Yoga for Cancer: a 40 hour teacher training
19th – 22nd September
9.30am – 5.30pm
£650
This 40-hour training accredited by Yoga Alliance Professionals will give you the tools to create a safe and healing environment to teach yoga and relaxation to anyone diagnosed with cancer or any long term health conditions. It is open to qualified or accredited teachers of yoga or therapists with a committed yoga practice.
The days will start at 9.30am and will include a mixture of physical practice, lectures and working in smaller groups or breakout rooms. There will be a break in the morning and the afternoon and 1 hour for lunch. The day will end at 5.30pm and we will finish with pranayama / meditation.
There will also be opportunity to observe a yoga for cancer class. Each day will begin with a practice suitable for anyone diagnosed with cancer so that you have the opportunity to experience four different classes and the adaptations that might be necessary, followed by discussion of the focus set for each class. Each practice will include the use of mudras and pranayama.
Day 1: Gentle practice with mudras the importance of building back strength slowly. Overview of cancer terminology and diagnosis. How to create a safe and healing environment. Understanding stress, fear and anxiety and the impact of living with cancer. Treatment for cancer and how to start creating a toolbox of poses and adjustments to help with the side effects of treatment and diagnosis.
Day 2: Guest Speaker Louise Malone Specialist Oncology Physiotherapist at LOC will talk on how movement helps to maximise a person’s function before, during or after treatment. How it can help with, and even prevent side effects of systemic treatment such as muscle weakness, peripheral neuropathy and treatment related fatigue (TRF). Stronger practice with mantras. Breast cancer treatment and reconstruction and its implications. Modifying the practice and the importance of building back range of motion and strength. How to create compassionate classes that start with ourselves. Building on our toolbox. Lymphoedema specific exercises.
Day 3: Empathy practice. Koshas a multidimensional approach to healing. Hormones and menopause, building our toolbox to support the side effects. Osteoporosis and building bone strength. The big Cs are also Community and Connection. Group class planning. How we can start to put what we have learnt into practice. Working in small groups in breakout rooms. Secondary Cancer.
Day 4: Guest Speaker Liliana Branco Supportive Care/Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Specialist will talk to us about how to support those in palliative care. The importance of learning to relax on a deeper level including Meditation, Yoga Nidra and guided relaxation. The business of teaching yoga for cancer.
Cultivating a safe space, how to hold that space, to listen and be compassionate in a yoga studio when working with fear, anxiety and possibly pain. To reassure people who may have found themselves in a world filled with tests and procedures. How you as a teacher can make the yoga studio a welcoming place that is accessible to a very wide range of experiences, abilities and quality of health.
Understanding cancer terminology. Diagnosis and grading of cancer. Treatment for breast cancer and implications of reconstructive surgery. Lymphoedema and cording and how to adapt the class to allow people to increase range of motion and build strength slowly and in a safe way. How your class can minimise muscle atrophy and keep blood and lymph circulating to help promote well being. A-Z of Side effects and using your skills as a yoga teacher or therapist to adapt classes so that the class is accessible and inclusive to all.
Exploring the concept that we are not just a physical body. How we are multidimensional beings of mind, body and spirit that are connected. Our bodies are made up of different layers or koshas that are constantly changing. We will explore how to fully let go and how we need to relax each layer from the outer to the inner layers for us to allow healing to take place. Considering what your students may need most to feel empowered but also taking into account practices that support the changes occurring such as bone density, menopausal symptoms or secondary cancer.
Vicky Fox
Vicky’s teaching style is based around her own varied experience of yoga and through that has created a physically challenging class developing strength and suppleness while emphasising alignment and precision. All the time believing that yoga should be an individual and safe practice. Vicky is registered with the Yoga Alliance as a senior registered yoga teacher and teacher trainer.
This training is open to all qualified, accredited yoga teachers, and therapists and healthcare professionals with a committed yoga practice. Prior to the course all participants will be asked to read an account of cancer from a supplied reading list, then reflect on and answer five questions.
There will also be post-course work that must be completed, including teaching a class, reading the book Making Friends with Death – A Buddhist Guide to Encountering Mortality by Judith L Lief, and completing an assignment on it.
This 40-hour specialist training accredited by Yoga Alliance Professionals
