Birthlight Well Women Teacher Training Diploma Course

Well Women Yoga Teacher Training:

Teaching Yoga to woman across all stages of their reproductive lives
6 day teacher training course – Starts April 2012

Learn to help women cope with:

• difficult menstrual cycles
• undergoing menopause
• fertility issues
• specific medical conditions
• terminations of pregnancy
• miscarriages
• coming to terms with past traumas

Well Woman yoga classes help women of all ages and walks of life to process their individual experiences in their own way in a supportive atmosphere. This training offers a unique synthesis of many less widely taught aspects of yoga aimed at women throughout their lives and addresses women’s reproductive health including issues around fertility, hormonal changes, menopause, chronic stress and wellness.

Yoga practice can safely benefit women who suffer difficult menstrual cycles, are undergoing the menopause, or who have specific medical conditions.

Many turns in women's lives are linked to events such as terminations of pregnancy, miscarriages, coming to terms with past traumas. Well Woman yoga classes help women of all ages and walks of life to use gentle yoga in order to process their individual experiences in their own way in a supportive atmosphere.

Well Women Teacher Training
This Diploma course includes simple practices for optimizing the menstrual cycle, particularly when disorders are present, both before and after conceiving a baby. It extends to the pre and post menopause years in the perspective of a positive physical and spiritual transformation.

Birthlight’s aims are to promote the expansion of a spiral of joy and delight not just around birth itself but in the wider context of women’s lives, whether they are mothers or not. Yoga offers invaluable tools for transforming lives by reaching both conscious and unconscious processes through simple body-based practices.

Like all Birthlight courses, this Diploma integrates theory (detailed anatomy and physiology, neuro-endocrinology, selected classic Yoga, Trantra and Ayurveda texts) with original and effective therapeutic adaptations of Yoga tested over thee decades of teaching. Course contents include:

• Menstruation and its disorders,
• Fertility issues,
• Long ranging sequels of childbirth and aspects of the menopause,
• Pelvic muscle tone and more particularly the pelvic floor are covered in detail
• This course is special in facilitating practical healing of emotional aspects through subtle physical awareness that can complement biomedical treatments or enhance women’s quality of life.
• Yoga practices covered in this course include:
• Asana (restorative poses, flow practice),
• Pranayama, Bandha, Mudra, Nada –use of sound and voiced breath- and various forms of deep relaxation.
• Other practices taught on this course are part of the shamanic tradition.

Teacher Training Course Prerequisites

This course is designed for experienced Yoga Teachers (2 years of teaching) and Yoga Therapists who wish to offer focused classes or one to one sessions to women at all stages of their life cycle.  Other health practitioners who wish to specialize in yoga applications for women’s reproductive health, whether in small groups or in one to one sessions need to apply individually.

Course Objectives

By the end of the Birthlight Well Woman Yoga Diploma the attendee will be able to:
• Develop the role of yoga in both preventative care and therapy to enhance women’s reproductive health and well being through the various stages of the life cycle
• Assist women to take a greater responsibility for their own health around the menstrual cycle, the postnatal period and the menopause
• Design safe and effective yoga classes for women affected by a range of pathologies, with guidelines on complementary treatment and referral
• Offer standard sets of adapted postures, breathing techniques, forms of relaxation and other yoga-based practices that are conducive to optimal fitness and vibrant health for women
• Assist implementation of Birthlight Well Woman yoga within Primary Care Facililties or through private clinic and specialized yoga classes for the public.

Course Contents

Part 1: 17-20 April 2012.
After completing Part 1:  6 Months Self Practice, developing your practice and teaching, case studies and course work is required.
Part 2: 22-23 September 2012.

Click here for details daily program.

Tutor’s Perspective - From Francoise:

"Women in general desire to manage their menstrual cycles naturally, conceive babies when they feel ready to do so, give birth with minimal intervention, grow into motherhood in fulfilling ways and approach their menopause without fear and discomfort.
The aim of this course is to raise awareness that this trajectory is possible for the majority of women in our culture with basic awareness and simple practices. Yoga and breathing can bring awareness of the powers of the body and mind, and this can aid towards more natural forms of self care, for women and their families to celebrate life.

The course develops confidence and self-expression in supporting, educating, and offering self-help to women and their partners. Some of the women who come to classes may never have performed yoga before: these classes can help them realize the potential of their bodies and how they can self-heal not just aches and pains but also emotional scars. The classes can be an effective forum for meeting other women and can create a supportive environment with non-judgmental and caring exchanges. Even for inexperienced women, a few weeks’ tuition is sufficient to produce beneficial effects: women can then be directed to general Yoga classes.
Training in Yoga and also in shamanism has been conducive to deepening my life-long exploration of the mind/body association.

As a Yoga Teacher or Yoga Therapist, you are in a unique role for promoting women’s abilities to self-help and self-heal in the safe space that Yoga opens. The effects of what we teach are wide-ranging and touch women’s hearts and lives in ways that are incommensurate with the simplicity of our practices. To me, it is a constant wonder to see how such easy and relatively pleasant activities can both prevent sickness and contribute to restore full vitality.

Birthlight Well Woman Yoga broadens the principles of Birthlight Perinatal Yoga that are becoming more widely accepted, and actively encouraged, within Birthing Units. The more Well Woman Yoga is practiced, the more confident women will feel in preparation for labour, early mothering and beyond. Retrospectively, menopausal women can heal the experiences of their reproductive cycles, whatever these have been, to access a well being they may never have experienced before."