we will use asana, pranayama, meditation and diet to bring your whole system into balance using the qualities of each element. From the static alignment based practices of Iyengar Yoga to the dynamic flowing sequences of Vinyasa and the deep stillness of Yin Yoga you will learn the value of each style of yoga according to the 5 Elements and your individual constitution.
We train 6 days a week, with 1 day off a week and we work around 8-9 hours a day.
There are 4 hours of practice and 3.5 hrs to 4 hours for lectures, discussions, teaching practice and other activities. Two nights per week we have both bhajans (devotional singing) and conscious cinema.
Daily Schedule
| 6:30am – 9.00am | Asana, Pranayama, Meditation |
| 9.00am -10.30am | Breakfast Break |
| 10.30am – 12.30noon | Talks, Lectures, and Discussions |
| 12.30noon – 2.30 pm | Lunch Break |
| 2.30pm – 3:30pm | Lectures |
| 3:30pm – 4.30pm | Micro Lessons |
| 4.30pm – 6:00pm | Asana, Pranayama, Meditation |
Facilitators
Sofia Araujo
Sofia is a yoga teacher, therapist, macrobiotic chef and holistic health educator that shares a passion for healthy movement and living. She is trained in the alchemy of the 5 Elements through Yoga, Ayurveda, Macrobiotic Nutrition and Counseling, Ayurvedic Yoga Massage and Chi Nei Tsang (Visceral Massage).
She has been practicing yoga for the last 15 years and teaching internationally since 2006. Educated and certified in the styles of Sivananada, Asthanga, Anusara, Advanced Hatha Yoga and Vinyasa, she combines all her knowledge from yoga, bodywork, holistic health and coaching to deliver an integral yoga education in all her trainings and courses.
Her ability to listen people through their movements, breath rhythms and nature cycles is what makes her a skillful yoga therapist, teacher and holistic health counselor. She offers a view on the human experience that is rich in mindful movement and committed in living in harmony with the cycles of Nature.
In 2009 she founded Swara Yoga School as a platform for sharing her teaching, insights and perspective about Yoga. Since 2009 Swara Yoga School has been running yoga teacher training programs, workshops and immersions in more than 20 countries and has a community of students from all over the world. Her vision is always to bring together a group of teachers and students that inspire each other, teach and learn together.
You can learn more about her work and see a detailed curriculum at www.spiral-growth.com
Hugo Abecassis
It was through an act of pure altruism that yoga entered the life and heart of Hugo Abecassis. His mother did yoga, but a long time had passed since she’d attended a class and Hugo wanted to motivate her to go back to doing it regularly.
Even though, in this first class, Hugo had no idea what he was doing he found his path. He even asked his teacher, who gave him a handkerchief for a pranayama exercise if he was supposed to blow his nose in it, which made the entire class laugh. But even with this, he felt at home.
Afterwards, Hugo tried countless methods of yoga. Ashtanga Vinyasa, Shivanada Yoga, Dynamic Yoga and Acro Yoga, among others. Hugo says he is “appreciative of every method, as long as it is well performed”. Currently, he practices more frequently the Iyengar method — a method that he considers a piece of art and an extraordinary legacy to yoga —, guaranteeing that “even though sometimes it may look like a very physical practice, with time it also becomes a way for us to know ourselves”.
His passion and dedication to yoga led him to learn more about it. In 2005, as a way to gather more knowledge for his own personal practice, he decided to do a teacher-training course. But teaching was something that happened by chance. “One day, my teacher asked me to take over a class at the last minute. I was kind of nervous but I took the chance and it went great (at least in my opinion). This was my first experience as a teacher. After continuing my yoga studies and teaching a lot of replacement classes, I later realized that I loved to teach: actually, I love to teach anything, but teaching yoga and seeing my students evolve is already a great reward for the work I do”, he says.
His dedication and commitment, something he learned at the Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute in Mysore, are the fundamental foundations of his practice. To his students, who are always on his mind, he tries to transmit these foundations, as well as the idea that what matters most is for them is to feel good about themselves and about those around them.
This teacher, whose dream is to practice with B. K. S. Yyengar and with Krishnamacharya, something that he knows will never happen, says he never wants to stop being a student. “I believe that if we all think like that and constantly leave our comfort zone, we contribute to the positive growth of Yoga”.
Hugo Abecassis is also an Ayurvedic therapist, Thai Massage therapist and a qualified osteopath and teaches in the 200 hours and 300 hours trainings with Swara Yoga School.
Amber Sawyer
A native of USA and relocated to Singapore since 2006, Amber has had a passion for moving the body from early childhood with gymnastics & dance. This love, combined with nearly 20 years of study & practice in the areas of Yoga, Ayurveda & Meditation, as well as a PhD in Biomedical Engineering in the field of stem-cell tissue repair, contribute to Amber’s unique perspective on healing & self-discovery through the combinatorial influence of scientific and ancient wisdoms.
As a way to find balance among the rigors of a PhD program, Yoga found Amber in 1999. The practice quickly became a way of life, a refuge, and a catalyst for incredible transformations and opportunities. In the years to follow, Amber began to study Ayurveda alongside her Biomedical Engineering program, finding the bridge between her Eastern and Western practices, and further deepening her love of Yoga.
She has studied directly under the tutelage of many Masters, learning to share Active Meditations (using sound & movement), as well as has been certified in more than 900 hours of Universal Yoga, Hatha Yoga & Yin Yoga, Prenatal/Postnatal Yoga & Mindful Birth, Elemental Yoga Therapy and 1650 hours of Ayurvedic Lifestyle Counseling. Among the wealth of trainings that Amber has completed, they include experiences with Krishnamarchya Yoga Mandiram, in the heart of the Anapurna Mountains of Nepal in remote monastic villages, 8 weeks of noble Silence and practice in a traditional ashram in India, mentorship with world renowned Ayurveda Acharyas and Vaidyars, pilgrimages to the feet of Masters, and personal study for more than a decade with Sannyasins and other Teachers. Amber also holds certification as a Level 2 Usui Shiki Ryoho Reiki Practitioner, Raw Food Chef and as a Birth Doula.
In 2009, Amber founded a community in the heart of Singapore known as Satsanga (www.singasatsanga.com) where she offered and organised weekly active meditation classes, yoga, kirtans, international retreats & community events. For more than 8 years, Amber dedicated to the blossoming of this community, holding space for conscious growth in this urban landscape. After the birth of her little one and the beautiful entry into motherhood, Amber shifted into her current offerings, which include mothering her star-baby, supporting her family, continued work with group immersions and retreats, festival participation & organisation and working on more individual basis through her new venture Embodied Elementals. This work is a holistic platform for empowering others to find their inner and outer harmony through a variety of practices including breathwork, nutrition, constitutional analysis, yoga, meditation and daily rhythms. Part of this dharma particularly focuses on empowering women to have a conscious pregnancy, birth experience and preparedness for motherhood.
Amber currently resides in Singapore while also traveling internationally, in partnership with her husband (and Little Yogini), to share dance, conscious movement, yoga, meditation, love, laughter and light world wide!
She is a senior teacher at the 200 hours and 300 hours yoga teacher trainings at Swara Yoga School.
For more information or to register, please contact:
Swara Yoga School