Led by Nicole DeAvilla

Musculoskeletal Yoga Therapy

8 days

• Jun 22 – 30, 2013 (pick-ups & drop-offs available*)

*Pick up & drop off at Sacramento Airport. Click on link next to date to get full details.

Nursing CEU Eligible: 48 hours

Yoga Alliance RYT's and E-RYT's: This course will offer continuing education credit. Details coming soon.

Prerequisite:  Principles of Yoga Therapy (which has additional prerequisites)

This course will explore problems of the back, knee, hip, shoulder, and more. You’ll learn to evaluate, communicate, and teach yoga safely to help with pain relief and pain management. You’ll learn when to refer students to a health care provider.

Learn how to use the tools of yoga to improve the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of your students.  There will be special emphasis on the most common problems of the lower back, as well as other back and joint issues most often encountered by yoga teachers.

Specifically, you will learn:

• How to reduce the risk of re-injury
• To increase range of motion and flexibility
• To increase strength safely
• To improve chronic postural problems
• To identify and respond appropriately to structural, muscular, joint, nerve or disease processes
• Post-op basics
• Basic yoga therapy for scoliosis, replaced joints, and other issues
• To read the body for tension, laxity, and minute misalignments
• Proven techniques for a variety of musculo-skeletal issues
• Lower back problems from general “stiffness” to chronic and acute conditions
• What to do about shoulders, from frozen to dislocated
• To understand and correct issues in the knees such as instability, ACL injury, extensor mechanism malfunction
• Yoga therapy and activities of daily life
• Hip strength, ROM, flexibility, and optimal function
• And more…

This course emphasizes learning practical skills.  How to work in both group situations and with private clients will be covered.   Much time will be devoted to teaching practice, sometimes with actual clients. 

Instructor Nicole DeAvilla has taught yoga teachers for 18 years, and has taught regular Ananda Yoga classes for 27 years. She has a background in sports medicine and chiropractic physiotherapy.  Currently she has a private yoga therapy practice and teaches a Master Yoga Class for Yoga Teachers.  Nicole is a member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists and is a contributor to their journal and several other publications.  She regularly teaches Master Classes for the International Yoga Therapy Conference.

For those who have previously taken both of the Yoga Therapy courses offered at The Expanding Light by Nicole DeAvilla: those courses will be considered the equivalent of this new course.  For those who have taken only ONE of Nicole’s Yoga Therapy courses: it is necessary to take this new 7-day course in order to fulfill this requirement for Yoga Therapist Training—Level 1.

Prices are all-inclusive and cover accommodations, meals, classes or activities, and course materials.

Musculoskeletal Yoga Therapy starts the afternoon of the first date listed. It’s ideal to arrive before 4 pm, if you are able to. That way, you can join in the afternoon session of yoga and meditation, which begins at 4:45 pm. Dinner is at 6:30. The first real gathering of your group is at 7:30 pm. If you need to arrive here after 5 pm, that’s fine, but it helps us if you let us know at 800-346-5350. We can also put aside a dinner for you if you need to arrive after 7 pm. The program ends with lunch on the last date. Please see our Daily Schedule.

See Transportation and Directions whether you are coming by plane, car, bus or train. Our Frequent Questions page answers many of the questions you might have about How to Go on Retreat.