{"id":20879,"date":"2018-07-30T10:00:42","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T17:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/?p=20879"},"modified":"2018-08-08T23:02:53","modified_gmt":"2018-08-09T06:02:53","slug":"800-hrs-yoga-therapy-teacher-training-thank-you-niroga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/yoga\/800-hrs-yoga-therapy-teacher-training-thank-you-niroga\/","title":{"rendered":"800 hrs. Yoga Therapy Teacher Training – thank you Niroga !"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reminiscing after the 2& 1\/2 modules made up last weekend … Can I finally say that I have completed my certification requirements for 800 hours in training ?\u00a0 I really hope so – seriously – as I had spend hours glued to the study videos (at the cost of great strain to one’s back – thus, Back Care Immersion<\/strong> with Judith & Lizzie Lasater and Mary Richards – highly recommended for yoga teachers and anatomy geeks interested in more holistic approach.), hours of reading, hours attending therapeutic classes (so good !) as if to counter all that sitting and studying. Pray for me that I have fulfilled the requirement at last. I know just 200 hrs. or 500 hrs. RYT is enough to teach any yoga – flow especially but yoga’s role in my fitness plan has always been therapeutic for me – nothing less.\u00a0 That’s why when Yoga Alliance announced banning the use of that word, “therapy” for any of the yoga we teach, I was like …what?\u00a0 WHAT?!\u00a0 If yoga isn’t therapeutic, what is it then?\u00a0 Just another fancy exercise – then why yoga – why not stick to soccer or zumba or dance or tennis or … stick to exercise, right ? Or is it a form of\u00a0callisthenics and stretching ? Or is it acrobatics and refined human contortions?<\/p>\n

Thus my search for yoga as I know it** to arrive at this Yoga Therapist learning. Sure, of course it’s exercise, a fitness program but it’s more – there are layers, sheaths, koshas that unfolds, getting us to the very core of our being … that intention and impact gets lost sometimes caught up in the ever accelerated pace of events unfolding all around us. I am happy I rediscovered that yoga, the kind of yoga we can savior and be sustained by.\u00a0 It’s a sustainable practice of self-care, integrating the mind-body and maybe even the spirit unfolds and evolves to take you to the unexpected place.<\/p>\n

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Baxter Bell, MD, c-IAYT (find his classes and recently published book “Yoga for Healthy Aging”), on violin, and Perry (find his classes – Veterans Yoga Project !) on guitar\u00a0 – here performing at our graduation, as we all broke out singing together in chorus, late-Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down”<\/strong> ! (we OM too:)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Niroga Institute is winding down their yoga programs (200 hrs. basic, 500 hrs. advance study & 800 hrs. yoga therapeutics) this year to focus their energies to teaching Dynamic Mindfulness & Transformative Life Skills<\/strong> <\/a>to school-aged students on-site by training the classroom teachers, counselors, and recruiting yoga teachers to serve on yoga-corps (like ‘peace corps’ but * yoga – “warriors of peace”:) to teach in the learning environment for K-12th.<\/p>\n

With their latest shift in their offering, feeling especially blessed and lucky that I had the privilege to learn from these respective expert in the particular field.<\/a>\u00a0 It’s their last year offering this comprehensive a program…\u00a0 Their wealth of knowledge as it relates to yoga and healing was … nothing short of inspiring.\u00a0 We learned how to better distill the yogic techniques and methods holistically for that unique whole person who stands before us.<\/p>\n

As you can tell by the course syllabus (see last post)<\/a>, each of the subject in our curriculum, we could spend a lifetime studying on BUT, we learned each of the subjects as it relates to the scope of our work in “yoga therapy”.\u00a0 Yoga therapist is never in the business of diagnosing, that’s as we know the role of the medical establishment, but there to work for the client’s need to organically find wholeness & wellness, mindful of other health professionals if need be (MD, PT, OT, DC, etc.), a bit similar to a role of a say, acupuncturist in the Eastern modality,\u00a0 to provide support through the application of this beautiful practice called YOGA.\u00a0 The greatest difference being it’s self-administered and self-empowering as the practitioner is not relying on a treatment to be administered from others – it’s self-driven. We were taught to first and foremost, do no harm by acting out of ego but provide true understanding, be knowledgeable, have empathy, and finally, apply yogic tools and techniques so that the client finds the strength to discover the healer, the innate wisdom, within.\u00a0 In order to do that we need to understand better our own makeup not just about the poses and the techniques.\u00a0 We need to better understand and love ourselves from top to bottom, from inside and out.<\/p>\n

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Earthing !<\/p>\n

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Best way to get out of your own way – living yoga (title of Judith Lasater’s lovely book) – rather than doing yoga.<\/p>\n

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Teacher Devi <\/a>(40+ years yoga teacher who started CalStar Yoga at UC Berkeley, yoga for people with disabilities) and here, lovely Winter Brown (teacher at Stanford Healthcare & @ Winter Brown Yoga), and a beautiful artist\/dancer\/yogi soul who wishes to remain anonymous:)<\/p>\n

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Labyrinth of a yoga circle – this year requiring 2+? circles to contain all the students. We all showed up! Niroga is a beautiful container for those wanting an advance study to further the practice with a sense of Seva – service at the core.<\/p>\n

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* yoga as in mindfulness and meditation for “peace”.<\/p>\n

** Yoga to me is not about pushing your body beyond limits and see if it breaks.\u00a0 Yoga is not about an “exhibit”, “contest” or “showcase” – yoga is not about what you can do or what you used to be able to do – it’s about overcoming ego and let’s face it – transcending many fears, especially of aging and loss – it’s really about living fully now – yoga is about healing if need be, self-care for preventative medicine or recovery, it’s about finding balance and your own center.\u00a0 Check this out.<\/a>\u00a0 Love it – what a sage.<\/p>\n

***I was once at Washington Park in Manhattan and performance artists showed up to exhibit “yoga” as people ogled at their Gumby Bendy poses – it was practically a freak show at a circus as I prayed that those so called yogis not have hip replacement and knees, or wrists surgeries in few years or deal with chronic pain.) Rather than bringing more people to try yoga, the show probably turned off many from even trying yoga – it did not appear inviting nor accessible.\u00a0 Most of us do not start yoga practice from pre-teen age nor practice 5+ hours a day as BKS Iyengar had. (Actually when asked how many hours he practiced a day he joked? by answering – 24 hours:)\u00a0 Some of us started the practice already into adulthood so … bear that in mind and be kind to yourself.\u00a0 The practice can be both challenging but still relaxing.<\/p>\n

The right practice, my yoga, brings about more lightness and you feel less stuck, less stressed and … filled with uplifted energy – prana – amidst the calmness.\u00a0 There’s peace within the mind and a tranquil spaciousness in the body.\u00a0 That is my intention.\u00a0 How about you?\u00a0 What’s the intention behind your practice?<\/p>\n

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Reminiscing after the 2& 1\/2 modules made up last weekend … Can I finally say that I have completed my certification requirements for 800 hours in training ?\u00a0 I really hope so – seriously – as I had spend hours glued to the study videos (at the cost of great strain to one’s back – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20879"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20879"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20959,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20879\/revisions\/20959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}