Therapeutic Essentials Every Yoga Teacher Should Learn to Support Health and Wellness

Therapeutic Essentials Every Yoga Teacher Should Learn to Support Health and Wellness

Recently, yoga has started to transform back from being a trendy exercise class to its more traditional roots of improving your health and lifestyle. As a yoga teacher, you now have an opportunity to be a part of spreading this deeper knowledge about the traditional roots of yoga to your clients. Today, we will explore the therapeutic essentials every yoga teacher should learn to support health and wellness.

Pursuing advanced yoga teacher training in therapeutic essentials 

A therapeutic essentials yoga practice has a gentler style, designed to address injuries and imbalances in your client’s body alongside supporting joints and caring for muscles.  

The foremost reason to study yoga therapeutic essentials as a yoga teacher is to learn anatomy in-depth and understand how diseases and injuries transform the body. Running parallel to these physical transformations, mental wellness is tested when injury and illness create anguish and insecurities. In some cases, the condition isn't a physical process but a spiritual one instead. Providing appropriate guidance in asana, meditation, and pranayama using therapeutic essentials eases the body and mind gently and thoughtfully.

Teaching yoga can then become about holistically caring for the individual, regardless of physical characteristics and conditions. Your yoga community will broaden, inviting all bodies to a supportive place.  

Therapeutic essentials is based on Hatha yoga, a highly accessible and transformative practice. Gone are the rigors of vinyasa flow, heated rooms, and asana as exercise. Because Hatha yoga is a largely static practice, clients have the opportunity to truly focus inward and notice their body, as well as their mind's reaction to it. There is also an opportunity to use the transitions between postures to explore the body.

Exploring movement with therapeutic essentials principles

Hand in hand with anatomy is the study of biomechanics and how the body acts works within itself. When viewed through the yoga lens, understanding biomechanics can translate observed movements into functional and helpful asana. This extends from the feet upwards in all limbs, joints, and particularly the spine. 

It's worth noting that biomechanics can include the narrow focus of one individual joint or muscle group and the broad focus on the body's movements as a whole. Open communications and interactions with your clients help complete the big picture of an individual's anatomy and movement. The result is personalized instruction with safe and effective sequencing. 

All movements do not agree with all bodies, and props and modifications facilitate postures. Without addressing injuries and the uniqueness of everybody, asana often creates situations where the transitions and postures are detrimental. Properly addressing safety and comfort with the help of sturdy props is advised. 

The mind and therapeutic essentials 

Guiding yoga with therapeutic essentials principles also encourages the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). This branch of the central nervous system creates a peaceful mind, allowing the body to rest, restore, digest, and function quietly without stress. This is where healing and growth happen.

When therapeutic essentials tools weave into a yoga class, they are not for judgment or diagnostics. Instead, the complete package of movement, individualized modifications, props, and spiritual guidance help the student become more aware of themself. The PNS rises to the forefront, and all components of wellness intersect. 

Want to learn more about therapeutic yoga essentials? Consider viewing our online course at PremaYogaInstitute.com

While the practice of yoga therapeutic essentials appears straightforward, it's learning how to interpret and help your student's bodies that is the real challenge.

There is much to study about therapeutic essentials, and learning how to change the focus from an asana-driven practice to a body-focused practice takes education and practice. Furthering your education through classes, seminars, and courses is the best way to improve your teaching knowledge and skills. 

We’d love to invite you to consider our Online (Accredited) courses at Prema Yoga Institute.
Enrollment for our Feb 2022 Online Course Yoga Therapeutics Essentials is now OPEN and features:

  • Yoga for All Bodies

  • Pranayama, Philosophy, Meditations

  • Restorative Yoga Essentials

  • Slow Flow Essentials

  • Introduction to Ayurveda and One-on-One Yoga

  • Care for the Caregiver Focus: Restorative Yoga

  • 3 weeks of meaningful live hours with your faculty and cohort

  • Option to complete online or in person for selected hours at Pure Yoga in New York City

  • In-person registrants receive one month of complimentary yoga classes at Pure Yoga through February (for non-members only)

LEARN MORE AT: PREMAYOGAINSTITUTE.COM

Prema Yoga Institute is longer limited to New York City and is now available online with interactive trainings through 2022. PYI is an accredited program based in New York city, teaching students around the globe through online classes. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you advance your yoga practice and teaching!

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