TEACHING YOGA TO OLDER ADULTS.
SATURDAY 4th May 2019, 12:00-16:30
4 CPD hours applicable
Cost £55.
Older adults are increasingly health conscious. Often they have more time, resources and money to invest in Yoga 1to1’s, classes, retreats and holidays. Teaching older adults is an art. Although there is minority of older adults whose flexibility and tone lend themselves to a happy time in a Hatha Yoga class, and fewer still who can easily endure a vinyasa flow, on the whole, older adults will face more obstacles and difficulty with Yoga, and if you can be the teacher who makes Yoga both easier and more enjoyable, you will be the one who benefits from their custom!
This workshop is specifically for you to increase and develop your understanding and skill in order to be able to deliver excellent and enjoyable yoga classes to older adults, in such a way as to keep them coming back for more.
The structure of the training will include:
WARM UP
Increase your personal repertoire of light movements and simple stretches that mobilise the joints and loosen the muscles. This makes everything that comes after easier and more accessible for older adults.
RELEASE THE SPINE
Remember the yoga saying, ‘you’re as young as your spine’; as we get older, the spine tends to stiffen, so develop your sequences of mini stretches and twists that increase suppleness and tone while boosting circulation throughout the muscles, tendons, connective tissues.
ACCELERATE SLOWLY
Practice incorporating more movement and enhanced breathwork into the yoga postures that follow - whether working with milder Hatha or stronger Vinyasa, this will increase the circulation and energy and make the Yoga seem much easier to do. This approach gives you, and them, the confidence to safely explore limits, improve and make progress in Yoga.
EXPLAIN THE BENEFITS
Increase your understanding of how the yoga postures and sequences that you teach interact with the anatomy and physiology of the body. Develop your ability to include explanations that link the yoga postures you select with the benefits to the health and functioning of the body.
This approach keeps people coming back for more. Whether in group classes or one to one tuition, this way of teaching makes Yoga easier to do and increases the ability to make progress. If people believe that the possibilities of yoga are definitely attainable, and if the teacher can clearly communicate what to do and why, and what the benefits are, then they will continue to freely invest their money and time because older adults especially understand the true value of having abundant health and energy.
ALEXANDER WEST
Qualifications:
-Senior Yoga Teacher, Yoga Alliance.
-Advanced Qi Gong Instructor, T’ai Chi Union of Great Britain
-Shiatsu Practicioner and Teacher. Zen Shiatsu Society
-Chi Nei Tsang massage teacher. Healing Tao, Mantak Chia.
I have taught older adults every week since 2003, at community health centres, clubs and gyms including Nuffield Health, David Lloyd, YMCA, GLL and at private members’ clubs including the RAC Club in Pall Mall.
When I first started teaching older adults, I found the obstacles and difficulties they faced quite challenging: My Yoga Teacher Training took place in an apprenticeship style programme over 2 Years at the West London Yoga Shala under the tutelage of Viryam Robertson, who trained with BKS Iyengar and Zandor Remete. The training included a good grounding in Iyengar, Ashtanga and Shadow styles of Yoga.
With many of the older adults (50 +) i was teaching, the challenging Ashtanga Vinyasa was simply too difficult and inappropriate, while the Iyengar approach was more accessible it was too static and in some ways not challenging enough to keep them enthusiastic and engaged.
The way I developed to teach older adults drew more on the Shadow Yoga, which uses “stanas” rather than asanas, which include a greater element of movement and increased emphasis on strengthening as well as stretching, and incorporates elements of Qi Gong and draws on the detailed knowledge of Anatomy,Physiology and Pathology and principles of oriental medicine used in Shiatsu and acupuncture.
More about Alexander West at www.alexwestyoga.co.uk
