Where: Spring House / 10 Spring Place / London / NW5 3BH (a big beautiful sunny studio in Kentish Town)
When: Saturday 17 - Sunday 18 August 2019
Schedule: Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 6pm
What to bring: comfortable clothes for moving, yoga mat, and paper + pen are all helpful.
Cost: $795. Note: to use a major credit card including Visa, MasterCard, Amex or Discover, select the "Check Out" button. To use any card you like, debit or credit, just select the PayPal option and click "Pay with credit or debit card!" Some banks require that you telephone for authorization before payment is accepted. Please note once a reservation is made, the total training amount is owed, and all payments are non-refundable.
Our program is backed by mind-body medicine pioneer Dr. Deepak Chopra, and Chair of Neurology at Harvard, and Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Rudolph Tanzi. Strala is also a Registered Yoga School (RYS) with Yoga Alliance Professionals, and this course counts for continuing education.
Strala was created by Tara Stiles, drawing on her background in classical ballet and choreography, as well as her long-time personal practice in yoga. Tara trained with Paul Taylor Dance Company choreographer and dancer Eileen Cropley, and began her yoga study in the 1990s with her ballet teacher, Rory Foster of American Ballet Theater.
The science and movement of Strala is also guided by Strala co-founder Mike Taylor. Mike studied mind-body medicine at Harvard, and complementary medicine at Oxford. He has practiced Eastern movement and healing, including tai chi and qi gong, for 30 years.
Our Strala School uses yoga, tai chi, and traditional Chinese and Japanese medicine, to help people release stress, heal themselves, and move powerfully through their lives.
Our program is backed by mind-body medicine pioneer Dr. Deepak Chopra, and Chair of Neurology at Harvard and Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Rudolph Tanzi.
All our trainings have a unique curriculum that’s different from what’s covered in other 200 and 500 hour programs. So whichever course you pick, what you learn will be all new approaches, practices, and skill-sets, and makes a nice continuation from any previous studies, without any repetition.
Helping people release stress and tension from their bodies and minds, learn to move with grace and coordination through all kinds of challenge, and heal all kinds of injuries and ailments is important work. You're empowering everyone you reach to become creators of their own destiny, on the level of their health, and their whole life. It's a wonderful thing to share.
People are leading Strala all around the world following our Leadership and Advanced Leadership courses. You gain a unique set of skills, for living and sharing this way of being, moving, and healing, that people love everywhere you go.
With Strala, your yoga will transform into a moving meditation that cultivates a radiantly strong, connected, healthy, and inspired body and mind from the inside out.
Our courses give the tools you need to become the leader you’re meant to be, to yourself, those nearest you, or to millions of people around the world.
Learning to move with ease in your body and life is an extremely rewarding challenge. It gives you inexhaustible energy, and tremendous physical and life ability. Best of all, it gives you a radiant, happy, and inspired you. From here, you get to support other people in finding their own way, and creating their own inspiring lives.
People mostly respond to how you are, far more even than what you say. So we begin by getting into your own way of being and moving through yoga, as practice for how you want to be and move in your life.
We have two whole days together for a nice immersion in how to move with grace and ease. When you move with coordination, your body and mind can stay relaxed, even in the midst of challenge. From relaxed, our energy flows easily, we’re able to feel, and can move creatively and inspiringly wherever we go. This is everything we need, to go everywhere we want.
When we move without coordination, we have to use force and tension to get where we’re going. This disconnects us from feeling, blocks our energy, and triggers a stress response in our bodies. We become chemically less able to see the world around us, and the possibilities within us. We work much harder, to accomplish much less. We might be able to achieve some things by force and tension, but it never feels good, and it’s not sustainable.
It’s important to find a better way, so we are able to move easily, gracefully, through everything. Drop the stress, leave boundaries behind, and accomplish far more while feeling wonderful, every step of the way.
Introduction. An overview of Being, Moving and Healing.
Approach. How to create our best yoga, through Breath, Feeling, and Natural Movement.
Breath Body Connection. Our movement is guided and fueled by our breath. Every inhale lifts and expands. Every exhale moves you further. This oceanic experience allows your body to go along for the ride, creating space for lightness and ease in your experience.
Feeling. Slow down and breath deep enough to feel, believe that what you feel is worth responding to, and respond. Your connection to feeling and intuition allows you to move into exactly what you need in each moment.
Process: The Principles of Natural Movement. How to accomplish far more, with far less effort, in everything you do. We begin with our breath, connect to our feeling, and move from our middle. With easy, natural movements, we can progress far beyond pose goals, and dive into the process of getting to know our bodies and minds.
Practice: Hard Things Easy Workshop. Learn to handle challenge in an easygoing way. Drop the stress and struggle from your body and mind, and use the principles of natural movement to make the impossible possible.
Healing: Connection, Touch and Support. How to create a supportive, enabling, and healing relationship with yourself, and with others.
More Practice: 4 classes, 2 each day. All of our trainings are very practical. We’re not just talking about all of this – we’re going to do it together. So we have plenty of real class time for practice, exploration, and making what you want real in your everyday life.
Our 2-Day Intensive Training gives a good introduction to Strala, with a first focus on your own practice of being and moving. And of course, you always give what you have for yourself, in your own practice and life. So people begin sharing what they learn in these 2-day intensives, everywhere they go.
We also provide longer 200+hour Leadership Training, and 300+Hour Advanced Leadership Training, which covers more breadth and depth than the intensives. This includes comprehensive guidance in approaches and practices for movement, with focus on releasing stress, creating connection and harmony in your body and mind, overall health and nutrition, injuries, diagnosis, healing.. These longer courses also give more time for building confidence and competence, through guided practice and feedback with the group.
All our trainings have a unique curriculum that’s different from what’s covered in other 200 and 500 hour programs. It works well to go in any order you like, and whichever course you pick, what you learn will be all new approaches, practices, and skill-sets, and makes a nice continuation from any previous studies, without any repetition.
Strala is part of the Yoga Alliance Professionals, and they certify our 200+Hour and 300+Hour programs. They don't certify shorter programs, although our standards and approach are the same, and they count our intensives toward continuing education.
We joined this alliance because they're working to evolve and adopt much higher standards than their American counterpart. They don't think all trainings should have uniform generic content, led by people without much experience or practical ability. Instead, they're looking to evolve certification that supports the best leaders in the world, to share what they know. This is important to us.
Some employers look for alliance certification, but it's worth remembering that getting a job doesn't have so much to do with alliances, and YA in America particularly is just a marketing organization. It’s not able to provide quality standards, or exams for qualification like medical school. So just like any kind of work, getting a job relates mostly to being excellent at what you do, and lining up well with the person who is hiring.
People are leading Strala all around the world following these trainings, in all kinds of places - including independent studios, gyms, health clubs, community centers, dance studios, apartment complexes, hotels, and even their living rooms. There are so many opportunities out there, and Strala connects especially well with a very wide range of people. This makes it easy both to find and create your own work.
Of course it takes time and practice to get really good at anything - much more than a few weeks or months of training. So long after our core time is complete, Tara and Mike remain available to help everybody keep progressing. We want everyone to be really good at this! It's why we do what we do.
It’s in our minds. Strala psychology is extremely expansive, freeing, creative, intuitive, never stuck.
It’s in our bodies. We’re everything we are – body, mind and spirit, all one whole – and we care for all of it happily & intuitively.
It’s in our world without rules or “correct” ways. It’s people finding their own ways into their own bodies, and into a world without limits.
Tara Stiles is the founder of Strala. Strala is practiced in more than 100 countries, and thousands of people are leading Strala in studios, gyms, and schools worldwide. Even more Strala training graduates bring what they learn to their office, team, healing practice, and across all of life. The mission we share is to help people accomplish far more, through softening and connecting with our creativity and purpose.
Tara has authored several best-selling books including Slim Calm Sexy Yoga, Yoga Cures, Make Your Own Rules Diet, Strala Yoga, and Guiding Strala, all translated and published in several languages. She has been profiled by The New York Times, Times of India, The Times (UK), and featured in most major national and international magazines. Harvard profiled Tara‘s work in a case study, and she has spoken with students at Harvard and New York University about her experience, and approaches to creativity and leadership.
Tara supports The Alliance for a Healthier Generation and the American Heart Association initiative to combat childhood obesity, as well as BOKS, which together are bringing Strala classes to more than 30,000 schools around the United States and Canada.
Tara studied classical dance with ABT Principal Rory Foster, and choreography with Paul Taylor original member and world renowned master Eileen Cropley. She is married to Strala co-founder Mike Taylor.
Mike Taylor the co-founder of Strala, and our resident healer. He studied mind-body medicine at Harvard, and complementary medicine at Oxford. Mike has practiced Eastern movement and healing, including tai chi and qi gong, for more than 30 years.
In his younger years, Mike challenged centuries of reasonable and well-tested martial traditions in hundreds of competitions, by applying unruly imagination to a world where rules were unbreakable. His record established the strength of finding your own way in your own body, rather than copying the techniques of other people’s traditions. As he got older, he continued on to medical applications of the mind-body connection in university. After running into walls with standard medical practice in the U.S. and England, Mike left his healthcare roots. The internet was just getting started, so he joined a web company, and then founded a few more.
Through Strala, Mike has found his way back to health care done right: helping people let go of stress in their bodies and minds, and become their own best caregivers and creators. Mike climbs mountains and explores the backcountry on ski, snowshoe, and foot in his spare time.
$795 USD deposit reserves your spot, and is the complete amount due.
Note: open enrollment will close when full. It’s a good idea to reserve early, our trainings fill completely.
All payments are final, and once a reservation is made, the total training amount is owed. This payment is non-refundable. Admission to training is solely at Strala’s discretion.
All of our trainings have people from a wide variety of backgrounds and experience. Some are relative beginners, some are long-time practicers and teachers. Some want to teach, and some want to progress with their own yoga. We’re lucky to have this rich diversity, it makes wonderful ground for real-world learning.
We provide a Strala Intensive Training Certification, upon successful completion.
Strala Yoga is a Registered Yoga School (RYS) with Yoga Alliance Professionals. Our 200+Hour Leadership and 300+Hour Advanced Leadership Trainings are registered by the Yoga Alliance Professionals; YAP doesn’t register shorter programs, but we follow the same standards, and continuing education credit is available. Your intensive training time also counts toward your practice hours for our longer 200+Hour and 300+Hour Trainings.
We are able to place qualified guides in partner gyms, studios, and locations around the globe.
You can read more here about certification, alliances, and qualification to lead.
We have a library of classes and trainings led by Tara and Mike that’s available online, and we add new videos pretty regularly here.
In addition, we have a Strala Online Training Course available now, that provides substantial breadth and depth for carrying this approach and practice into your life and leading. It’s a good way to prepare for or review following our intensive, Ready-to-Lead, and Advanced Leadership courses, and also gives wonderful ground for ongoing progress from wherever you are, if you’re not able to join us yet in person.
Ultimately it’s not just the certificate that matters, it’s being great at what you do. We’re here to help.
Check out our FAQ & Resources sections below, and email us at Info@StralaYoga.com
Q: When and where are Strala trainings?
A: You can find our training schedule and lots of other great information here.
Q: Are there any pre-requirements for training with Strala?
A: All our trainings have people from a wide range of backgrounds and experience. Some are relatively new to yoga and just want to jump in, some are long-time practicers exploring the connection between their yoga and the rest of life, and some are teachers wanting to bring the ease, freedom and expansiveness of Strala into their leading practice. The diversity matches well with real life, and makes great ground for training!
Q: What’s the time breakdown for your 200+Hour Leadership Training?
A: Strala Trainings follow an adult-learning model, which combines structured and unstructured time, with focus on practical application. This works well for people’s learning process, and counts toward your 200+hours.
All contact time with our faculty adds up, above the core training hours. Some people are at the studio a great deal of time every single day, so they get more hours in a more concentrated timeframe. Some people spread their time with us over a longer period. Both approaches work fine, we’re here to support what’s best for each person.
In addition, each person will spend a good amount of time in classes, both with Tara and Mike, as well as online for people who don’t have every day with us. The online component can include our classes, workshops, and trainings, and this is great to do before training as preparation, and after training as ongoing review.
On top of this, there are several study and practice items (outlined in the welcome material) that you can do in small groups and on your own, supported by our faculty. Some people concentrate this effort during the training, and some people begin early, and continue for several months after our core component is complete.
Strala follows a graduate school rather than grade school approach, so we’re here to support rather than police people’s time. Much more than a certificate, the point here is to become really good at what you do! This takes some ongoing time, and we remain available to help people keep developing on the right track, and specialize in the topics that are most interesting to them.
Q: What’s the difference between your longer 200+Hour and 300+Hour Trainings and the Intensive Trainings?
A: Both trainings focus on applied rather than theoretical yoga: not much time on academic study of mythology, ancient texts or languages – and substantial focus on hands-on direct work with leading, touch, health, and healing. Both trainings cover the same general topics.
The main difference is we have a good deal more time in the longer training to cover these topics in depth, and gain competence (and confidence) through practice and feedback with the group. Either way, you’ll have a great time getting into your own yoga, and get ready to lead and inspire a whole lot of people!
If you're looking to lead classes, or just get really into your own yoga, the longer trainings are wonderful if you have the time. If you're wanting a good introduction to Strala's primary elements, which you can add both to your own practice and your classes, the intensive trainings are perfect. Either way, you’ll have a great time, and get ready to lead and inspire a whole lot of people.
Q: I don’t live here, where can I stay during training?
A: All our trainings have travelers from all around the world. People have had good experiences using the site Air B&B for affordable short-term rentals.
