Postnatal Yoga short course
As pregnancy yoga grows in popularity, more and more new mothers are seeking to continue their yoga classes after they've birthed their babies. Here at Sitaram in South London, we are able to offer six postnatal recovery and baby yoga classes every week, catering for mothers and babies together, from the newborn period, right through to toddling and walking (after that, they move into our family classes, where children from 3 and upwards can enjoy yoga togtether with their grown-ups). We find that most of the places on the postnatal courses are filled by mothers returning with the babies whom they carried through our programme of pregnancy yoga. It is hugely rewarding work to re-connect with the students at this period of massive change in their lives.
I've been training Baby Yoga teachers (through apprenticeships and courses) for the Birthlight Trust in Cambridge now for the past four years, and have always perceived that the demands for good postnatal yoga teachers far exceeded the present supply.
This is why I designed the Postnatal Yoga Course for the Wheel. It aims to equip pregnancy yoga teachers to provide nurturing and appropriate yoga sessions for mothers and babies. It focuses on the mothers, offering baby-friendly options for carrying and engaging infants in recuperative postnatal yoga practice.
Initially I created the course as a BWY Module, with the pre-requisite that all applicants hold both BWY diplomas AND BWY pregnancy module certificates. This narrowed the possible pool of suitably qualified applicants down so far that it just wasn't viable to run the course. However I received so much interest from other yoga teachers, all well-qualified in working with pregnancy yoga, that, in consultation with our Special Development Officer Miki Marks, I have now decided to open access to the postnatal yoga training by running it instead as a Short Course.
What this means is that qualified yoga teachers from all backgrounds who are already working with pregnant women, and who are already trained to teach pregnancy yoga, are invited to apply for the Postnatal Yoga Short Course. The certificate awarded upon completion will not be for a BWY Module, but instead will be a BWY Short Course Certificate. The course materials, assignments and all other elements of the course are identical to the module.
If you are already working with pregnant women, and feel that you would
like to extend your provision of yoga for these students right through the
first year postnatally and beyond, then this is the course for you!
The dates
for the coming years are 24/5 September 2005; 3/4 December 2005; 25/6
February 2006. This leaves plenty of time for case studies and assigments
between course meetings.
More information on the course