THE YOGA, HEALTH AND NATURE ASSOCIATION

We invite you to celebrate Life, in peace and harmony with Mother Nature

AIMS AND ACTIVITIES

The Yoga, Health and Nature Association is a non lucrative Spanish national association, that promotes the practice and study of asana (yogic physical exercises), pranayama (breathing exercises), body awareness, relaxation techniques, meditation, philosophy, psychology, anatomy and other topics applied to yoga.

This association invites you to visit us from abroad or from nearer to home, to take part in workshops in English or Spanish. We combine yoga with other anti-stress techniques such as: massage, enjoyment of areas of outstanding natural beauty and pure spring mountain waters.

These workshops enable personal development and give us the chance to make new friends, novel discoveries and to interchange opinions and knowledge. The idea of establishing intercommunication among participants from different backgrounds totally agrees with the essential spirit of yoga as union.

HOW THE ASSOCIATION WAS CREATED

There I was doing yoga, in the Castril Natural Park, under the protective shade of an enormous pine tree. I smelt its freshness, which filled my lungs with energy. I listened to the happy murmur of the Castril River, sparkling in the sun, and I sensed the silent company of the trout, observing the peacefulness of the evening. I could feel in deep harmony with nature around me. I breathed slowly into the breeze that caressed the blushing pink almond flowers and the green recently born spring buds. The yoga postures and breathing exercises had helped me to arrive at a vision of what unites the flora with the fauna, the sky with the water, and all of us with the natural world. This bond interconnects one with another by means of a delicate, almost imperceptible thread, similar to the spider’s web, which unless the sun shines on it, is never seen by the human eye.

The simplicity of this image was such that in the beginning it passed me by unnoticed. The routine tasks of everyday life enveloped me in frantic activity, living with little space to stop, breathe deeply and take a step back look at life straight in the eye.

However, each time I went out to the mountains in Castril Natural Park, this delicious experience of such peace came back and encouraged me to want to share it with others…this is why the national Association of Yoga, Health and Nature (Asociación de Yoga, Salud y Naturaleza) was born.

If you have practised any breathing exercise in yoga, your teacher will have explained that to increase the ´prana´ inside our bodies is to improve our health and wellbeing…

Now sit down beside the bubbling river and just breathe. Soon you will understand that ´prana´ is without doubt a source of vital energy without anybody having to tell you!

The mountains are so nourishing and revitalizing that here it is easy to return to our natural balance without any effort at all.

Alison Caldwell, President.

THE TEACHERS

We invite a variety of professional teachers, depending on the selected topics for each workshop. Also, we have:

Alison Caldwell, residing in Spain now for many years, has practised yoga since childhood. She is a certified Yoga Teacher with A.E.P.Y. (the Spanish National Association of Yoga Practicioners) www.aepy.org. She also graduated as a Yoga Instructor, studying with the Association of Yoga Sananda and as Yoga Teacher with the Viniyoga Internacional Association. She is qualified in chiromassage, is currently researching yoga therapeutics and is member of IYAT(International Association of Yogatherapists) www.iayt.org. She loves swimming and hiking in the heart of the countryside.

Julián García Martínez is a Viniyoga teacher, chiromassagist, sports monitor and monitor of nature andnvironmental education. He also loves practising whitewater canoeing, caving, absailing and mountain biking.

VINIYOGA

Viniyoga comes from T. Krishnamacharya and T.K.V. Desikachar. The term viniyoga is Sanskrit for ¨to differentiate, adapt and to apply in the appropriate way¨. Viniyoga adapts the practical techniques of yoga to each individual´s needs. The yoga sessions are carefully designed choreographies of dynamic and static poses which strengthen and stretch the body, quieten and clear the mind and stimulate the relaxation response. (seeWhat is yoga?)

T. Krishnamacharya was maestro to well known names in the current world of yoga such as his son, T.V.K. Desikachar, his brother-in-law, B.K.S Iyengar, Patabhi Jois and Indra Devi. Desikachar is the director of the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, web page: (www.kym.org) in Madras, India and author of several books on Viniyoga and on his father´s biography.

CHIROMASSAGE

It is a relaxing massage with a rebalancing effect on the skin and underlying fatty tissue, on the muscles and joints, the blood and lymphatic circulation and on the nervous, respiratory and digestive systems. (www.osteopatiaysalud.com).