Yin Yoga – Stillness & Presence
Workshop
with
Naomi Mark
In the frame of Sommer Tanz 2022
Simply put, Yin and Yang represent oppositional forces that complete and create each other. When Yin and Yang change into one another, movement is created, night turns into day, breathing in turns into breathing out, spring turns into summer, fire into dust.
Every movement in the body and outside of it is a result of this change. In this workshop we will explore the qualities of Yin. We will slow down, creating a quiet space where we can recognize and be with what is happening when we do less. We will stay close to the ground, meditate and hold different yoga poses longer than we might be used to, expanding our capacity to stay with our physical sensations and softly open up to what arises when we are relatively still. In yin yoga we work towards radically including whatever comes up in practice, the pleasant and the unpleasant feelings, thoughts or ideas. So instead of choosing what we would rather feel or fixing what we think is embarrassing or wrong, we can become familiar with what shows up in our experience, integrate it and see it change.
This workshop is open to people with or without a yoga and meditation background.
Naomi Mark
Naomi Mark, born in Israel, has been in the world of dance and movement research from a young age. She participated in several dance schools in Israel and in 2013 completed the dance intensive program at Tanzfabrik Berlin. Along with dancing, Naomi started practicing Yoga in 2005 while working for Physicians for Human Rights and being involved in a range of political struggles, mainly with prisoners and refugees' rights in Israel. “At that time, working under very stressful conditions, I discovered the practice of yoga and the practice of cultivating a sense of well-being and health toward my body and towards my heart. On different levels, I feel like yoga saved me by giving me a safe space to quiet down and to find clarity and strength. After moving to Berlin I have decided to try and give to others what I have gotten and am still getting from the yoga practice.” Today Naomi is teaching Vinyasa and Yin yoga in several studios in Berlin.