For teachers and trainees

Most people love hands-on assists and adjustments. At our studio we offer consent cards, which people take if they would like us to give them physical support in their practice. 95% of our students take a card – it seems people are hungry for contact and guidance through touch.

But how many of us teachers and trainee teachers are really confident about touching people – especially since we all got glued to our mats during Covid? And many of us will have qualified during or since that time. It’s further complicated by the issues of consent and the many abuse scandals in our industry. Do we actually dare to touch people now?

This workshop will teach you some very simple and safe hands-on assists for the more common postures. We won’t be teaching you how to push anyone into a posture, rather how to gently encourage a student to find their own way into a freer and lighter experience. Assists are not about correcting, but enlivening the experience of a posture and helping students to bring awareness to their bodies, hearts and minds. 

We will explore the key principles of embodied touch, absolute consent, movement patterns of postures, and appropriate assists for different bodies. There are times when a prop is better than an assist, so we’ll look at ways to navigate that.

Sophie Carr is a senior teacher with 30 years experience and co-owner of the Stables Yoga Centre in York. Her original training as an Iyengar teacher emphasised hands-on work, but it was the Thai Yoga Massage she studied which gave her full confidence with people’s bodies. Sophie is a mindfulness teacher and a student of the Diamond Approach. She has a special interest in embodiment, personal and inter-personal inquiry and the mind-body connection.

£65 (£55 if booked before 30 September)