According to a recent survey, yoga is now being practiced by over twenty million people in the USA 1. The reasons given for attending yoga classes were increasing energy (66%), enhancing immune function (50%) and promote health and disease prevention (28%). The major conditions found to be helped through yoga included back pain (20%), arthritis (6%) and stress (6%) 2. Given the widespread of chronic diseases in the elderly population, yoga is believed to be an affordable solution to improving healthcare 3. With this increasing popularity comes an increasing need to train yoga teachers to be more knowledgeable about anatomy and health concerns. Yoga teachers often have the respect of their students and these students will turn to them for health-related questions. Also, they have the responsibility to provide a safe class to their students. Medical yoga therapists have an important role to play in the translation of knowledge to this particular clientele. By teaching the MTY precepts and safety guidelines that MTY professionals follow, I believe that the Yoga community can gain incredible knowledge on injury prevention and management. The aim of this CCC is to provide a complete and thorough course on Anatomy and basic injury management through yoga for Yoga Teachers at the YTT 300 level I wish to provide knowledge about anatomy, fascial lines, neuroscience of pain, injury prevention and basic management for upper and lower extremities and the spine. The course is divided in 3 2-day weekends to allow integration between the sections. I also wish for my fellow yoga teachers to know the wealth of knowledge that medical professionals have to prevent and treat injuries, thus referring to the appropriate professional when a student’s health concern is beyond their scope of knowledge. I believe that thru this CCC, yoga teachers will gain in confidence and the public will be better protected when following their community class leading to a safer yoga practice for all.

1- Schmalzl, L., Powers, C., & Henje Blom, E. (2015). Neurophysiological and neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the effects of yoga-based practices: towards a comprehensive theoretical framework. Front Hum Neurosci, 9, 235. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2015.00235
2- Field, T. (2016). Yoga research review. Complement Ther Clin Pract, 24, 145-161. doi:10.1016/j.ctcp.2016.06.005
3- Garner, G. (2016) Medical Therapeutic Yoga. United Kingdom: Handspring Publishing.

The ccc on Anatomy for Yoga teachers was a success. I had a very receptive group of 12 yoga teachers. Being my usual Pitta and perfectionist self, I ended up including a LOT of content. The more I was producing the ccc, the more I felt I needed to give them background knowledge on other aspects. It was however very hard work to put all of this knowledge in one big course. Thinking back, I don’t know if I would go as in depth with another group. The hard part is giving enough information for them to be able to grasp the general concepts but not too much to overwhelm them. No one in the group complained of being overwhelmed but at times it felt like there was a bit too much information for them. It was particularly hard teaching this information to people who had no medical background. That is why I kept adding more information because I felt they needed to get a bigger picture of the anatomical and neurophysiological concepts I was putting forward. This ccc helped me integrate the vast knowledge that I gained in MYT. Going back to each module and integrating what to do for each injury management I presented, in all the koshas, really helped me put all of the MYT pieces together. The yoga teachers were very receptive and appreciated to wealth of knowledge offered. We had a few bumps in the road when introducing ideas for asana modifications that didn’t follow their yogic traditions like warrior 2 or triangle for example. It was fascinating to see how people grasp on to ideas on asanas because of the way they think it is supposed to look like. Even if they felt better in the modified pose and understood the anatomical reasoning behind the new modifications, some people still went back to their old postures when we were doing a class together. Overall, it was a very good learning experience for the teacher in me. It was a challenge to do the whole course in English but I succeeded quite well! I’m very happy to have done this project and I hope others can benefit from my experience. Thank you!