by Vicki Sidley

Last year the Yantra Yoga department of ATIF ran an online course in English for the world-wide audience. Yantra Yoga from A to Z comprises the complete open level of Yantra Yoga. The very first course of this nature was held in Spanish, (now running for the second time), and then in Italian (also due to run again).

The English version ran for 11 months, from May 2023 to April 2024. It consisted of monthly Saturday in-depth workshops of one of the ‘modules’ of Yantra Yoga that generally lasted 3 hours. It was an international endeavor. Each month, a different authorized teacher from around the world would teach a workshop introducing new movements/pranayamas. Then at the end of the session the teacher guided the group in practicing what had been learned.

In addition to the monthly in-depth presentations there was a weekly 1.5 hour practice session, guided by Luke Karamol.  As the months progressed, naturally more and more of the practice was included in each session, until at the very end, we managed to practice a session that included all the preliminaries and all 5 series of the basic yantras as well as the pranayama for the 2nd Series. This was an accomplishment that required a certain commitment and dedication from the students in attendance.

The teaching team was composed of a Yantra instructor who also has the role of project manager, in this case, Luke Karamol, who also leads the weekly sessions, a team of Yantra instructors from around the world and a Tibetan medicine practitioner.  The 2023-2024 team comprised nine guest teachers; Matthew Schmookler, Vicki Sidley, Haimavati Nakai, Alejandra Krasnogor, Martin Fernandez Cufre, Emily Coleing, Sean Read,  Leticia Recepter and Carolina Mingolla.

Here is what Luke has written about the 2023 -2024 course:

“I believe this course was a success. It demonstrated a different pathway for presenting yantra yoga to a varied group of sincere students across cultures and time zones. Half of the students (at least those who completed the survey) were not in the Dzogchen Community and many were learning yantra yoga for the first time. Historically, we have presented yantra yoga over the course of a weekend (or at least that’s how I had conducted courses at Dondrubling) with regular ongoing classes that have seldom produced results as great as those I experienced in the ‘A to Z’. Their dedication to learning yantra yoga was inspiring and their progress quite evident. Often, over the course of the 13 months, students expressed their gratitude of being able to learn from us, each instructor presenting the same profound material, elucidating different aspects, or bringing greater awareness to parts of the practice with his or her own distinctive voice.

I sincerely feel the ‘A to Z’ online structure provides a unique way to share the yantra yoga practice in a collaborative way. It proved that we could offer a profound, detail oriented, and nuanced approach that both supports students’ growth in learning yantra yoga and conveys the breadth of the practice. The monthly in-depth classes in combination with weekly practice provided an excellent rhythm and a crucible to forge the knowledge by offering new material along with consistency of regular practice.”

Below is some of the feedback from an online survey given to the students.

  • “I learned to observe if my breathing is relaxed. Now I can notice when it becomes constricted due to stress, and I can make it smooth and relaxed deliberately.”
  • “I really enjoyed learning a practice that’s this precise and detailed. The mental effort and mind/body coordination that this training required (and requires in ongoing practice) is beneficial in other areas of my life — there’s a degree of patience I had to develop that’s been helpful overall.”
  • “I’ve sometimes found myself falling into coordination of breath and movement during ordinary daily activities; I can feel how, when my practice is consistent, now it expands its presence into the rest of my day; realizing the depth of practice of the teachers within this tradition.”

Based on the success of last year’s course the Yantra Yoga department has decided on an encore of the project, starting October 6th, this time running one year. This coming year the project manager for the English version is Honza Dolensky.

The guest teachers are: Ilaria Faccioli, Oana Marcu, Vicki Sidley, Elerin Uibu, Angelica Siedlecki, Marija Bajic-Jovanovic, Logan Mikyö Clark, Alessandra Policreti, Fijalka Turzikova, Luke Karamol, Nataly Nitsche, Dina Priymak and Maxim Leshchenko.

All ‘A to Z’ courses are open to the public. You can share this info with anyone that might be interested. Invite your friends!

This program is organized by the Yantra Yoga department of ATIF, with Nataly Nitsche as lead project manager, under the guidance of Laura Evangelisti and Fabio Andrico.  The hope is that the program will evolve into forms that provide even greater access to this precious teaching, and continue to benefit the lives of all who avail themselves of the opportunity to learn this magnificent practice.

For more information about the program, please write to [email protected].