SEMINAR SERIES - THE LEARNING PROCESS
with Abbie Galvin

Thursdays July 7th, July 14th, July 21st, July 28th (2-4pm EST)
Price: $100

All hours bankable toward your Katonah Yoga® Certification.

The mind is transformed and engaged by learning something new. Learning anything requires time, technique and repetition. Malcolm Gladwell posits that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill, which might seem daunting if it’s something that’s not going to play a huge role in our lives. But to learn something new, just for the joy of it, is said to require an investment of a mere 20 hours, averaging out to 45 minutes a day for a month, an emotionally challenging yet practically doable endeavor. Learning for joy alone can enhance perception, sharpen memory and hone cognitive function. The goal of this type of learning is competence rather than mastery and when we learn anything new, the learned material isn’t as important as the process itself.

Join us for a month long workshop where we will experiment with 20 hours of learning in order to forge new neural pathways and develop our “crystallized intelligence,” the ability to draw on one’s stored knowledge and process more complex emotions. As we move through the month, making our individual efforts, we will check in weekly as a group to explore the tenets of: being a dilettante, having an unencumbered beginners mind, how our brain is being affected, the emotional barriers to frustration and the myriad resistances that will inevitably sneak up on us.

Come prepared with something to learn. It can be something you’ve never done before, something you’ve done in the past or something you’d like to improve upon. Choose something that you can realistically dedicate 45 minutes a day to practicing. I for one (Abbie) will be singing, but one could play an instrument, speak a language, draw, paint, write, dance, cook, bake, knit, meditate, play chess, make a dress, study sign language, train a dog or develop a home practice, just to name a few. We look forward to welcoming you all for a naive optimism that comes with novelty, a little insecurity, a willingness to look foolish and the permission to ask obvious questions.

WEEK 1 - SETTING UP THE MAP (Thursday July 7th)
When we divide a task up into its parts, we can start to “crack the code” and reveal a wealth of implicit information, not just about the map, but also our internal experience of moving through its territory. Our first session will be spent anchoring ourselves within the repetition and constancy of using a template. We will discuss the idea of neurogenesis, how we can change ourselves by making new neural connections in the brain, as well as how to get out of our own way (our habits, procrastination, resistances) as we attempt to summit our individual “learning curves.”

WEEK 2 - MAGIC SQUARING THE CREATIVE PROCESS (Thursday July 14th)
In our second session we connect our learning experiment to the Magic Square, looking at how the map of the Magic Square mirrors the way we move through the archetypal creative process. We will discuss the emotional barrier of frustration and have a chance to share our personal progress, where we're stuck and how our other daily practices can help. We will also practice pranayama to whip up, pique, and employ our imagination.

WEEK 3 - THE WHEEL OF ACHIEVEMENT (Thursday July 21st)
Our third session will reference the wheel of achievement meditation. We will explore the idea of polarity as we transform the Magic Square into the 8 spokes of the Heavenly Circuit - our 8 Attitudes of Achievement. We are everything we have done and, because we are more than the sum of our parts, we are everything we have the potential to do. Everything we do, every skill that we have mastered, vibrates in time and pulls out another piece of ourselves. Other practices enhance and inform the ones we are currently working on. We will do a short physical practice, pulling from the home practice and meditating on the wraps for rapture.

WEEK 4 - PRESENTING WHAT WE LEARNED (Thursday July 28th)
In our final session, we will discuss our creative process. We will explore and discuss the nuggets of wisdom from each of our processes, where our resistance got the better of us, where we slid back, struggled over familiar ground, where we were lucky, confident and where we feel we have triumphed during the course of the 20 hours. 

Join Abbie Galvin LIVE on zoom for a series of 4 sessions. You will receive a zoom link via email one hour before the start of each session. Recordings available upon request. Email info@thestudio.yoga after the session to request.