This course offers a broad survey of the history of female yoga practitioners drawing on rich narrative and visual accounts of practitioners. Ruth brings them into conversation with us via key themes and analytical approaches. The course explores gender from metaphysics to bodily maps and probes how these relate to lives lived. Participants are asked to dialogue with the material explored, to challenge their perceptions and motivations to practise and study.
The eleventh century Amṛtasiddhi teaches, for the first time, bodily practices that become central to haṭha yoga. The startling teachings are explained systematically, in terms of the nature of the body, the practices, and the results of the practice in this tantric Buddhist source text. In this course we will read the Sanskrit and discuss in English the section on ‘the body’ as set out in the first four chapters of the Amṛtasiddhi. The course comprises four online sessions and one in-person workshop in London.