SATURDAY - February 8th 2025

11:00am-1:30pm MASTERCLASS - Katonah Foundations: Asana + Pranayama

The Katonah practice is designed to awaken pieces of ourselves from the slumber of unconscious habits in order to access our sentient self. The use of technique rather than our personal impulses affords better function. Thus, it is technique that propositions us to change. We use measure rather than feelings to create a stable structure and as we do, we discover that our body was designed to to fit itself. In this masterclass we will move through the fundamentals of the Katonah Yoga asana practice and experience the power of pranayama to open up territory in our bodies for our spirit to move through it.

2pm-7pm 5 HOUR INTENSIVE - Katonah Body Reading

Reading a body, assessing a pose, interpreting where one is heading, is the art of seeing. Poses show propensities of behavior and how personal habits are articulated in the practice. When we look at a yoga pose, we reference the ideal form of it so that we have a template, a map, a criteria to look for. In this intensive we will set up the body on a grid to be deciphered as a map, read the feet as a fractal of the whole narrative, learn how to unearth chronic and acute physical issues and explore what to do with the information we discover in our body readings.

SUNDAY - February 9th 2025

11:00am-1:30pm MASTERCLASS - Katonah Home Practice

A home practice addresses the vision and virtue of personal health, wellbeing and long life. A home practice is a commitment to self-care, a ritualized modus operandi for one’s participation in a technical integration of mind, body and breath. Engaging in a home practice is a way of addressing the manner in which one personally organizes one’s self; developing a determined life, setting goals and following through. In this masterclass, we will explore how to develop, maintain and integrate a home practice.

2pm-7pm 5 HOUR INTENSIVE - Katonah Restorative & Adjustments

The Katonah approach to restorative yoga is meant to reshape a stressed out, uninformed or injured body, which helps to set up the conditions to redirect a life. Most injuries are the result of having set up unconscious patterns, both physically and emotionally, that are maladaptive. Injuries are opportunities in a wider exploration of restoration, homeostasis and longevity, to unearth that piece in each of us that is out of tune, disconnected, overworked or misaligned. Real and lasting change demands a new set of conditions, using formal techniques. In this intensive we will explore how to address injuries and use props and adjustments to set ourselves up for better function. Re-informing the body is never random, it is always technical! This intensive is for both teachers looking to assimilate restorative theory into their teaching, as well as students interested in immersing themselves in a restorative experience to more deeply profit from it.

TY WATSON BIO

Ty Watson is a certified Katonah Yoga teacher in New York City, an E-RYT 200 and Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider. He has taught classes, workshops and trainings all over the world in Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, New York and Cape Town. You can find him at The Studio in New York City where he spends his time teaching and drinking tea in the kitchen.

Having had a yoga and meditation practice since he was a teen, Ty incorporates a kaleidoscope of personal reference and banter in his teaching. From the esotericism of mountain climbing to what it means to use your yoga practice as a tool for self-cultivation, Ty’s ability to play with and integrate theoretical information underpins his teaching. He is passionate about the way we use language to communicate, reconcile a dilemma and tell a story. His teaching philosophy is centered around the use of a good metaphor that connects us to a universal idea, and that a teacher’s role is not to fix but to re-orient. He considers teaching part of living an artful life.

KATONAH YOGA ® is a syncretic Hatha yoga practice developed by Nevine Michaan of Katonah Yoga Center over 40 years. She and her teachers incorporate classical Hatha yoga with Taoist theory, geometry, magic, mythology, metaphor, and imagination — in a practical framework designed to potentiate personal and communal well-being. Framing the practice, maps of time and personal space are defined and refined. Themes using asana as origami, manipulating form for function, and developing a sense of personal measure are incorporated in Katonah Yoga practices. Katonah Yoga is organized around three principles of esoteric dialogue: all polarities are mediated by trinity; the universe has pattern, pattern belies intelligence; by virtue of repetition there is potential for insight. Disciplined techniques are organized for revelation through revolutions.