Namaste Presents: Yang/Yin Gong Bath

by Dana Kraft

Top Reasons to Experience a Gong Bath:

REDUCE STRESS 

RELIEVE ANXIETY

ELEVATE MOOD

EXPERIENCE PEACE

BALANCE ENERGY

ENHANCE COMPASSION

PROMOTE SELF-HEALING   

EXPAND CONSCIOUSNESS

Gong baths are one of the most healing experiences, and are a tool to soothe the body and detoxify in a holistic manner.

The first time I experienced a gong bath was in a Kundalini workshop. I was skeptical, but when I felt the vibrations through the floor entering my body, it felt like I was being transcended to another plane.

After that I went to another gong bath, and had experiences where I laughed, and also cried.

I am always looking for ways to find balance and healing into my life and bring these techniques to my students.  I decided to start combining my Yin Yang yoga classes with Gong Baths and create workshops for students to get the full experience of healing the body.

Most of us are seeking out balance in our lives, but we don’t know how to achieve it, maintain it, or why we fell out of balance in the first place. The Taoists teach us about two opposing energies called “yin” or in-flowing energy and “yang” out-flowing energy. The “yang” energy is how we are out in the world, our power, how we get things done. The “yin” energy is our internal world, our relationship to ourselves, our ability to get quiet and receive. These energies need to be in an even flow for us to feel energized and relaxed at the same time. In this two- hour practice, we will divide our time evenly between these two forces. The first part of our sequencing will begin with the “yang” practice in which we will heat the body through sun salutations and standing postures seamlessly put together into a vinyasa flow sequence. This time is designed to burn off impurities, to literally melt away the tension and stress that resides in the pockets of the body. The second half of the practice will take the open cleansed body through long hip openers, restorative postures, pranayama and meditation. Your svasana is the final part of the practice where we bathe you in the healing sounds of the gong. This process will rejuvenate the body leaving you feeling peaceful, passionate and balanced.

If you love to work hard and engage in that fiery energy, create sweat but know you need to balance that energy out, then this might be a challenge for you that you should push yourself to take on. If you prefer gentle flow and long restorative holds it is actually good for  the body to push yourself and build heat, because your body and your psyche needs that other half to be in balance.  The gong bath will only help to restore that balance more.

Clay Allen has been using gong, bowls and bells to create peaceful, vibrationally holistic sound baths for the past ten years. Training at the Integratron and Golden Bridge, Allen has learned how vibrational constructs are used to entice the brain into Alpha/Theta/Delta wave-scapes of enrichment. He plays a symphonic gong, which general considered the most etheric of these instruments, containing a sonic range that includes four specific spheres, and uses multiple mallets to guide bathers further out and further in.

Namaste and myself are excited to bring this workshop to you this Sunday evening, March 26, at 7:45pm to help restore, rejuvenate and balance those energies!