I have a special interest in and love for promoting women's pelvic health! Here are some samples of classes and workshops I have taught under this umbrella.

Caring for Your Post-Partum Pelvic Floor

They say that everything changes once the baby arrives, but your desire to control when and where you pee and your desire to enjoy pain-free sex will probably stay the same, no? Come to this fun, informative seminar in which you will learn about the anatomy of your pelvic floor, how to care for it during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum, and how to find quality medical help if something goes wrong. These topics are woefully understudied in the broader medical community so most OBGYNs are not able to help you out should problems arise.

Yes, we will talk about those mysterious Kegels! What are they really and should you be doing them?

Past Workshop

"Caring for the Post-Partum Pelvic Floor: A Workshop for Perinatal Yoga Teachers"

Barefoot Movement

1635 Broadway, 3rd Floor

Oakland 94612

April 1, 2016 7-9pm

Would you like to offer this workshop at your yoga studio, birthing class, or moms' group?

Yay! Me too!

I can teach it to people with or without yoga experience.

Contact me and we'll figure out the details...

Yoga for V Pain

The content of this class is based on my decade-plus journey through v pain, what I have learned from the medical and yoga communities along the way, as well as my training with Leslie Howard, a yoga teacher and pelvic floor specialist; I have completed her yoga teacher training on the pelvic floor.

Class will cover anatomy as well as asana (physical poses), breathwork, and meditations.

My teaching approach is based on three principles:

1.) You’ve got to feel good to feel good.

Chronic pain causes us to withdraw from our bodies, and often leads us to us feeling betrayed by or angry at them. Step one in overcoming this is finding pleasure in our bodies, through gentle movement and self-massage, searching out the sensations of ease and comfort. This reduces health-related anxiety and sets us up for step two.

2.) Be your own best data collector.

In order to provide health care providers with articulate information about our symptoms, we need to be expert data collectors. What hurts when and where? What feels good when and where? By mindfully taking our bodies into different shapes (aka poses) and doing simple self-massage, we get valuable feedback.

3.) Chill out already.

Any health problem requires our bodies to switch into “Rest and Digest” mode, the parasympathetic nervous system. In class we learn various ways of doing this, primarily through restorative poses in which the body is completely supported in a relaxed position by various props.

* * *

This approach is laid over a series of asanas that bring awareness to the pelvis and how it connects to the rest of the body.

Unlike individual PT and doctor’s appointments, Yoga for V Pain classes allow women to quietly be with their bodies.
Unlike support groups that involve verbal sharing, these classes provide community without the intimidation of sharing personal information.

Location

Barefoot Movement

1635 Broadway, 3rd Floor

Oakland 94612

7pm Friday nights: 5 class series

9/25, 10/9, 10/30, 11/6, 11/27 (2015)

Note: this class was organized under a MeetUp group I founded, "Pelvic Warriors." I am happy to say that I have passed the baton to another organizer, the wonderful Sarah Kennedy, who has broadened the scope and brought her own expertise to this group: http://www.meetup.com/PelvicWarriors/