Mission Workshops and Courses:
Opening doors to something deeper

 

A Mission workshop gives students a chance to unpack a particular skill, technique or posture, and linger a bit longer than they would in a regular class. A workshop is a chance to explore and to ask questions. They are generally taught on a Friday night or at the weekend, giving students more time to sink in, reflect and learn.

WTF is RocketBeats?
with Imi Wiseman and Alan Ellman

Saturday 12th – Sunday 13th April
£200 for the weekend, £120 for one day, £70 for one session

This weekend is a deep dive into RocketBeats – a functional, fun, modern approach to dynamic yoga.

 

The weekend consists of 4 sessions – and each session is dedicated to a particular direction of travel.

 

Each session will have 2 parts:
A workshop based around strength and flexibility conditioning with a particular pose as the focus. Take what you’ve learned and have a go at implementing it into… A RocketBeats asana practice.

 

SATURDAY

  • UP – everything shoulders and upper body – shoulder strength, arm balances, inversions, binds and more
  • DOWN – everything hips and lower body – leg strength, standing balances,
    hip openers and more

 

SUNDAY

  • FORWARDS – everything forward fold – hip compression, core strength, pressing, floating and more
  • BACKWARDS – everything front body opening – core stabilisation, back body strength, backbends and more
Exhale - A Daoist Flow Workshop
with James Rafael and Jean Hall

Friday 19th April: 12.30-2.30pm
£40

Join James Rafael and Jean Hall for a two-hour Daoist Flow workshop exploring the interconnectedness of breath, movement and intention.

 

Daoist Flow takes inspiration from yoga, qigong, somatics and natural movement with the underlying intention to touch in on our innate qualities of easy and wisdom. It begins from the understanding that everything is part of the whole, a belief found within both Yoga and Daoist traditions. Using the transformative nature of the breath and movement, we will explore ways to release tension, source support and nurture balance… and by doing so, we may rediscover our inner strength and resilience.

 

In this workshop we will explore:

  • The breath as the source for all movement in life
  • Gravity and levity to enhance strength in motion and flow
  • Yoga and qigong practices to create fullness of movement

 

You can expect to leave with a deeper, embodied understanding of:

  • How the breath pattern underpins all movement, and how to use this to refine your practice
  • Qigong breathing and movement practices to complement and support your yoga practice or teaching
  • How to release tension and nurture balance, without forcing the breath

 

Open to all levels of practitioners.

Teachers’ Practice & Sangha: Embody
with Jean Hall and Anna Ashby

Friday 25th April: 3.00-6.30pm
£70

Designed for the yoga teachers’ community and enquiry based practitioners, the Teachers’ Practice & Sangha offers a supportive environment for teachers and yogis to gather, practice, connect and dialogue. Come and feel the support of our community. All styles are welcome.

 

Embody: To embody is to fully inhabit and feel our body’s sensations. Through mindful asana and somatic movement, we’ll nurture a felt sense of presence that invites us to move beyond thinking about our body to instead experience life through it, fostering a deeper connection with ourselves and the world around us.

 

Facilitated by two of the UK’s most experienced senior teachers, Anna Ashby & Jean Hall offer reflective movement practices inspired by the old and new. Sessions support and deepen personal practice, as well as shed light on the challenges faced by contemporary yoga teachers.

 

The sessions may include:
> Asana
> Somatic movement
> Breath awareness
> Restorative yoga
> Meditation
> Inquiry, reflection and journaling
> Dialogue and exchange
> Creative process

 

Other Upcoming Teachers’ Practice & Saṅgha:

Attune: 4 July – To attune is the art of deep listening and aligning with our essential nature as source. In this session we’ll explore how to tune into subtle sensations that arise from centring and presence so that movement and action is responsive, easeful and emerges from the state of connection.

Create: 31 Oct – To create is a natural expression of life and being. This session invites us to awaken creativity through presence and intuitive movement that draws upon the imagination. With an open heart and mind, practice and teaching can be infused with new ways of seeing and approaching asana.

Let's Be in Touch: A Hands-On Adjustments Workshop
with Marcus Veda and Nino Russo

Saturday 26th April: 12.30-2.30pm
£40
(£30 online)

This workshop will look at assisting backarches and inversions. Whether you’re on your stomach, your back, your knees, your feet on your hands, spinal extension postures are energising and enervating. Helping your students with your hands requires skill and an understanding that depth and stability must be finely balanced.

 

This workshop will focus on the distinction between active and passive assists, giving you the practical skills necessary to know when to go with either one or a combination of both. We will give you a guide to “triage” the practitioner, and develop the skills to ascertain what the person needs, what the pose needs, and which assist is the right one in the circumstances.

 

Key themes covered:

  • Why finding strength and comfort in a posture is fundamental to the stretch
  • Why tense muscles don’t stretch
  • How to let go of inappropriately contracted muscles while maintaining the structure of the asana
  • Why a smooth and steady breath is necessary when giving an adjustment
  • How and why to match your student’s breath pattern when giving an adjustment
  • When to give a verbal assist, and when to give a physical adjustment
  • How to observe your students and decide when to give an adjustment
  • How to give adjustments and assists with confidence and without hesitation

 

Adjustments should be given with the spirit of ahimsa, or non-violence. They must be given with great thought, care and humility — adjustments are for the student, never for the teacher. When you adjust with sensitivity and awareness, and respond to your student’s state, you become one and there is no longer a boundary between the asana and the adjustment. You achieve union. Yoga.

Mission Run Club
with Sobhan Madadi & Martin Whittle

Sunday 27th April: 9.30am

The run is FREE and FUN!

 

Join the Mission Run Club on Sunday mornings. Boost your mental health, maintain a healthy weight and improve your cardio fitness in a brisk 5K run through the City of London, led by Mission’s calisthenics teacher Sobhan Madadi or race runner Martin Whittle.

 

Our friends at On are joining us and will bring sample running shoes to try!

6-Week Handstand Course
with Sammy Dinneen

Friday 2nd May – 13th June: 5.45-7pm – SOLD OUT
(no class 9th May)
£115
This 6-week handstand course focuses on press to handstand.

 

The course embarks on a journey of balance, strength, and poise. The classes will unfold with careful guidance, focusing on foundational elements crucial for success.

 

You will delve into body tension, understanding weight distribution, and mastering proper alignment. Each session cultivates mindfulness as students gradually overcome fears and build confidence in inversions. Progression unfolds through drills targeting shoulder stability, wrist mobility, and body awareness.

 

With instruction, participants learn to kick up, finding stability against gravity’s pull. Amidst hard work and determination, you will discover newfound strength and agility on the palms of your hands.

 

NB: There is no class on May 9th

Grounding Into Grace: Two Masterclasses
with Schuyler Grant

Standing Balancing Postures: Extension from Feet to the Fingertips
Wednesday 7th May: 9.30am – 12.00pm
£50

Arm Balances & Inversions: Using Bandha to Defy Gravity
Thursday 8th May: 3.00 – 5.30pm
£50

Schuyler Grant is a world-renowned yoga teacher, founder, and co-director of Kula Yoga Project, and co-creator of the Wanderlust Festival. Raised on a communal property in Northern California, she later moved to NYC to pursue acting and filmmaking at Columbia University. Instead, she found her calling in yoga, opening Kula Yoga Project near Ground Zero in 2002 to help rebuild community and heart in Lower Manhattan.

 

Schuyler’s signature Kula Flow practice and advanced teacher trainings have influenced thousands worldwide, known for their precision, creativity, and rigor. Alongside her studio work, she co-created Wanderlust Festival, a global wellness and music event series, and continues to offer extensive online courses via the Commune platform and Kula’s virtual studio.

 

Now based on the West Coast, Schuyler balances her teaching career with motherhood, raising her three daughters with a dedication to health, sustainability, and joyful living.

 

In these two masterclasses at Mission, Schuyler will give you the tools to find stability and ease in all kinds of balancing postures. We will investigate deep core stability and active extension, from your hands and feet to your hips, hands, forearms, shins, and even the crown of your head.

 

Each 2.5 hour master class begins with mobility exercises followed by a creative Kula style flow sequence infused with bandha work, and finishing with a restorative breathwork session. These classes will leave you energised, stable, and profoundly aware of how you move through space.

 

The ultimate goal is to find grace in the asana practice, so you can move with fluidity and ease both on and off your mat.

 

These workshops work best together, but also may be attended separately.

 

These workshops are in collaboration with Vivobarefoot, a barefoot shoe company that promotes the natural strength and movement of the feet. Students at Schuyler’s workshops will be entered into a Vivobarefoot giveaway.

A Quality of Being: The Foundations of Transformation
with John Stirk

Wednesdays 14th May; 18th June; 16th July: 9.30am – 5pm
£390

An intensive Course for Practitioners and Teachers.

 

This course reveals the deeper dimension of yoga by acknowledging that;

  • The inherent foundations of transformation are inseparable linked to the nature and direct experience of existence
  • Qualities of being run through one another and arise from an indelible yet elusive source revealed as one ultimate quality
  • Physiology, mind, consciousness, and spirit are indivisible aspects of one primal field
  • Bringing this field to awareness requires an intensity of practice and a sensitivity impeded by our conditioned patterns of behaviour

 

Practice and discussion will include:

  • The nature of experiences and experiencing
  • The indivisibility of us
  • The potential of the sensory field
  • Emptiness and form
  • Applying the un-appliable
  • The phenomena of is-ness and of-ness

 

The projected outcome anticipates an experiential shift in the cellular, physiological, and behavioural aspects of being. Change is an ongoing consequence of practice and understanding but transformation lies beyond change.

 

(The course comprises three days of contact time spread over seven weeks to maximise processing)

 

John Stirk is a yoga teacher and author with a background in osteopathy. He has been teaching and running courses for more than 40 years in the UK and internationally. He has published several books, notably The Original Body, Primal movement for Yoga Teachers, (2015)  and Deeper Still, Authentic Embodiment for Yoga Teachers (2021).

The Let Go: Hot Yin for Deep Relaxation
with Camilla Garner

Friday 16th May: 5.00-6.45pm
£35

Yin Yoga, known for its profoundly calming effect, has a magical ability to create space in the body, alleviate tension and quiet a busy mind. And when paired with the therapeutic benefits of far infrared heat, a whole world of possibility opens up…

 

Research has shown that Hot Yoga significantly alleviates low mood and helps to restore emotional balance, so when delivered in the cocoon of a heated space, aided by supportive props, your Yin practice takes on an extra cathartic, softening and rejuvenating quality.

 

In this 105-minute practice, Camilla will gently guide you through a carefully curated floor-based sequence, transporting you to the deepest realms of relaxation.

 

Expect long, calming holds that will melt you into the floor, promoting deep release, the softening of edges and helping to reset your nervous system.

 

Carve out time and space for yourself, and come experience an evening of rest and restoration with Camilla and leave feeling deeply nourished, recharged and renewed.

The Heart of Ashtanga Yoga
with Saraswathi Jois

Friday 16th – Tuesday 20th May
£250 for all five days, £50 for one class

Sharath Jois Memorial

Join R Saraswathi Jois, Ashtanga Yoga’s senior-most female teacher, in a rare visit abroad from her shala in Mysore, India. At Mission, Saraswati will be accompanied by her daughter Sharmila and they will teach led Primary and led Intermediate Series as well as chanting sessions and a Conference.

 

Saraswathi will teach led classes at Mission — both the Primary and the Intermediate Series, as well chanting classes and the all-important Conference where you can ask this matriarch questions about “first breath, then gazing, then posture,” about integrating a daily practice into family life, about Sanskrit, or any questions you may have about the path of yoga.

Reboot and Reset - a Journey of Breath and Sound
with Sally Connor & Pablo

Saturday 17th May: 3.00-5.30pm
£50

If you’ve ever experienced Transformational Breathwork and Sound, you’ll know it can feel almost miraculous! Transformational breathwork is a therapeutic breathing technique that can relieve physical tension in the body, emotional stresses and blockages, leaving you feeling lighter and more connected to Self. Using circular breathing, you can move into an altered conscious state and access and release deeply buried obstacles and blocks. There is no other technique that can take you as deep into yourself, in such a short period of time, as breathwork.

 

After the Breathwork session, you’ll continue to lie on your mat, while Pablo will bring you into a state of deep integrative relaxation using sound. Sound healing has been used for centuries to promote relaxation, reduce stress, and enhance overall wellbeing. The soothing sounds and vibrations of the Gong, singing bowls, chimes and drum, will help create a meditative and immersive environment for you to assimilate and integrate all the benefits of the breathwork session.

 

We aim to show you the power of your breath and sound as vehicles for healing and enhancing your physical, mental and emotional health. The session will last for 2.5 hours, giving us space to set an intention and to share and integrate our experiences after the breathwork and sound. We will start with a breathwork session, moving into beautiful sound healing and floating off into bliss.

 

This workshop is suitable for everyone. For this experience, bring a bottle of water… you might want to bring a journal to make notes on your experience but this is not required. There is no movement component to this workshop, so no need to wear “yoga clothes” but please dress for comfort.

 

If you are aware of any heart conditions or brain conditions (ie. Epilepsy, PTSD) you may experience or could be/are pregnant please let Sally or Pablo know on the day.

Indian Club Swinging
with Craig Orchard

Saturday 24th May: 12.30-2.00pm
£30

This comprehensive 90 minute workshop is tailored for beginners. Covering essential single arm techniques from correct posture to swinging methods with Indian clubs, participants will delve into mastering fundamental patterns. By the end of the session, attendees will progress on to a beginner single club flow, gaining insights into the manifold benefits of Indian clubs.

 

These benefits include addressing shoulder issues, enhancing mobility and strength, and the rhythmic movements aiding in stress reduction while fostering improved coordination and cognitive thinking.

 

This workshop is suitable for everyone.

London Practice Retreat
with Jason Crandell

Monday 9th – Friday 13th June
£625

Escape the demands of daily life and immerse yourself in a transformative week of yoga, self-care, and connection with “Teachers’ Teacher” Jason Crandell. The London Practice Retreat is designed to inspire and deepen your personal practice, giving you the space to truly take time for yourself.

 

Each day of the retreat is carefully structured to create a balance of movement, stillness, and reflection, allowing you to fully immerse yourself in your practice while enjoying space for community and personal time.

 

Whether you’re a yoga teacher or a dedicated student, this retreat offers the opportunity to refine your practice, recharge your energy, and return home with renewed passion and clarity with globally renowned and respected Jason Crandell. It is perfect for those who want to immerse themselves in practice and community while also enjoying time to explore the city.

Handstands: The Basics
with Yuval Ayalon

Saturday 14th – Sunday 15th June: 12.00-3.00pm
£165 for the weekend

Over the two-day workshop Yuval will teach you the basics of handstands. He’ll help you establish a solid base necessary to take your handstand practice to a new level, safely and efficiently.

 

You’ll learn the technical preparations for handstands and come to understand and experience the alignment points of a straight line handstand. You’ll experiment with some different handstand shapes, learn balance strategies, and play with various wall drills, as well as different ways to enter a handstand.

 

This workshop is for beginners who can hold a handstand for 20 seconds against the wall. It is also for intermediate handstandsers who want to revisit the basics and improve alignment and control.

Handstands: Advanced
with Yuval Ayalon

Saturday 14th – Sunday 15th June: 3.30-6.30pm
£165 for the weekend, £85 for one day

Saturday’s class will focus on refining the different shapes of handstands (tuck, pike and straddle) and adapting them for advanced level transitions and sequences.

 

Sunday’s class will focus on press to handstand, stalders, and the holy grail: one-armed handstands.

 

Both workshops are intended to give students a better understanding of how to practise complex handstands, and how to create or refine their own practice routine. While the workshops can be taken individually, you’ll get the most out of Yuval’s teachings by taking both.

 

These workshops are suitable for students with a committed handstand practice, and who can hold a solid handstand for at least 30 seconds.

Weekend of Workshops
with Max Strom

Friday 27th – Sunday 29th June
£50 per workshop or £200 for full weekend

Max Strom is a global speaker, trainer, and author known for inspiring and impacting the lives of people from all walks of life, teaching leadership, breathing patterns, emotional healing and personal transformation worldwide for over 27 years.

 

Join Max for a weekend of workshops of movement and breathwork focusing on shoulder and neck tension, alleviating anxiety and sleeplessness.

Weekend of Workshops
with Sianna Sherman

Friday 11th – Sunday 13th July
£50 per workshop or £190 for full weekend

Join Sianna, the visionary of the Rasa Yoga Collective, Mythic Yoga Flow®, and RITUAL, as she shares her voice in the way of community and collaboration. She is a gifted Storyteller, Hypnotherapist, NLP Practitioner, Ritualist and Shadow Work Guide.

 

Rasa Yoga is a bhakti fusion of asana, mantra, mudra, myth, pranayama, meditation, functional anatomy, Tantric yoga philosophy, shadow work, social justice advocacy and soul alchemy.

Beginner Handstand
with Alona Zhuravel

Sunday 3rd August: 12.30-3.30pm
£85

The beginners workshop will revolve around getting the perfect alignment and make you feel comfortable using the wall, detaching yourself slowly from the wall, becoming familiar with different shapes like the tuck, straddle and full handstand.

 

We will work individually and occasionally with a partner. This will be a three hour ride per day into building a friendship with the upside down world.

Intermediate/Advanced Handstand
with Alona Zhuravel

Sunday 3rd August: 4.30-7.30pm
£85

This workshop will revolve around strengthening your focus in the freestanding handstand, perfecting your alignment, working and creating new and different shapes and working towards and with the one arm handstand.

 

We will get more familiar with tucks, straddles, full handstands and even flags. This workshop will guide through every step in order to get to the next level.

Kirtan
with Radhika Das

Friday 28th November: 7.00-9.00pm
£20

Kirtan is a call and response musical meditation that takes a minute to learn, and makes you feel good just as fast. The practice is ancient but is fast becoming THE modern alternative gathering to help you discover your inner world, without waking the next morning with a crippling hangover!

 

You don’t need to be a good singer, a practitioner of yoga, or a follower of any religion or set of beliefs to experience the power of Kirtan. An open mind and willing voice are all that is required! Combining music, mantra, meditation and a few dance moves from time to time, kirtan offers a rich, immersive experience that has the power to change the world, one heart at a time.

 

New to Kirtan? FAB! Radhika’s Kirtan aims to deliver an immersive experience to both the toe-dipper, and the well-established floating yoga practitioner.

 

Unfortunately we are unable to accommodate those under 13 years.