Friday 28 March 2025
Session 1 - Introduction to The Bhagavad Gītā (6-8.30pm)
Saturday 29 March 2025
Session 2 - Yogic movement/āsana based exploration (10am-12.30pm)
Session 3 - What’s it all for and how does it work? (2-4.30pm)
Sunday 30 March 2025
Session 4 - Yogic movement/āsana based exploration (10am-12.30pm)
Session 5 - Paths of practice, cultivating sustainable evolution & becoming more established in yoga (2-4.30pm)
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Have you ever thought how it would be helpful to have a user’s guide on how to be fully human?
With the Bhagavad Gītā, the yoga tradition offers us a robust and time-proven manual for life.
Highly pragmatic, the Gītā’s timeless teachings show us how to work with the reality of our nature so we can recover ourselves and become fully human. The Gītā describes the broad, inclusive path of yoga, working with all parts of ourselves to cultivate vibrant and deepening harmony right here in the thick of life.
What does the Gītā have to do with me and my life?
Often misunderstood and misrepresented through translations that convey only a fraction of the inclusive practicality of the original Sanskṛt, the Gītā is really about each of us, and gives us a manual for being human.
The setting of the Gītā on the battlefield can at first glance seem archaic or strange, but as we look more closely we can see that the battlefield is really our own psyche. The warriors, sages, goddesses and kings are really different parts of ourselves, parts that often through a human upbringing become estranged and discordant, yet which always have the possibility of coming together in a magnificent harmony. The Gītā shows us the practical path of yoga, to reclaim our sovereignty and access more of our real, human intelligence.
What can I expect over this weekend?
When interpreting the text, James works direct from the original Sanskrit and always makes it very relatable, inviting you into the rich layers and flavour of the original;
Through moving, memorable and inspiring interpretation of the Gītā’s teachings, you’ll gain practical references to help support skilful, ongoing practice;
Learn more about the practical map and guide for human incarnation that the yoga tradition offers;
Deepen and refresh understanding of foundational yoga principles so we can draw on them with greater confidence to support more clarity and steadiness in day to day living;
Myth-busting/demystification of the Gītā and the chance to access its wealth of down to earth, practical wisdom.;
Stimulating and refreshing movement practices to foster deeper understanding of how yoga principles can support all types of work, practice and movement;
Learn robust and adaptable ‘do anywhere’ techniques to promote circulation of nourishing, harmonising energy and information;
Work playfully with coordinative patterns and stimuli, challenging body, mind and senses to easefully, playfully promote neurogenesis and renewal while cultivating dynamic strength, balance and practical mobility.
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Friday 28 March 2025
6-8.30pm Session 1 - Introduction to The Bhagavad Gītā
The Bhagavad Gītā - what’s it all about? What’s it got to do with me and my life? What’s it got to do with yoga?
This introductory talk will invite you into the heart of the most treasured text of the yoga tradition. You’ll focus on the setting and how the Gītā invites us to work skilfully and pragmatically with the reality of the human condition.
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Saturday 29 March 2025
10am-12.30pm Session 2 - Yogic movement/āsana based exploration
Working with principles from the previous evening’s introduction, this movement based exploration will explore how you can harness a yogic movement or āsana practice to help you create more space, affirm more steadiness, let go of unnecessary tensions and inhibitions, see more clearly where you may be unnecessarily limiting yourself and invite more grace, beauty and connectivity.
This will include work to mobilise the joints and spine, attune and awaken the body’s different instrumental powers so you can more readily function as a unit and move through life as more of a dance and less of a battle.
2-4.30pm Session 3 - What’s it all for and how does it work?
The Gītā explores the deepest concerns of human experience: who am I? What am I doing here? What’s it all for? How can I live well in the world?
In this session you’ll dive deeper into the Gītā’s super-practical teachings on how to be fully human, focusing on key principles and attitudes to help you bring forth more of your innate gifts and live a fulfilling life.
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Sunday 30 March 2025
10am-12.30pm Session 4 - Yogic movement/āsana based exploration
Working with the themes and symbolism from the previous days’ sessions, you’ll explore how to harness yogic movement practice to work with all your human capacities and rehabilitate your understanding of our real self.
Principles and practices to help make practice renewing, invigorating, fortifying and refreshing through all the stages and cycles of life, and to help you draw forth your deeper capacities.
2-4.30pm Session 5 - Paths of practice, cultivating sustainable evolution & becoming more established in yoga
Sometimes it’s suggested that the Gītā offers us many different ‘paths’ of yoga. Here, we’ll consider how these can all be seen as streams in the same mighty river. Part of a holistic, adaptable and very practical yoga that invites us into greater human wholeness through all the stages and cycles of life.
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Is this weekend for me?
Whether you are brand new to yoga and this is your first contact with a Sanskrit yoga text or you’ve been studying the yoga tradition for decades, James’ approach brings the rich practicality of the Bhagavad Gita to vivid life and invites you to deepen your appreciation of its timeless teaching and its real-life application.
The morning movement sessions will be suitable for all. You’ll explore yoga principles in action and embodied application. The practices will be fun, illuminating and help inform and empower all types of yogāsana or movement discipline.
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Weekend Immersion Costs
EARLY BIRD
Weekend Immersion £185 (15% saving)
Full Day - Saturday or Sunday £85 (10% saving)
Single Session £47
To book Full Day please email judi@merchantcityyoga.com
FROM 1 MARCH
Weekend Immersion £215 (15% saving)
Full Day - Saturday or Sunday £99 (10% saving)
Single Session £55
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About James
Originally from Yorkshire, UK, James brings thirty years of teaching experience in language, literature, sports, fitness and yoga, and twenty years totally immersed in holistic yoga from the heart of the Indian tradition and in direct relationship with the original Sanskṛt texts.
He’s known for his storytelling, his rich kirtans, deep meditations, principle-based approach to āsana and movement, and for bringing the timeless wisdom of the traditional scriptural teachings vividly into the context of our lives today. James has been teaching yoga since 2003 and leading integrated programs on applied yoga philosophy around the world since 2009. He regularly returns to Mysore in South India where he completed his MA in Sanskrit, to lead courses on the Bhagavad Gītā, Yoga Sūtra-s and Indian Mythology.