01 Jul Telluride Yoga Fest 2015: Tias & Surya Little
Please scroll down to the bottom of the post to hear an interview with yoga instructor Tias Little.
Tickets/passes for the 8th annual Telluride Yoga Festival here.
Sunday, June 21, 2015, the world turned upside down – in downward facing dog. That Sunday was the International Day of Yoga, the brainchild of the controversial Indian prime minister Narenda Modi, whose professed aim was to restore national pride and health to the country of origin.
Coordinated by India’s ministry of yoga and traditional medicine, Yoga Day demonstrations were held around the world, including in Paris, Beijing, Osaka, Japan, Seoul, South Korea and New York. In all, 175 countries joined Modi in tree pose and a litany of other yoga exercises or asanas. There was even an app featuring the protocol du jour.
Tias Little, lead presenter, Telluride Yoga Festival 2015
Yoga’s evolution is linked with that of Hinduism. The word itself is linguistically related to “yoke” and first appears in the Rig Veda, a sacred Hindu text from around the 15th-century B.C., to describe a chariot yoked to horses in which a felled war hero might ascend to the sun.
As the tradition of meditation and exercise developed among Indian ascetics between A.D. 200 and 400, “yoga” took on the new meaning of reining in body and mind to rise above wordily concerns.
Fast forward to the 19th century. Swami Vivekananda, a Hindu reformer, made a huge splash after presenting yoga to the West as a scientifically-based philosophy.
Since then, interpretations of yoga have multiplied.
Sample the pu pu platter of ideas and approaches on display at the 8th annual Telluride Yoga Festival, Thursday, July 9 – Sunday, July 12. The event hosts over 40 teachers, scholars and musicians, plus meditation, nutrition and lifestyle coaches. Among the top-tier presenters are Tias and Surya Little, happily returning to the lineup after a two-year absence.
The Sanskrit word “prajna” (from”pra” or before and the root “jna,” to know) can be variously translated as “wisdom,” “insight” ” profound understanding,” “discernment,” and “know-how.” In the Buddhist tradition, prajna connotes true or transcendental wisdom, one of the highest attainments of practice. In contrast to mere brain-mind ratiocination, prajna is a knowing that permeates the cells of our bodies.
Prajna Yoga is an holistic approach to practice and study that incorporates anatomy, yoga and Buddhist meditation, Iyengar and Ashtanga principles of structure, alignment, and movement, diet, and the language of yoga, Sanskrit. At their Santa Fe studio, Prajna Yoga, the Littles celebrate the universal wisdom inherent in all things.
Surya Little
Tias Little was hardwired to know all that he knows profoundly. His mother Susan Little taught Iyengar and, in 1984, she began instructing Tias in that therapeutic lineage.
Tias combines the techniques of yoga that stem from the teaching of B.K.S Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. He specializes in yoga and anatomy, blending both Western and Eastern perspectives. He is also is a licensed massage therapist and his somatic studies have included in-depth training in cranial-sacral therapy. His practice and teaching is influenced by the work of Ida Rolf, Moshe Feldenkreis, and Thomas Hanna.
Tias is also long-time student of Tsoknyi Rinpoche in the Dzogchen practice of Tibetan Buddhism. He is trained in Vipassana meditation and Zen meditation.
Tias earned a masters degree in Eastern Philosophy from St. John’s College Santa Fe in 1998. He is also author of three books: “The Thread of Breath,” “Meditations on a Dewdrop” and the forthcoming ‘Yoga of the Subtle Body.”
And Tias offers on-line classes through YogaGlo.
At Yoga Fest, lessons from Tias Little’s classes include ways to explore the pathways of the muscle, bones, and nerves in order to bring greater wakefulness to the body-mind connection. The all-day intensive is Thursday, July 9, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.. The theory: we do not do poses for the sake of the pose, but for the quality of attention within.
At Cultivating the Core-Bone Marrow, arm and leg balances help build core stability in the bones. (Friday, July 10, 8 – 10 a.m., all levels.)
Roof to the Sky-The Cranium in Yoga, Tias guides students to release the delicate structures around the skull including the neck, jaw, ears, and eyes and the “master” glands inside the skull that govern hormonal and neurological flow. The approach supports pratyahara, the relaxation of sensory awareness. (Saturday, July 11, 3 – 5 p.m., all levels)
In Turning the Body into a Garland, Tias prepares the body for this delightful pose, which requires elasticity in the ankles, knees, hips and lower back. (Sunday, July 12, 11 – 1 p.m., all levels)
Surya Little’s path includes parallel studies in yoga and nutrition.
In 1987, she began her studies in spiritual healing while living in Brienz, Switzerland at the Hairakhandi Babaji Ashram. Surya traveled to the foothills of the Himalayas of North India to practice bhakti and karma yoga within the community of her spiritual teacher, Hairakhand Babaji. Inspired to study food and healing and yoga as a way of life, in 1989 Surya studied with Dr. Vasant Ladd at the Ayurveda Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico.She then moved to New York City in 1990 where she delved into macrobiotic healing and later taught cooking classes at Gulliver’s Living and Learning Center (currently called Integrative Nutrition) run by Joshua Rosenthal and Marcie Zaroff
Surya began her practice of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga with Eddie Stern at the Yoga Shala for two years. In 1992, she worked in Ryaad, Saudi Arabia, where she cooked macrobiotic food and taught yoga to members of the Royal Family.
Currently Surya co-directs Prajna Yoga with Tias, teaching dynamic yoga, therapeutic yoga, cooking classes, and nutrition.
At the Telluride Yoga Fest, Surya Little teaches Twisting from the Inside Out, Friday, July 10, 3 – 5 p.m., all levels; and Balancing from Head to Toe, with the focus on the structures closest to the ground – the feet in standing balances and the hands or forearms in arm balances, Sunday, July 12, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
To learn more from Tias Little, click the “play” button and listen to our conversation.
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