Simon will offer 3 Smart Yoga workshops and a weekend training at Yoga Studio Veenendaal.
Come and experience these unique teachings, it’s a great chance for you to deepen your practice as a student or to learn essential teachings to support you as a teacher.
Simon is one of the leading yoga teachers in the Netherlands, with a wealth of experience as both a teacher and teacher trainer. He calls his approach Smart Yoga, yoga for our time. Smart Yoga offers a modern and practical interpretation of timeless yogic traditions, adapted to the needs of today’s world, while maintaining a deep connection to the classical roots of yoga. Smart Yoga is not another yoga “style.” It is Simon’s way of bringing together the wisdom of many different yoga styles into one approach. Smart Yoga is the fusion of the wisdom of East and West. Come and explore an approach to yoga that incorporates much of the wisdom from the West that has influenced yoga since yoga arrived in the west. This approach invites us to modify yoga to meet the needs of Western bodies, lifestyles, and mindsets. Simon shares what he has learned through years of study with world-class teachers, and how his teaching method has evolved through more than 10 years of teaching thousands of students in teacher trainings.
‘I teach yoga that is still connected to the roots of ancient yogic wisdom from India, where yoga originated, but I also acknowledge that yoga has moved with the times and that we now have many new skills that help us adapt an ancient practice to modern bodies. My aim is to offer the depth and the power of yoga as an amazing tool for personal transformation. Yoga will change your life — Simon’
This training is for students and for teachers who wish to deepen their knowledge and practice. Yoga students will learn the foundation of Smart practice. Teachers will also learn how to teach the Smart way. The training is based on the S.M.A.R.T. principles that form the basis of the training. Experience the transformative power of yoga to heal body and mind and radically improve your quality of life. This intensive training is designed to give you practical tools so that you can integrate yoga directly into your daily life and enjoy more energy, vitality, stress reduction, and inner balance. During this training, theory and experience naturally flow together. Short, inspiring lectures are alternated with physical practice, so that you not only understand the wisdom of yoga, but also truly feel and experience it in your body. The training also includes sound journeys, breathwork, and deep relaxation sessions, allowing you to fully experience the healing and transformative power of yoga.
The Two Branches of the Yoga Tree Learning to balance the solar and lunar aspects of yoga is an important part of the Smart Yoga approach. The yoga system has two main branches, which represent two complementary ways of practising yoga. These branches refer to the solar and lunar aspects of yoga: the active, vitalising power of the sun and the gentle, receptive energy of the moon. Yoga is approached as a complete system aimed at achieving deep balance — the harmonisation of your inner sun and moon. Simon proposes a way of practising yoga that achieves this balance between the inner qualities of sun and moon, comparable to the yang and yin qualities.
Solar Yoga awakens your inner energy and brings vitality and resilience. The focus is on strengthening and opening the body, awakening the mind, and creating an open sense of power and flexibility. Through dynamic breathing, flowing movements, sun salutations, and standing poses, Simon helps you stand in your power and experience a balance of breath, strength, and suppleness.
Lunar Yoga invites you to slow down and restore. The focus is on calming the nervous system, releasing tension, and cultivating softness to support emotional and physical recovery. Through poses close to the ground, conscious breathing, deep relaxation, and meditative flow, you experience the healing and supportive side of yoga.
S — Somatic Move from feeling. Experience yoga from the inside rather than creating a picture that looks good from the outside.
M — Movement Informed Movement is medicine, and in our modern world we deeply need more movement. The practice is fluid and integrates intelligent organic movement to support the health and balance of muscles, fascia, and the nervous system.
A — Alignment Based Alignment is the basis of the practice. Within Smart Yoga, Simon offers teachings on energetic alignment rather than forcing the body into physical alignment.
R — Responsible and Safe Safety comes first. Poses are adapted and modified where necessary. Teachers and students learn to respond to reality, work intelligently with physical limitations, and offer options for all levels.
T — Transformative Yoga is more than a physical workout — it is a lived practice that works on many levels. Open yourself to the depth of yoga as a tool for personal transformation and a way to awaken more of your potential as a human being.
The basis of yoga is that it is a self-practice. Anyone who wants to learn how to practise on their own, without a teacher, becomes their own teacher. This practice is therefore for such students as well as for yoga teachers. This training offers Smart advice to teachers from different yoga “styles.” In many yoga studios, teachers are not all aligned. Some teachers have done hot yoga trainings, others hatha; some trained in the Netherlands, others in Bali or Ibiza. There is a lot of confusion among teachers and a lot of unsafe teaching that can injure students. Some teachers work from traditional Indian yoga forms such as hatha or ashtanga, without offering enough space for students to modify intelligently and safely. This Smart Yoga training offers hands-on skills for teaching and for self-practice. Simon offers this compact training to teach the S.M.A.R.T. principles for safe, responsible, and transformative yoga practice.
Students receive access to exclusive online content on Simon’s online course platform to support them after the training. Myths and Beliefs It’s open to everyone. Students do not need to believe anything about Indian deities such as Krishna or Shiva. This training is not in conflict with students’ personal beliefs. We focus on the fundamentals of good, safe, intelligent practice and teaching. The approach is scientific and based on real embodied experience and observable effects.
Many students and teachers have specific questions about sequencing. How should I build my classes? Which pose should come first, and which should follow? Many teachers have not received enough instruction on how to build class sequences intelligently and safely. Simon offers an online 15-hour course called Smart Sequencing. As a bonus, students who follow the Smart Yoga Training receive a 30% discount on this online sequencing course.
Friday 29th of May – 17.30 – 22.00
Saturday 30th of May – 11.30 – 18.00
Sunday 31th of May – 10.00 – 18.00
Take your own lunch. You’ll have plenty of time to eat it mindfully, take a short walk outside or to relax in the common room. If needed, you can store your lunch in the fridge or heat it up in the microwave in the kitchen. We have unlimited water and tea available.
250,- (including VAT)
You can pay the amount directly upon registration and download the invoice from Bsport if needed. If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch.
