Why Modifying Yoga for Older Clients May Improve your Teaching Career in 2022
Why Modifying Yoga for Older Clients May Improve your Teaching Career
The world's population is steadily getting older. In 2020, over a billion people were over 60, equating to one out of seven people. Estimates suggest that by 2045, that number will rise to one out of every five people.
As the population ages, decreased physical activity and mobility echo this "graying of America." Comprehensive research examines this a bit further. Physical activity is part exercise, a concentrated and purposeful action, and part activities of daily life. Many aging individuals do not participate in the suggested 150 minutes of physical activity per week.
Science tells us that movement and exercise contribute to improved heart health, mental stability, and help reduce the risk of strokes, diabetes, and other life-changing health challenges. (1)
As a Registered Yoga Teacher, you know that yoga is a beautiful way to address many aspects of aging - staving off diseases, supporting mindfulness, and increasing mobility to positively impact daily life.
Training to teach yoga to older clients
Teaching yoga to the aging population requires empathy and tact. Respect the frustrations and mental challenges that accompany aging and loss of mobility. Focus asana on function and feeling instead of finding a textbook alignment - especially in the spine, hips, and shoulders.
Yoga teachers with advanced teacher training will recognize that teaching all skill levels and body types involves motivational interviewing, active listening, and considerate observation to keep yoga safe. There is no change when teaching aging students. You may find that their focus moves to how asana can help mobility, freedom, and independence in daily life. There may be a need to dive deeper into meditation and pranayama to combat stresses and uncertainties about aging.
Teaching older clients challenges your guidance to notice and respond to physical asymmetry and changed anatomy. Aging hardens joints, compresses the spine, and may reduce endurance and muscular strength. Understanding the physical body's progression through time helps your teachings become safer and more appropriate for your audience.
Aging yogis often benefit from adaptations to fundamental yoga postures. Modifications may include props, shifting standing asana to the floor or wall, or using a chair. The chair can also help with standing poses and transitions between poses. Be mindful of using the floor to adapt asana, as moving up and down from the ground is often challenging.
Know the boundaries and benefits of different yoga postures for diseases and injuries. Those with poor heart health may need to keep their mind above their hearts. Students with arthritis and bone loss benefit from gentle stretching and weight-bearing activities. Mindful movement, meditation, and pranayama can address anxiety and depression.
Benefits to your yoga teaching career
Teaching to the graying population requires deeper understanding and knowledge of the human body, and these teaching skills provide you with versatility. These talents also form the basis for teaching alongside health care professionals, utilizing yoga in a health care setting, and teaching for injury recovery.
Yoga teachers also have the unique distinction of supporting more of your community and giving back to seniors. Yoga isn't always about strength and flexibility; it can bring liberty and purpose to your clients.
Teaching seniors well requires additional study, be it continuing education classes or advanced yoga teacher training, such as the RYT300 or RYT500. In today's changing world, it's possible to continue your education online at your own pace. Your students will thank you.
Be sure to check out the Prema Yoga Institute’s online advanced yoga teacher training, which offers many courses that emphasis teaching aging yoga students.
While you’re here, we’d love to invite you to enroll in ”Prema Yoga Therapeutics Essentials” - Explore how a yoga and meditation practice can significantly support health and wellness. Learn more about this course 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!
If you found this information useful, visit our Blog often or subscribe to our Mailing List for similar content.
(1) Langhammer, Birgitta et al. "The Importance of Physical Activity Exercise among Older People." BioMed research international vol. 2018 7856823. 5 Dec. 2018, doi:10.1155/2018/7856823
YTT: Accessible Yoga During Injury Recovery
YTT: Accessible Yoga During Injury Recovery
Even the most minor injury can create a significant disruption to health and spirit. The injury recovery process is complex, time-consuming, and often results in a new way of existing.
With physical and mental changes wrapped up in healing, yoga can be a great tool to address all aspects of the mind-body union during recovery.
Understanding the stages of injury
Acute injuries are fresh and new. During this time, attention by a health care professional is advised for pain management and treating inflammation. A recovery plan including the range of motion, weight-bearing guidelines, and long-term healing may begin forming. The acute stage is often the most painful stage of an injury, and yoga asana may not be advised. However, meditation and pranayama can alleviate stress by lowering cortisol levels, which also paves the way for healing. Restorative postures with the injury supported above the heart can be helpful in some cases.
Sub-acute injuries are in the early and delicate stages of healing one to three weeks after the original injury. Light stretching, increasing mobility, and weight-bearing movements may be allowed depending on the individual and the injury. This stage requires a gentle touch and guidance that avoids any possible stress to the area.
Chronic injuries are one to 12 months after the initial injury. Some injuries become chronic and last a lifetime. Often, asana can build strength in the surrounding areas to reduce the risk of re-injury. Strength and flexibility can be increased in the area gradually.
Related article: “Yoga in Healthcare – Asana and Meditation for Chronic Pain”
Benefits of accessible yoga for injury recovery
Injuries can take a daily routine and upend it, sometimes for months, years, or a lifetime. Teaching yoga for everybody and every body type becomes the bridge for a new daily routine through the healing process.
Pranayama and meditation are potent facilitators of reducing stress and anxiety. While injuries are physically painful, yoga teachers should not overlook the mental pain associated with a changing body and a new normal for that body.
Increased compassion and self-love accompany a post-injury yoga practice, working towards acceptance of the injury. As a yoga teacher, you know that supporting the healing of the mind and forging a new journey runs parallel to the physical changes in the body.
Yoga provides balance, both literally and figuratively, to the body. The physical body may need to find a new center of balance, and by extension, adapt its proprioception - the awareness of that body as it moves.
Guidelines for teaching accessible yoga for injury recovery
Injuries range from mildly inconvenient to life-changing. When teaching yoga for injury recovery, work within the guidelines of your student's health care team. Along those same lines, prompt your clients to listen to their bodies and define their safe limits.
Pursuing your RYT500 by enrolling in advanced yoga teacher training is important. For example, training in advanced anatomy and biomechanics at an accredited, Registered Yoga School (RYS300) will make your teaching accurate and safe.
Advanced yoga teacher training allows you to better modify postures as needed and guide healthy strengthening and balance of the injury's supporting muscles and soft tissues.
The anatomy of asana also helps you guide postures and poses in steps, offering props and alternative positioning to allow students to find the best place for their bodies.
Focus on the mindful aspects of yoga as you teach. Address feelings of frustration and anxiety with pranayama techniques that students can take with them. Slowing the pace of a class also supports slower breathing, inward reflection, and increased safety during asana.
Smaller group sizes and individual yoga sessions allow you to focus on the individual, providing accessibility and accuracy. You may also find that teaching for a specific injury is your calling.
Pursue Advanced Yoga Teacher Training to Learn How to Make Your Teachings More Accessible for Injury Recovery
The journey of the yoga teacher is not unlike that of the student, constantly uncovering rocks for new gems of knowledge and growth. Opportunities to learn more abound, from shorter intensive continuing education classes to advanced certifications in Yoga Teaching and Ayurveda. In between, you may choose to use advanced trainings as a stepping-stone in order to pursue your RYT300 or RYT500. Whatever your path or passion is, investing in knowledge allows you to serve your community better.
Yoga is a beautiful practice for all shapes and experiences, and mindful guidance tailored to the individual will best serve your community.
Continue to research similar topics on our Blog often or subscribe to our Mailing List for similar content. Additionally, consider enrolling in Advanced Yoga Teacher Training.
While you’re here, we’d love to invite you to enroll in ”Prema Yoga Therapeutics Essentials” - Explore how a yoga and meditation practice can significantly support health and wellness.
Learn the science and physiology behind the "down-regulating" aspects of restorative yoga, Hatha, meditation, slow flow, and pranayama. "Scan" the body to improve symmetry and manage pain, to alter postures when in recovery, and to practice mindfully as you age. Modify your practice and teaching mindfully in chair yoga, rope wall work, and propping. Learn ancient, evidence-informed techniques to reduce anxiety and depression, as well as how adjust teaching and practice when an injury of disease is present. Perfect for yoga teachers, therapists, and yoga enthusiasts alike.
In this course:
· 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
Learn more about this course 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!
If you found this information useful, visit our Blog often or subscribe to our Mailing List for similar content.
RYT500 Training: Teaching Slow Flow Yoga
RYT500 Training: Teaching Slow Flow Yoga
As you continue towards your RYT500 with advanced yoga teacher training, you will have the opportunity to deeply investigate specific yoga styles and techniques, such as slow flow yoga.
With slow flow yoga, yoga teachers can empower their students to find more, by doing less. Slow flow yoga is the gift of consideration and kindness. Pranayama, mindfulness, and powerful intentions merge with fewer poses, simple transitions, and time to move with purpose while quieting the mind.
What is slow flow yoga?
Slow flow yoga is a vinyasa practice that has been de-cluttered. Typical slow flow poses are foundational, not complicated, and not flashy.
Transitions in slow flow yoga are kept simple, and often the vinyasa sequence itself is removed. There may be half as many poses as a vinyasa class, and students are encouraged to use that time to focus inward instead of ahead to the next pose. Teaching slow flow yoga gives your students permission and space to explore.
The benefits of slow flow yoga for your students
While slow flow yoga seems more like restorative yoga, that doesn't make it any less challenging than a more rigorously paced yoga session.
The advantage for yoga students is that the relationship between breath and movement via ujjayi breathing is easier to observe and practice at a slower pace. Focused, slow, and deep breaths can lead your pupils to a soothing moving meditation. The fight or flight state is calmed, opening the door for the healing parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) to shine.
Slow flow yoga techniques give pupils time to settle into postures, finding the most supportive positioning for their body type without worry. Additional use of props to create more space for all body types increases the accessibility of your teachings.
Slow flow yoga is adjustable and safe. When students linger in their bodies, they become more in tune with what their body needs. Subtle signs of distress, twinges of discomfort, and a racing mind have time to be noticed and adjusted for safety and comfort.
Slowing down a yoga session gives more attention to the simple and foundational asana that lowers the risk of long-term injury. The focus can be on the essential components of breath and movement, without worrying about keeping up with neighbors or the sequencing.
Components of a slow flow yoga session
It's essential to weave an intention into pranayama and asana while guiding slow flow. An intention defines a safe place to anchor and inspire the sequence. Intentions are presented initially and used as a reference and reminder throughout the session.
Introducing pranayama before movement sets the stage for mindful asana, letting the breath lead the way. When the breath is first, the peaceful PNS can surface. When movement is front and center, the breath can be lost or stressed as it tries to keep up.
As a yoga teacher sequencing a slow flow class, start warming up all limbs, the spine, and the core. It's helpful to think of sequencing from the ground up. Poses begin on the mat and gradually move towards standing. You can also think of sequencing numerically, starting with 6 points of contact on the mat, then 5 points, and so on until there is only 1 point of contact in standing poses.
Conclude a slow flow sequence with meditation and savasana, returning to the intention.
Pursuing your RYT500 and learning more about slow flow yoga
At the core of every advanced yoga teacher training is anatomy, physiology, and the holistic relationships between the body's systems and the mind. For example, how the respiratory system interacts with mental health and how the nervous system affects digestion and heart rate.
Learning more about how yoga can support injury recovery and the slowing and healing of some disease processes with advanced yoga teacher training gives you tools and knowledge to better serve your community. Furthermore, learning to teach for every body style with slow flow yoga removes limiting factors from your pupils and supports their health.
We’d love to invite you to
While you’re here, we’d love to invite you to enroll in Advanced Yoga Teacher Training at Prema Yoga Institute (RYS300) – Online Accredited Training Now Available!
Reach out to us at Prema Yoga Institute (RYS300). In fact, we’d love to invite you to enroll in our online courses. Our Advanced YTT has accessibility in mind, for example, our Yoga in Healthcare includes meditation and mindfulness teaching skills, that empower yoga teachers to interface more effectively with doctors and health care professionals.
Visit Prema Yoga Institute (RYS300) to learn more about our training, which is now available online with interactive trainings through 2022! Courses count as CE Credits with Yoga Alliance OR towards your RYT500 at Prema Yoga Institute.
Prema Yoga Institute is longer limited to New York City and is now available online with interactive trainings through 2022. PYI is an RYS300, IAYT-accredited program based in New York city with a certified Yoga Alliance RYS300, 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!
If you found this information useful, visit our Blog often or subscribe to our Mailing List for similar content.