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The Yoga of Birth – Prenatal Yoga Teacher Training
This comprehensive 50 Hour teacher training is designed to give yoga teachers the practical skills, resources and confidence to use the practices of yoga to meet the unique needs of pregnant women. Prenatal yoga nourishes the body, mind and heart during the changes of pregnancy and unfolds women’s innate birthing wisdom in preparation for birth. By combining yoga wisdom with natural birthing principles, teachers will be able to inspire women to give birth as naturally, calmly and joyfully as possible.
Training Objectives:
The Yoga of Birth Teacher Training will help participants to:
-
Gain a comprehensive teaching repertoire tailored to the needs of pregnant women
- Adapt the tools of yoga – asana, vinyasa, pranayama, meditation, restorative yoga, chanting, partner work – to help pregnant women develop strength and flexibility in body, mind and spirit
- Develop safe, empowering and deeply relevant asana and vinyasa sequences adapted to all stages of pregnancy and all levels of yoga experience
- Skillfully address the therapeutic needs of pregnant women including contraindications, common complaints and supporting optimal foetal positioning
- Support, educate and empower women to give birth the way they want to
- Develop a holistic framework that combines yoga, natural birthing principles and drawing on the medical approach as needed
- Understand the physical and physiological changes of pregnancy and birth
- Explore the role of the breath and meditation in the process of embracing the intensity of birth and in natural pain management
- Understand the current cultural context of birth to help orient and empower women in their birth choices
- Develop resources and referral networks with other health practitioners in the birthing field
- Learn the professional practices required to run prenatal yoga classes
Training Structure
This is a comprehensive 50 Hour Training, with 30 contact hours and 20 non-contact hours of guided self-study and assessment. (This follows the Yoga Australia recommendation that prenatal training be 50 overall hours). Varied teaching methods will be used including yoga practice, information sharing, guest speakers, small group work, teaching observation and assistance. The training will be engaging and participatory, drawing on the input of all participants. There will be a balance of experiential and theoretical work in a supportive and fun learning environment. Students will also complete a practical written assessment that will be relevant to establishing themselves as prenatal yoga teachers. Students will receive an extensive training manual and a certificate of completion. This training earns 50 CPD points for Yoga Australia members.
Anahata Giri has been practicing yoga for 24 years and teaching yoga for 9 years. She began researching and teaching prenatal yoga in 2005 and her prenatal classes and Yoga of Birth workshops in Melbourne have been hugely popular. She is passionate about women’s potential to embrace birth as a joyous life experience. She is a member and a Victoria Representative of Yoga Australia (YA) and she helped to write the YA Guidelines for Prenatal Yoga Teacher Training. Her training in somatic psychotherapy and community development and her past work as a counselor and community development worker, has made her a highly experienced group facilitator.
Prerequisites
To attend this training, participants need to be trained yoga teachers or currently training to be yoga teachers. Dedicated yoga students will also be considered.
Dates and Times
Friday 26 October 9.00am-6.00pm, Saturday 27 October 11.00am-6.00pm & Sunday 28 October 9.00am-6.00pm
& Friday 2 November 9.00am-6.00pm
Venue
This training will be held at MAMA Midwives and Mothers Australia at 38 Gatehouse Drive Kensington 3031. MAMA is an inspiring centre providing independent midwifery and integrated prenatal, birth and postnatal care to pregnant women and their families.
Cost
The cost for this training is $650. This includes comprehensive 50 hour training, extensive training manual, certificate of completion and morning and afternoon teas. A $100 deposit (non-refundable) will secure your place. Payment in full is due September 20 2012.
Cancellation after full payment, more than 30 days before the training will receive fee refund minus $100 deposit. Cancellation after full payment more than 2 weeks before will receive 50% refund. Cancellation less than 2 weeks will receive no refund unless the course is booked out and your place can be filled.
How to apply
If you are interested to attend this training please contact Anahata and she will send you an Application Form and return this with your deposit of $100.
Prenatal Yoga Classes
Please note: My apologies but due to study committments I am not running prenatal yoga classes in 2012. I can give individual programs for pregnant women to practice at home.
Yoga during pregnancy is an opportunity to listen deeply to our body, our feelings, our intuition, our growing baby, our deepest self. By listening we deeply nourish our babies and ourselves and connect with a deep birthing wisdom. Yoga and meditation encourage us to go deep within to a deep source of stillness. This deep well of silence underlies all other experience and guides us throughout pregnancy and as we give birth.Yoga provides a deeply experiential and integrated approach with practical tools for preparing the body and the mind for giving birth. Physically, yoga postures help to develop the strength, flexibility and stamina needed for giving birth. Yoga movement encourages the flow of prana/energy in to help the body adjust to the enormous physical, emotional and hormonal changes that occur during pregnancy. Breathing practices prepare women to use the breath as a rope to hang on to throughout labour. Following the breath leads women to a deep state of meditation.
Many natural birth writers describe the central importance of an altered state of consciousness, the birthing trance or, in yoga terms, meditation. This natural, deeply meditative state greatly enhances the birthing process in many ways. A finely-tuned balance of hormones is released that orchestrates the birthing process. Women are deeply relaxed and receptive and able to accept the birthing process, not resist it. Through acceptance women can let go of thoughts and fears and give themselves over to their bodies that know what to do, to their breath and to a deep stillness within. Meditation is an active process of surrender: not as in giving up but as giving over to something more vast than our selves. Meditation practice helps women birth from a place of trust, safety and even exhilaration and joy.
The most precious gift that yoga and meditation offers to pregnant women is a way to strengthen the spirit. When our body, mind and heart are challenged – beyond what we ever imagined – by the intensity of childbirth, it is our strength of spirit that is our most precious resource. Yoga helps us to fully embrace the intensity of life, right here and now, not only in childbirth but also in all aspects of life. This embracing of life, is meditation in action.
About the Prenatal Yoga Classes
Prenatal classes with Anahata include: dynamic flowing movement and postures; pelvic floor exercises; breathing; yoga nidra; sound practices and meditation. The classes are a blend of active movement and subtle internal practices. Women are gently challenged to be as active as they can be, with practices modified to suit all levels of experience and all stages of pregnancy. The classes are run as a 10 Week Course so that practices can be explored systematically and so that a more personalised approach can be offered. Themes based on the five elements: earth, water, fire, air and space are used to encourage a holistic preparation for birth. Earth gives us grounding and centredness, water the ability to go with the flow, fire our power and capacity to embrace intensity, air the profound tool of the breath, and space is explored as meditative awareness. Anahata has a deeply inspiring and supportive approach. Her own experience of giving birth naturally has given her a passion to help other women find their own source of strength and surrender to give birth naturally.
Check the timetable for course dates. Please note: My apologies but due to study committments I am not running prenatal yoga in 2012
Booking is essential and early bookings are reccommended as these courses usually book out. The class is run as a 10 Week Course each term. The class can be attended in 10 week or 5 week blocks – or women can come casually in the last 4 weeks of their pregnancy. You are welcome to join any week after the start date if places are available – please phone for details.
Phone Anahata on 0410 950 606 or email: anahatagiri@gmail.com
Individual Yoga Programs
Pregnancy is an ideal time to begin or renew a yoga practice at home, as women can intuitively adapt their practice to meet changing needs. Personalized yoga programs are designed to meet individual needs for specific physical conditions, for working with fears and emotional issues and for spiritual deepening. Programs can also be designed for women who are very experienced with yoga and would like to work more deeply during their pregnancy.
The process to design an individual program involves an initial short phone consultation, then a 2 hour one-to-one yoga session to explain and fine-tune the program and then the program is written up fully. I am then happy to answer any follow-up question about the program. I can meet with women in their homes or at a yoga studio.
Cost: $150
This includes: initial phone consultation; 2 hour one-to-one session; written program and follow-up questions.
Sarah Buckley
Jeannine Parvati Baker
Frederick Leboyer
Frederick Leboyer