Overview
The Ayurveda Foundation Program is an online 6-day (42-hour) immersion into the Ayurveda wellness arts. Foundation programs are ideal for self-healing, family care, and helping those closest to us in our communities. The program is open to everyone and may be taken as a stepping stone to the Ayurveda Immersion Program, or alone. Students will begin the process by focusing on healing themselves and the people closest to them. This is based on the premise that we must know how to heal ourselves before we can heal others. Level 1 also serves as an overview, allowing students to see how Ayurveda works in both theory and practice before committing to the Ayurveda Immersion Program.
Spring 2024 Program Dates
Ayurveda Foundation Program
March 23-24, April 13-14, April 27-28, 2024
10:00am – 6:00pm CST (break: 1:00pm – 2:00pm)
Tuition
Tuition: $895. Scholarships and payment plans are available. 3 monthly payments of $300.
Open to all
Programs are open to all as an introduction to the Ayurvedic view of life, health, and healing. Learn Ayurveda for self, family, friends, and community.
Program Instructors
Claire Ragozzino
Foundation Program Director
Claire Ragozzino is the Director and co-instructor of our Ayurveda Foundation Program. She is a certified yoga instructor and Ayurvedic practitioner with a background in nutrition and natural cooking. She is the author of the popular site, Vidya Living, and also writes and photographs for online and print publications surrounding topics of food, culture, and our relationship to nature. Her first book, Living Ayurveda, offers a comprehensive Ayurvedic cookbook and lifestyle guide. Claire works with clients around the globe, specializing her work in women’s health, and leads immersive workshops and retreats.
James Bailey is Founder and Program Director of Sevanti Institute. His teachings are considered eclectic and entertainingly provocative. He is sought out by yoga schools for his vast knowledge in traditional eastern teachings and modalities and the ability to bridge them to modern-day living. His training includes 10 years of clinical studies in Oriental Medicine and Ayurveda under Dr. Vaijayanti Apte and many Ayurvedic doctors in the US and in Kerala, South India. He is the Founder and Tour Guide of Sevanti Adventures which offers an annual tour to sacred India each February.
What Will You Learn?
Students will learn traditional Ayurveda’s foundational knowledge and self-care rituals, assessing both the doshic constitution (prakriti) and conditional or symptomatic doshic imbalances (vikriti). Students will acquire invaluable insights and practical skills needed for enlightened, effective, and very personalized self-care and care for those around us.
A few of the topics you will learn during your studies include:
- The principles of Ayurvedic theory, anatomy, physiology, and keys to personal wellness
- Personal healing insights needed on your journey to balance; healing ourselves is the first step to healing others
- Introduction to Ayurvedic nutrition, personalized diets, and the lifestyle routines needed to restore health and balance
- Introduction to Ayurvedic lifestyles and daily self-care practices
- A deeper understanding of the doshas, subdoshas, body constitution, and constitutional types
- Ayurveda and digestive health, how to assess imbalances of digestion, how to heal chronic imbalances of the digestive system
- Dinacharya’s daily routines such as self-massage with warm oils (abhyanga) and seasonal cleanses with kitchari
- How Ayurveda can best inform your yoga practice
- Rasayana: rejuvenation methods to slow the aging process, aid in recovery from illness, and improve stress management
- How to interpret the doshas in your body
- See module descriptions below for more detailed course topics
Core Modules
The Core Modules are essential principles of Ayurveda wellness that may be applied to oneself for self-care (swasthavritta), or to guide family or community. These topics are the keys to a balanced life and an initial stepping stone toward authentic self-care and healing.
AWC 1: Principles of Ayurveda Wellness | Claire Ragozzino | 7 hrs
AWC 1 lays the foundation for the entire AWCP program. We will introduce the primary working theories of Ayurveda, including the Panchamahabhutas (5 Elements) and Tridosha (3 Doshas: Vata, Pitta, Kapha). Students will be introduced to Ayurvedic anatomy and physiology, the science of prakriti, our body constitution, the transformative power of Agni in digestion and consciousness, how to maintain digestive balance, the role of ama, or toxins in our health, and ojas, the sacred sap of life and longevity. The intention of this overview course is self-knowledge (vidya) and enlightened self-care (swasthavritta). We achieve that through effective self-study, yogic and Ayurvedic lifestyle integration, pure sattvic living, living true to ourselves (sadvritta), and the exquisite uniqueness of our own constitutional nature, karmas, and health journey. Wellness begins with self-knowledge, new beginnings, and self-care. This is the beginning.
AWC 2: Ahara: Ayurvedic Nutrition | Claire Ragozzino | 7 hrs
AWC 2 introduces nutrition as a healing tool in your healing work. We will cover important Ayurveda nutrition concepts such as the six tastes, reviewing their elements, then learning their qualities, energetics, post-digestive effect, whether they are nourishing or purifying, and how each taste affects the doshas, tissues, waste products, and digestion. Agni and its four states, how to improve or balance, is our core focus. We will discuss foods and food preparation according to dosha, as well as food quality. We will also learn how food preparation affects food energetics and digestion, the benefits of moderate fasting, right hydration, and eating rituals.
AWC 3: Ayurveda Self-care Rituals | Claire Ragozzino | 7 hrs
AWC 3 introduces the powerful and natural methods used by Ayurveda to awaken awareness and devotion to the body and mind at home, one simple act at a time. These include daily Yoga practice, oral self-care, abhyanga massage and bath, oiling the face, nose, ears, and hair, mantra, herbal allies, essential oils, routine sleep, routine elimination, seasonal routines, and awareness, dietary changes according to season and changes in our doshas, etc. These coveted methods are considered routine lifestyle practices in yogic and ayurvedic life. The efficacy of these methods lay in making them authentic, ie customized, to the individual’s unique constitution (prakriti) and condition (vikriti). Each of these methods will be taught again at more advanced programs, but we introduce you to them early so that you may begin to integrate them into your life and into the life of your family throughout your educational journey.
AWC 4: Ayurveda and Yoga: The Sister Sciences | Claire Ragozzino | 7 hrs
AWC 4 is an elementary introduction to the relationship between Yoga and Ayurveda. these two disciplines have been known as sister sciences for thousands of years. Ayurvedic principles have always been applied to the practice and principles of Yoga and yoga therapy-based principles have always been used by the healers of Ayurveda. Similar to Yoga, the Ayurvedic understanding of the nature of the individual, the nature of the imbalance, and the nature of therapies are essential to promote healing and achieve a harmonious state of body and mind with respect to individual consciousness. In this day-long course, we will break down what this means in practical terms, explore how yoga and Ayurveda can work together, and explore historical references and values to their integration.
AWC 5: Ayurvedic Self-Care Practicum Weekend with James Bailey | 14 hrs
AWC 5 is an Ayurveda practical self-assessment weekend that will introduce the application of Ayurveda on a personal level. We will apply the knowledge learned in the first four modules to ourselves and utilize some of the basic assessment skills taught to interpret our physical and mental health needs. You will be introduced to the basic skills used in conducting an Ayurveda wellness assessment. Under the guidance of James Bailey, DASc, AD, the group will collectively conduct a partial traditional Ayurvedic counseling assessment on a volunteer student who will share their life and health stories. Real-time analysis of the student’s condition and health patterns will be evaluated. Lifestyle, nutrition, and other wellness methods will be recommended by the teacher and group. Afterward, Q&A time will be allowed for each student to clarify ambiguities in their self-assessment.
Elective Module
The elective module is an optional experiential program that offers profound opportunities to deepen the material covered in our Core Modules. One of the more powerful ways of deepening Ayurveda knowledge is to experience Ayurveda at its source in India (AWC 6). To learn more about our annual India tour, go to Sevanti Adventures.
AWC 6: Journey to India: Ayurveda in Kerala, south India | with James Bailey | 100 hrs
Join Sevanti Adventures on an exotic journey to lush and jungled Kerala, south India, for a week of Ayurveda studies and self-healing through treatments and classes with Ayurveda doctors at the world-famous AyurSoma Ayurveda Royal Retreat. Go to the source and receive treatments from practitioners of a 5000-year-old lineage of healers. Many of these practitioners come from 30+ generation families practicing Ayurveda. Students will submit an 8-10 pg personal journal of their Ayurveda experience and receive 50-hrs of credits. Experience one of the deepest and most traditional styles of Ayurveda in India. A 7-day post-retreat tour of Varanasi in north India and Kathmandu in Nepal. Students may attend this retreat before, during, or after taking Level 1 training.
Daily Schedule
Our webinars are scheduled daily from 10:00 am – 6:00 pm CST with a lunch break from 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm CST. Be aware of your local time zone differences. The daily schedules are quite disciplined, however, we make every effort to create space for self-care. Do your best to commit to a home yoga practice or other exercises prior to the training. When prana flows, the mind is free to receive wisdom.
Sevanti Adventures
Sevanti Wellness Center