How are Yoga Therapy classes different than "regular" Yoga or movement classes?
When I tell folks that I am a (Certifying) Yoga Therapist, most people assume that the classes I teach are just like “regular” yoga classes. This is a common misconception so it makes sense to take some time to explore how a Yoga Therapy class is different from a Yoga class and other movement classes.
Let me be clear, I love going to and supporting my local yoga studio and my heart goes out to the yoga studios and teachers whose labour of love is on shaky ground. May it be that there are yoga studios still standing once folks are permitted to gather together again. For me, there’s nothing quite like being led through a series of postures designed by the teacher or particular lineage. However, a Yoga Therapy class can be quite a different experience. How so, you ask?!
What is Yoga Therapy?
Well, first things first, as with a Yoga Therapy one-on-one session, you’ll be sent an Intake & Assessment Form, asking you to answer MANY questions. This in-depth form, grounded in the Panchamaya Kosa layered perspective of the human, allows me to gather important information about your health history and it gives us both a snapshot of how you’re doing in this moment:
physically (embodiment, digestion, injuries, pain, etc))
energetically (is your sleep restful? is your breathing supportive?)
mentally and emotionally (thoughts, patterns, mental images, intense/stuck emotions)
self-awareness, learned patterns (including sense of agency)
spiritually (how are you connecting to your inner life and outwardly in the world? how are you making meaning and/or creating beauty in your life?)
Afterward, we’ll schedule a time that we can connect one-on-one by zoom to do the Intake Review Session. This gives us an opportunity to ask questions and allows me to plan for your individual needs and goals.
Yoga Therapy classes have a maximum of 5 participants with a “checking in” at the beginning of each session. You will also have a chance to reflect on the practice or optionally share at the end. This is what what I love most about a Yoga Therapy class and what folks tell me is what really makes Yoga Therapy classes unique; that individual variations can be planned for and/or adapted during our in-person or online class.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE ACTUAL YOGA IN A YOGA THERAPY CLASS?!
Every Yoga Therapist will come from varying professional backgrounds and yoga teaching experience. So, this means every Yoga Therapy class will carry a particular uniqueness depending on the Yoga Therapist. For example, a lot of my current Yoga Therapy classes for new and soon to be parents weave in my (nearly!) 20 years of yoga teaching experience with insights as a Birthing From Within mentor, doula and birth story listener while layering evidence-based yoga, meditation, and health-related research.
As an Orphan Wisdom Scholar, Sacred Gardener, beeswax candlemaker, and sprouting Herbal Apprentice, I tend to sprinkle in storytelling, ritual, art making, handwork, plants, or ceremony of some kind into our classes. As well, with a B.Ed, alongside decades of learning and teaching (as a classroom teacher, Kumon Instructor, homeschooling mom, geeky lifelong learner), my classes tend to provide spaces for expanding your own awareness and learning about your brilliant body and nervous system. So, sometimes our classes take pauses to explain the neuroscience, physiology, research or history underlying certain practices.
After a few months of learning and adapting my craft to working with folks online, I am looking forward to launching 4 Yoga Therapy classes through Bloom (and Zoom!). this February. Since September, I have been working with Neil Pearson PT, MSc(RHBS), BA-BPHE, C-IAYT, in his Pain Care Mentorship Program to expand my clinical skills in working with people through persistent pain. Learning about pain is blowing my mind and I am already daydreaming of the classes for those looking to find more ease in moving through persistent pain.