Karin Gurtner – Anatomy 201

Movement is an art and a science. To deepen your understanding of both aspects, join Karin Gurtner—founder and principal educator of art of motion training in movement and developer of Anatomy Trains in Motion—for a 6-week course in functional anatomy. You’ll study muscles in motion and myofascial connections throughout your body and learn to move with more awareness from head to toe. Through contrasting movement practices, you’ll explore and improve your postural alignment, inner and outer strength, adaptability, and kinesthetic sense to complement your yoga practice and your teaching.

Yoga is a powerful practice, yet it doesn’t always help you establish a healthy degree of dynamic stability and balanced flexibility between myofascial units. Building on Anatomy 101 with Tom Myers, you’ll explore functional anatomy of your entire body by starting at your feet and legs; moving to the fans of your hip; and up to your abdomen, chest, spine, shoulders and hands. This course will get you moving as you consider the interplay of muscles and fascia and learn how to establish a healthy balance between joint mobility and stability, muscle flexibility, and fascial adaptability to benefit your yoga practice and every step you take.

Course Objectives

• Learn about functional and integral anatomy that’s relevant for yoga
• Explore the functional qualities of your muscles and fascia
• Address muscular imbalances and improve your movement patterns
• Understand how to improve structural and body-mind integration through conscious movement

Each week you’ll get:

• Anatomy lectures that introduce movement principles
• A series of practices to help you explore myofascial anatomy and movement patterns
• Tips for how to incorporate the movement lessons into your asana practice

Curriculum:

Week 1: Movement and Anatomy in Context

• Learn the difference between anatomy, functional anatomy, and integral movement anatomy
• Explore what moves us
• Study movement terms and learn how to apply them

Week 2: Feet and Legs

• Learn how to establish dynamically balanced posture
• Focus on your feet as a base of support
• Explore springy movements of your feet and legs
• Learn how to strengthen your feet and stabilize your ankles

Week 3: Hips

• Explore balanced mobility around your hips
• Develop muscular flexibility and adaptability in your hip flexors
• Practice multidimensional dynamic stabilization of your hip joints
• Learn ways to unload and strengthening your knees

Week 4: Abdomen, Chest, and Breath

• Learn to differentiate between core stability and core strength
• Explore ways on creating optimal fascial conditions for core stability with spiraling motions
• Practice accessing and strengthening your deep core
• Learn well-timed, adaptable pelvic and spinal stability in all three planes of movement

Week 5: Spine, Ribs, Shoulders, and Hands

• Learn about the tensegral qualities of your spine
• Understand how to improve multidimensional spinal and rib cage mobility
• Explore connections between your hands, shoulders, and spine

Week 6: Integration

• Connect the functional anatomy of your whole body
• Integrate the individual elements you learned in the past five weeks
• Explore three types of flow
• Learn how to incorporate novel movements into your asana practice