accessible yoga

The Guide to Adaptive Yoga

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Four Pillars to Adaptive Yoga

I knew early on that teaching yoga to unique populations was what my purpose was. I was certain that I wanted to bring yoga to people who would otherwise not be able to easily access it. Years ago I began by peddling my offerings into rehab centers and places elderly lived. I taught for many years with the National MS society. My adaptive yoga journey started at a local organization that offers adaptive sports to adults with varying disabilities. Teaching to this population, I found was definitely at home and found pure joy in the work.

I also have taught and continue to teach “typical” people in my studio and in the community. It fills a different place in my heart. I love bringing some of my special experiences with my other students into the space of a regular ol’ yoga class. When I was actively sharing yoga in the hospice world, I had many lessons that were gifted to me from those who were dying and I embedded them into my yoga classes.

Why The Pillars?

For nearly two decades I have logged and stored away many of those special experiences and continue to pull from them often. I also have grown tremendously as a yoga teacher. In that time, I developed techniques that have success when sharing yoga with different populations. I have crafted this technique into a method I call the Four Pillars to Adaptive Yoga. Really, these pillars should be in every yoga class, but a definite must for the adaptive yoga world.

Every community across the globe has people with disabilities who need adaptive yoga and mindfulness. They need connection, movement, breath and gratitude. It is my mission that as many people as possible will have access to yoga, but I need your help!

If you are a yoga teacher, a mental health worker, an occupational therapist, a counselor, a certified nurse’s aid, or a compassionate person YOU can do this!

The Guide to Adaptive Yoga

I created a guide to get you started and I have TONS of resources and experiences if it sparks something in you that wants more. I will walk you through how to market yourself, how to invoice, how to grow your offerings and how to bring YOU into your community to serve others.

Let’s do this! It starts here!

Get the Guide to Adaptive Yoga Here

About Stacie

With over sixteen years experience, Stacie Wyatt is an experienced 500 hour Registered Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance, Certified Brain Injury Specialist, Certified Trauma Informed Coach, Life Wellness Coach, Senior YogaFit Instructor, Mind/Body Personal trainer, Stress Reduction and Meditation Instructor, Pilates Instructor, and Barre Instructor. Stacie brings her personal life experience of raising a daughter with a disability and over 12 years working in special education to her everyday Yoga classes.

Teaching a Student with Brain Injury via Skype

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This article was written yesterday about some of the many ways I reach people to share yoga and wellness. I am so excited and super honored to be featured. Read on.

This photo shows yoga teacher Stacie Wyatt sharing yoga with a student through Skype. This student is a young woman with a brain injury, who lives across the country from Stacie in South Carolina.  Following a car accident and being hospitalized for nearly a year, the student was working really hard to regain her ability to speak and walk. Stacie says that in their sessions, they worked on crossing the midline and stabilizing her core as well as on strengthening her weaker right side. They also did some general stretching to keep her body fluid. She is now able to walk short distances with support. To help her with speaking they practiced breathing techniques to fill her body up with air so that she could speak more forcefully. —Nina

Stacie Wyatt, RYT200, believes that it is her life purpose to share the gift of yoga with anyone who is willing to say yes. In addition to being an advocate for those with disabilities, Stacie is founder of Embracing Spirit Yoga which specializes in bringing adaptive yoga into community centers and rehabilitation clinics. Bringing her depth of compassion to the mat—or the chair—she offers students the opportunity to grow as an individual in all aspects of their life.

She is a Registered Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance, Life Wellness Coach, Senior YogaFit Instructor, Mind/Body Personal trainer, Stress Reduction and Meditation Instructor, Pilates Instructor, and Barre Instructor. She is also certified in Integrative Movement Therapy. Stacie brings her personal life experience of raising a daughter with a disability and over 12 years working in special education to her everyday yoga classes. In addition to teaching classes at a variety of local centers and health clubs, Stacie also continues to offer Yoga and Wellness coaching individually to those seeking private sessions.
This post was edited by Nina Zolotow, co-editor of the Accessible Yoga blog and Editor in Chief of Yoga for Healthy Aging.

Here is the original article https://accessibleyoga.blogspot.com/2019/08/featured-photo-teaching-student-with.html?m=1

To learn more about my services, just click here.

True Yoga

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I often hear from people that they can’t do or are not good at yoga because they are not able to touch their toes or some other physical reason (excuse).

I used to get frustrated when I heard these silly statements because our western world has decided that yoga is about contorting our bodies into pretty little postures.

In truth, yoga is about union and creating space. Union first with yourself—as you are in THIS moment, which is a beautiful and magnificent light that is absolutely NOT defined by your physical ability or limitations, especially as it relates to yoga. Yoga is to create space in your mind by slowing down your thoughts and noticing the space between thoughts. Space in your body by lengthening and feeling sensation of stretching. Space in your spirit to connect with the greatness that you are.

So, when someone says to me that they can’t do or are not good at yoga, I sweetly offer them a chance to hear about some of my yoga students who courageously say yes and who are not limited by their own silly thoughts.

To me, this picture is what yoga is all about.