JULY 2019 50-hour Advanced Yoga Training in Trauma, Mental Health and Body Image

Are you a qualified yoga teacher, wanting to feel confident and equipped to offer more specialised support for your students, but are unsure exactly how to refine your teaching skills to be most sensitive to working with complex and vulnerable situations and communities? This 50-hour advanced teacher training is designed specifically for you.

What is the training?

This 50-hour 4-day advanced training is for qualified yoga teachers, focusing on Yoga for Trauma, Anxiety, Depression, and Body Image. You can choose from residential or non-residential (stay offsite) options, as preferred. All modules are integrated from a person-centred, ethics-oriented, social-justice perspective. The course is designed to create deep shifts in the way you think about yoga, social justice and mental and spiritual health, and support you to be a confident facilitator of safe and empowering spaces for yoga to be shared in the context of challenging personal and psychological experiences in the lives of your students.

Based on contemporary research, social justice principles, and underpinned by the framework of the highly popular workshops and programs below (among many others), developed by your facilitator Sarah Ball over 15 years of teaching yoga and working with trauma, mental health, and eating and body image issues.

Who is it for?

The training is designed for yoga teachers who genuinely want to feel confident and equipped to offer more specialised support for their students, but are unsure exactly how to refine their teaching skills to be most sensitive to working with complex and vulnerable situations and communities. If you're among this community of teachers, then this course is tailored specifically to train you in these areas so you can feel confident and clear in your approach to mental health, trauma, and body image, in your teaching.

A minimum certification of 200 hour yoga teaching is required to attend the course (teachers-in-training who are currently completing a minimum 200 hour certification may also enrol). The training is kept below 20 participants, to ensure there's plenty of opportunity for integration of learning.

Modules and Topics Covered

Day 1: Trauma Sensitive Yoga + Social Justice Principles for Yoga Teachers

• Yoga and Trauma: Understanding and applying the 4 primary principles of the Trauma Sensitive Yoga method
• Methods of working with the nervous system to create greater safety in individuals and groups
• Introduction to trauma informed practice as a wider social movement in the ‘helping professions’.
• How yoga can be adapted in specific contexts to support trauma sensitive principles
• A suite of simple teaching principles and practices that can be integrated into daily life, group yoga classes, and 1:1 yoga sessions
• Methods of teaching public yoga classes with a trauma-informed approach
• The scope of professional practice for yoga teachers in the field of mental health, trauma and body image.
• Bringing life experience to teaching: peer work and the appropriate use of self-disclosure and lived experience.
• Social Justice in Mental Health: The role of critical reflection in influencing how and what we teach
• The Art of Facilitation: creating and sustaining a safe space
• Providing tools in the yoga space that encourage acceptance self-empowerment, connection, agency and change.

Day 2 and 3: Yoga for Anxiety, Depression, and Mental Health

• Mental Health through Multiple Lenses: yoga, western psychology and questioning pathology
• Narratives of mental health: Ways of thinking about anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues using a narrative approach
• How to adapt yoga for anxiety reduction
• How to adapt yoga to support depression
• The ecology of healing: The intersection of the koshas and ecological systems theory
• A bio-psycho-social framework for teaching yoga for mental health
• Working with the needs of the individual: avoiding a prescriptive approach
• When and why to avoid certain practices for specific mental health issues
• Spiritual Bypassing – what is it, and how does it show up in the yoga world
• Working with ‘shadow’ - our own and those of others
• Specific practices and teaching methods that work with the nervous system to support relief from psychological and emotional experiences, including anxiety, depression, grief, anger, and burnout
• How to structure classes to cater to diverse mental health needs in one space

Day 4: Yoga for Body Image (+ Personal Practice Considerations + Self-Care)

• Yoga and Body Image: How Yoga Harms, How Yoga Heals
• Unpacking the notion of the ‘Yoga Body’
• Encouraging environments of body-positivity and body-acceptance in yoga classes, 1:1 sessions, and personal practice
• Balancing acceptance and change in the yoga space
• Working with the damage wrought by the ‘transformation fantasy’ as it relates to the body and yoga in the west, while honouring the transcendent possibility of the practices
• Practical approaches to welcoming difference and diversity in yoga spaces
• Codependence in yoga teaching: how to work with the distress of others without moving to save or fix
• Sustaining our own practice and passion for this work
• Cultivating active hope in the face of the difficulties of our students and communities.

There will also be plenty of time for discussion and questions, as well as ample opportunity to practice facilitating the methods and practices explored in the theoretical modules.

Home study requirements to meet 50-hours of Training

The vast majority of the course content (36 hours) is covered over the 4-day intensive. However, in order to meet the 50 hours of training and receive a certificate of 50-hours completion, the following activities are required prior to the training (otherwise you will receive a certificate of 36 hours training): 

You will need to: Read the required text and at least one of the following recommended texts prior to the training. After you read each book, you are required to write a 250 word reflective summary of your key learnings from each book and email the summary to Sarah. Please also keep notes as you read, to contribute to group discussions during the training.  

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PRE-COURSE REQUIRED BOOK Overcoming Trauma Through Yoga by David Emerson and Elizabeth Hopper

OTHER PRE-COURSE BOOKS: CHOOSE AND READ AT LEAST ONE OF THE FOLLOWING TEXTS, and write about it as described above.   

1. Yoga for Depression by Amy Weintraub

2. Yoga for Emotional Balance by Bo Forbes

3. Yoga and Body Image edited by Melanie Klein and Anna Guest-Jelley

4. Yoga and Psyche by Mariana Caplan

5. Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness by David Treleaven

PLEASE NOTE: If you feel that reading/listening to these texts is not possible for you for any reason (this includes learning difficulties or other life circumstances that might inhibit you from completing this part of the training), please get in touch to discuss alternative methods of meeting additional study requirements.The training is intended to be adaptive for the needs of all participants, so please do get in touch if you feel the home-study component may pose challenges for you.   

Also included in the training:

• Hard copy of course manual (pictured).
• Membership to a closed facebook group for ongoing peer feedback and resource sharing beyond the training
• Optional priority booking for 1:1 mentoring with Sarah in-person or on Skype following the training (limited number of spots available as Sarah's clinic is often booked out)
• Certificate of completion for 50-hours of advanced yoga teacher training 
• Nourishing lunch and refreshments provided daily (all meals provided for residential participants).

Your Facilitator

Sarah Ball has been teaching yoga since 2003, practicing since 1996, and regularly facilitates on level 1 and 2 yoga teacher trainings as well as yoga therapy trainings. She is also a qualified social worker, counsellor, and art therapist, specialising in mental health, social justice, positive body image, eating disorders, and trauma recovery, who has developed the popular Yoga for Anxiety and Depression 8-week course, 4-week intro to Trauma Sensitive Yoga, and Body Love Yoga programs. Sarah also teaches the trauma informed practice and mental health subjects in the Bachelor of Social Work program at the University of Wollongong. 

Sarah's yoga courses and facilitation are informed by her extensive ongoing training in a wide variety of yoga approaches. Her programs offer a fusion of trauma-sensitive, body-positive, hatha, vinyasa flow, Vini, yoga therapy, and yin yoga methods, with an emphasis on the power of yoga to inform and transform our lives beyond the yoga mat. She is also an affiliate member of the Yoga and Body Image Coalition and senior facilitator for Off the Mat, Into the World Australia.

Sarah runs a private clinic in Bulli NSW and on Skype, working with counselling and yoga teacher mentoring, specialising in 1:1 and group therapy for anxiety, depression, trauma, body image, emotional eating and eating disorder recovery.

Investment Options

OPTION 1: NON-RESIDENTIAL

This option includes the 4-day Training program, as well as resources, and nourishing lunch and snack each day. Earlybird $1250 ($1350 after May 25th). 

OPTION 2 : RESIDENTIAL STAY FOR DURATION OF TRAINING

(INCLUDING QUAD SHARE ACCOMODATION AT THE BEAUTIFUL GOVINDA VALLEY RETREAT CENTRE)

This booking option includes all described in option 1, plus 3-nights residential quad-share stay at the retreat centre on Thurs-Sat nights, including meals and refreshments (Lunch and dinner on Thursday, all 3 meals on Friday + Saturday, and breakfast and lunch on Sunday). Limited to 12 quad-share spots. Earlybird $1550 ($1650 after May 25th).

OPTION 3 : ADD MENTORING TO YOUR BOOKING

• Add a single 1-hour mentoring session with Sarah post-training $120
• Add a 6-session package of monthly mentoring sessions with Sarah post-training $600

EARLYBIRD DATES: Earlybird fees apply until two months prior to the training (May 25th 2019). 

RE-MENTORING: These sessions can be in-person at the clinic in Bulli NSW, or on Skype following the training (limited number of spots available as the clinic is often booked out)

PAYMENT PLANS AVAILABLE with a $300 non-refundable deposit - please get in touch to discuss.

Terms and conditions of payment can be found here.

COMPLETED THE TRAUMA SENSITIVE YOGA TRAINING WITH SARAH BEFORE? Please note: A fee reduction of $100 from any of the above booking options is available for students who have already completed the 1-day intensive trauma sensitive yoga training with me. You are still welcome to attend day one of the training to refresh the Trauma Sensitive Teaching method, or can receive recognition of prior learning for this day - please get in touch to arrange this option.

Venue and Training Times

• Training dates for 2019 are Thursday July 25th to Sunday July 28th.
• The training will be held at the beautiful Govinda Valley Retreat Centre in Otford, NSW, which is just 75 minutes south of the Sydney CBD.
• The training will run from 8:30am-5:30pm daily.

What Graduates Are Saying About This Training...

"It is a must. Best training I have ever attended. The delivery was exceptional. Every yoga teacher will benefit from this training for self-enquiry, personal growth, and teaching. BEYOND BRILLIANT." Hayley - graduate of March 2019 training 

"There is a reason that Sarah's offerings book out....this training is invaluable to yoga teachers who genuinely believe that 'yoga is for everybody'. Sarah will guide you to dive into these most important topics/issues. Best training I have every done. I cannot more highly recommend it." Kay Callaghan -  graduate of March 2019 training

"Sarah's training really highlighted for me the way that the current yoga climate can be harmful. I was nervous that I would be expected to wrap students in cotton wool and become overly politically correct, but Sarah showed that it's about safety, empowerment, and choice, rather than throwing out everything we love to teach. Sarah's depth of knowledge - and the way she referenced the work/research of others - reflects the commitment she has made to understand these topics thoroughly. It is deeply inspiring. Thank you Sarah for creating such a safe container for us to be vulnerable, share and learn from each other." Kirsty Wright -  graduate of March 2019 training

"This course was awesome. Sarah created an incredibly safe space for learning. The information was delivered with authenticity and honesty. Plenty of rest breaks and options to opt-in or opt-out if things felt too much at any time. Sarah is a pioneer!" Lisa - graduate of March 2019 training

"For anyone thinking about doing this training I say - DO IT! It was such a wonderful, deep, immersive 4-days. Sarah is an incredibly calm, generous and intuitive teacher - very inspiring to me as a teacher. I've learned so many things I can now share in my classes to come from a more inclusive and trauma-informed way towards everyone who attends." Kerri Pietsch - graduate of March 2019 training 

"OMG! What a truly incredible and amazing experience with inspiring content and an incredible group of dedicated yoga teachers whom I'm so privileged to learn with. You definitely won't be disappointed by this awesome opportunity to learn incredibly important content about the work we do as yoga teachers. Thank you Sarah. You bring such knowledge and compassion to the way you explain everything. The whole training was shared with such practical examples that were easy to understand and integrate. An unforgettable experience." Aimee - graduate of March 2019 training 

"Sarah is very well read and has a wealth of yoga and mental health teaching experience. She has a kind and warm approach along with a passion for sharing knowledge on social justice and body image. She is a wealth of knowledge and a wonderful role model! She gives to the subject/training her heart and soul! I'm leaving the training feeling inspired to be even more committed to bring about change and awareness of mental health, trauma and body image through yoga. Amazing training!" Kai - graduate of March 2019 training 

"DO IT!!! If you have a passion to incorporate yoga for trauma, mental health or body image into your teaching or practice, Sarah's training is for you. EXCEPTIONALLY facilitated. Sarah is incredibly open, honest and forthcoming in her wealth of knowledge, wisdom and experience." Carla - graduate of March 2019 training

"Sarah is a melody of embodied presence. You rarely come across a yoga who walks that much talk. It feels like I have been openly embraced by ideas that were so close to me I didn't see them, until this course gave me permission. These topics are close to my heart and were delivered like a feast that might last forever." Kendra Boone - graduate of March 2019 training