Yoga and Somatic Awareness

Louisa Raszyk

Yoga and somatic awareness is a somatic enquiry into the present moment – by cultivating our capacity to feel what is actually happening in the body through simple, accessible movements and shapes, the intelligence softens  and opens into a deeper consciousness. In doing so, we naturally become more intimate with life, more open to the present moment in all its diversity, more capable of intimacy with ourselves and others, and perhaps experience an easier acceptance of life’s constant changes.

Somatic Awareness (including developmental and fundamental movement) proposes  yoga posture practice as an enquiry into what is actually happening via a progressive sensitization of the body (vinyasa krama), going beyond superficial notions of strength-training and flexibility-training. Sensation-lead movement enquiry.

MY  EXPERIENCE

I am a Senior Dynamic Yoga Training Method teacher , practicing yoga and movement awareness since 1989 and teaching since 1998. My yoga teaching has always been influenced by my investigations in butoh dance and shiatsu, both of which are deep journeys into somatic awareness. I am also the founder of Red Earth Centre (Paris 2004) a “centre for global body investigation” – somatic enquiry – revolving around a core of somatic yoga, somatic movement and shiatsu.

I first encountered yoga in India in 1989. I was largely self taught, with a passionate daily practice until meeting Godfrey Devereux (www.dynamicyoga.com) in 1996. In the past I have also been a dedicated student of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and Iyengar Yoga, but the yoga I was teaching was always based on sensitivity which came out of my own experience. I couldn’t find a “yoga” that addressed that, I couldn’t find a yoga that recognized self-inquiry through sensation as the heart of Yoga posture practice, and that had a way to teach that through yoga posture. So I continued to teach in my own way, grounded in years of dedicated daily self practice.

So when Godfrey started to really form Dynamic Yoga into a step by step yoga training method based in sensation in the early 2000’s, I began to work more closely with this method. I have seen it evolve over the years into a clear method renowned for its integrity in the increasingly commoditised and superficial world of modern yoga practice. Being a pedagogy, and not a style, the Dynamic Yoga Training Method can be adapted if you wish, to any yoga practice form, it will protect your joints (yoga injury is now cited as one of the leading reasons for physiotherapeutic visits), and above all will perhaps lead you to trust that your own body, in this moment, expressing through its cacophony of sensation, is the only teacher there is.

I continue to research and train in sensory-based movement techniques, avidly following the developments in our understanding of such groundbreaking areas as fascia, biotensegrity, I have recently completed a three year training with International Movement Somatics. Polyvagal theory and developmental movement. I weave these developments into my practice and into my movement classes to give me an increasingly broad palette from which to instruct, according to the needs of the student.

I specialise in teaching somatic awareness individually and supporting students in developing their self practice. I teach classes and retreats internationally (in person and online), mostly in Paris, and in Verrières -Le -Buisson (Parisian region), in Australia and in Bali, Indonesia. I am also a shiatsu practitioner, dancer, and mother to two children.

TESTIMONIAL

“I have been doing a bit of yoga on and off for more than 10 years now.  More often not practicing than practicing.  Since I have started with Louisa at the Red Earth Centre, two years ago, I love her style of teaching and find myself practicing regularly.  Louisa is not only technically well trained in how to rejuvenate and relax the body and mind, but she is also intuitive in her practice which brings a warm ambiance to her class.  I am always amazed by how I feel with even the slightest adjustments in my poses corrected by her. It opens up a whole other level of understanding my own body which I wouldn’t have discovered or felt.  I always walk out of her class feeling great!”  – Mitzi, Paris

FOR ZOOM CLASSES DURING CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN, PLEASE SEE BLOGPOST

Group Class times  from September 2024 (classes open to all levels from beginner to teacher) :

Mondays 19H30 – 20H45 (see “reservations” on the French version of this site for link and booking)

Wednesdays 9h30 – 10h45 at 12, rue des Couteaux, Verrières-Le-Buisson 91370, and via Zoom simultaneously (see “Reservations” on the French version of this site for booking and link)  ON-LINE

Private classes :  by appointment in Paris (Tuesdays and Thursdays), La Maisonette Verrières Le Buisson (Monday – Wednesdays) (80€/hour) , and by Skype/Zoom in French or English (€75/hour).

RETREAT Villa Boreh resort, Bali, September 15th-21st  2023, €1300 (all included except flights)

Contact : 06 10 89 76 04/   redearthcentre@gmail.com