Sign Up

Dates
Saturday 06/07/2025 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Saturday 06/07/2025 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm
Sunday 06/08/2025 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Sunday 06/08/2025 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm

Pricing
$200.00 Doug Keller - All Sessions - June 2025
$60.00 Doug Keller - Sat 1:00pm - June 2025
$60.00 Doug Keller - Sat 3:30pm - June 2025
$60.00 Doug Keller - Sun 1:00pm - June 2025
$60.00 Doug Keller - Sun 3:30pm - June 2025

For co-op members, the discounted fees are $180 for the full weekend and $50 for a single session. Not a co-op member? Learn more and join today.

We're thrilled to welcome Doug Keller back for another Therapeutic Wisdom of Yoga weekend at Circle Yoga. This is a hybrid event with participants joining both in person or online. All participants will receive a high-quality video recording of the session(s) for which they registered. We recommend that you register early if you plan to attend in person; in-studio space is limited, and Doug's workshops at Circle Yoga typically fill. Can't make it in person? Sign up to receive the recordings. Each session will include presentation, practice, and time for questions.

Doug has traveled worldwide offering yoga workshops and teacher trainings for more than 20 years. Whether he's teaching about asana, yoga philosophy, yoga therapy, or pranayama, his approach is clear, accessible and full of insight for practitioners at all levels of experience. Doug is a highly respected teacher in the yoga community. He is also humble and kind, creating a supportive and encouraging learning environment.

*************

Saturday, June 7 — Fascial Fitness and Healthy Aging in Yoga

The center of vitality and renewal in our body lies in the matrix of our fascia — and yoga practice is really about keeping it healthy in all of its functions, using some principles for deriving even greater benefit from your practice. Each session will explore the role of fascia in your health, touching especially upon how a particular kind of work with your muscles is not only more effective for stretching and strengthening, but has anti-inflammatory benefits that provide a balance to our natural aging process — and how the goal in practice is not flexibility, but rather elasticity and nourishment of our tissues.

Session 1: Saturday, 1:00-3:00pm
The Lower Body: Our ‘Achilles’ Heel’ in Yoga

Our approaches to ‘stretching’ in yoga emphasizes flexibility in our muscles, but ignores elasticity in our tendons. This is especially true in our lower body, where we have long tendons and spring-like fascia that are the source of much of our power in movement.

When we neglect the health of our tendons, our habits in yoga become literally our ‘Achilles Heel,’ leading not only to problems such as Achilles tendon injury, plantar fasciitis and ankle problems, but knee problems as well.

We’ll explore approaches to stretching in yoga that emphasize greater elasticity and rebound that are not only more effective for achieving greater flexibility, but literally put a ‘spring’ in your step. We’ll even touch upon how the ideas we incorporate into our yoga relate to improving our gait, for greater health in our feet, knees, and hips.

Session 2: Saturday, 3:30-5:30pm
The Upper Body: Back Health Through Functional Connection with Our Arms

We often disconnect our efforts at shoulder flexibility from our work with our low back in yoga, and miss out on many of the benefits that the connection has to offer. The functional connection through the fascia is actually key to the health of the low back and our discs, as well as reduced inflammation and pain.

This session will explore this connection with simple, mindful twisting that connects the arms and shoulders to the low back in all-levels poses, improving shoulder freedom as well as low back health and mobility — and some benefits for the neck too!

**************

Sunday, June 8 — Deepen Your Connection to the Breath: Mudra and Drishthi in Yoga

‘Mudra’ usually doesn’t receive the attention it deserves in yoga because we tend to limit our ideas of mudra to symbolic hand gestures. But in the original texts of hatha yoga, nearly all of the physical aspects of practice, from asana to meditation, were considered forms of mudra. The Sanskrit term ‘mudra’ literally refers to the aspects of practice that ‘draw forth’ (‘rati’) our inner bliss (‘mud’). The dimension of mudra is both practical and essential in yoga. This includes ‘drishthi,’ or the gaze of the eyes.

These two sessions will explore the practicality and accessibility of mudra and drishthi in connection with the breath. Mudra has many dimensions in its applications, including Ayurveda and influence upon the ‘elements’ that influence our health in Samkhya philosophy. We’re going to focus on the connection to breath and pranayama practices, even leading to ‘hands-free’ nadi shodhana!

Session 1: Sunday, 1:00-3:00pm
Mudra and the ‘Circuitry’ of the Breath

This session will involve experimentation with the practical and tangible connections between the hands and the breath, through the ‘circuitry’ that can be understood in terms of the nadis, or the fascia. The sheer number of mudras taught in different modalities of practice can be overwhelming: we’ll focus on some simple and memorable sets that we can associate with pranayama practices.

Along with this experiential introduction to mudra, the session will consist of the fundamental pranayama practices combined with mudra, along with some meditations.

Session 2: Sunday, 3:30-5:30pm
Adding the Power of the Gaze or ‘Drishthi’ in Pranayama and Meditation

The gaze or ‘drishthi’ of the eyes adds a powerful dimension to pranayama and meditation, and exerts an influence over the flow of the breath through the nostrils and associated ‘nadis.’ We’ll look at the practical and profound health benefits of directing the breath mindfully through the nostrils (and alternatives for when the nose is blocked or stuffy), particularly for issues of blood and circulation — and how drishthi is a useful tool for ‘hands-free’ work with the ‘nadis.’ Drishthi, even with the eyes closed, is a powerful tool for steadying the mind in combination with the breath, and for shifting our mental state in meditation.

In this session, we’ll continue with exploring pranayamas combined with drishthi as well as mudra. And we’ll move into meditative practices in which actions of the eyes, face, and breath are themselves considered ‘mudra’ associated with deeper and spontaneous meditative states — such as ‘Shambhavi Mudra’ and ‘Khechari Mudra. This will include touching upon simple focus on the chakras with the support of mudra and drishthi as tools for meditation.

Some prior experience with yoga is recommended.

*************

Refund Policy
If you need to cancel your registration for this special weekend with Doug Keller, a refund will be provided minus a 20% administrative fee if you cancel at least 1 week before the workshop. No refunds will be given within 1 week of the workshop. Send refund requests in writing to support@circleyoga.com.

Doug Keller

Doug Keller’s background reflects a lifelong commitment to the vast field of yoga. After receiving degrees in philosophy from Georgetown and Fordham University and teaching philosophy at a college level, he pursued a practical experience of yoga at the ashram Gurudev Siddha Peeth in India — which in turn also led him to the practice of hatha yoga as part of his overall experience of yoga.

From years of study, practice and teaching, Doug has produced widely used and highly respected books on asana, yoga as therapy, pranayama and yoga philosophy, and he teaches hatha yoga workshops and trainings in both North America and Europe.

Doug was a regular columnist for Yoga International Magazine for three years, and has also written on therapeutic topics for Yoga Journal. His popularity as a teacher comes from his ability to deepen people’s experience of yoga through clear, simple and direct instructions that are easy to practice and remember. And he does it with lightness and light.