Teacher Training & Mentoring with TaKeShiatsu

This year I have been trialling a teacher training method for yoga, meditation and shiatsu teachers. It is not a fixed program, but responds to the needs of each teacher in training and existing teachers who would like mentoring and support.  

I have been training in yoga, meditation and shiatsu for nearly 20 years and I have experienced many ways of helping prepare people to teach. It has become my passion to support teachers in all moments of their careers, as I believe teachers need encouragement, nurture and inspiration and that working teachers have a need for time for themselves outside of the classroom to recharge their batteries and give up, for just a little while, the role of being in charge.

In the sessions, we train and meet in circle, so each person is responsible for themselves and their learning. My role is to encourage you, listen to you and help you develop your talents. We discuss teaching practices, ethics, how to set up and maintain your business and relationships with clients, venues and employers.

Self-care is fundamental in my courses. In all teacher training and mentoring sessions there is movement, meditation, creativity as well as deep listening in circle.

Teaching practice with real students is also really important, so students and I can give trainees feedback in a real class situation. This can be for a single exercise, a part of a class or a whole class. Trainees can also assist me or observe in my class, or ask me to assist or observe them in their class.

The practices that we work with specifically are self-shiatsu with the extra-ordinary vessels, classical yoga, womb yoga and compassion-led mindfulness.

Training and mentoring lasts as long as you need it to, and takes place at your own pace, as and when you can attend a session. There are quaterly weekend group training sessions in Colchester, UK, regular opportunities on retreat in Sicily and one-to-one sessions in person and by Skype.

All trainees and teachers studying with me qualify for insurance that is affordable and covers full professional indemnity and public liability.

I believe that teaching is a vocation that chooses us, so if you feel that teaching is what you need to do, you must follow that desire and discover wherever it will take you...

The next weekend teacher training in Colchester is 2nd & 3rd January. Take part, observe or assist in an afternoon retreat on Saturday 2nd (£20), then the group training session is Sunday 3rd 9am-3pm (£65). Please email me to ask about places: clare@takeshiatsu.com

My next Sicily retreat where you can take part in teacher training is 5th-12th February:
http://www.takeshiatsu.com/sicily_retreat/

For a one-to-one teacher training session in person or by Skype, please check here for availability:
http://takeshiatsu.com/bookanysession.html

Conscious Admin?

My shiatsu teacher Suzanne Yates taught me a little trick about admin. She said, "feel your feet while you're at your computer". Easier said than done?

I started by closing my eyes and disengaging from the computer to connect with myself and be aware of my body, and that was good for a few moments… though coming back to the computer and maintaining the connection was harder.

Inspired by Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, I tried wriggling my toes from time to time… which brings all kind of benefits, as my dear friend Claire Batey showed me… try it and you might know what she means ;) Again though, I wasn't able to maintain my concentration for very long… my mind kept wandering off into my tasks leaving my body behind, becoming cold and tired all over. My toes abandoned :)

I tried sitting on the floor and feeling my sitting bones too… sitting upright and feeling the ground beneath me was great, but I'd still get lost in tasks from time to time… losing my heart connection.

I kept up my practice of dancing whenever I felt like it, and that helped, except when I was very tired and just hurt my ankles from all the tarantella ;)

But then, probably because of a recent trip to Sicily, which teaches me more and more about trusting flow each time I'm there… I was able to feel my feet whatever my stting position, whether I'd taken a break or not… then once I let the liveliness in my feet come into my awareness, I could feel my breath and the rest of my body…

Of course this could all be caused by homegrown chilli… but I'll have to investigate that more thoroughly in another post, and definitely after a conversation with Fiona Mealing!

What do you do to keep yourself balanced and energised while doing admin or sitting at a computer? 

Yin for Birth Partners

It is natural to try to help a woman in labour as much as possible, but sometimes what she needs is a little space... a little Yin from her birth partner.

Birth is essentially a Yang state - it is outward movement. So as the birth partner, to complement this, the more fluid and adapting you can be, the more restful and relaxed you may find yourself and the more benefit you may both enjoy.

Lots of talking and movement may not be helpful - try it and find out how she responds! Each woman is unique, there is no formula that will work for all.

Some shiatsu massage techniques, particularly using the extra-ordinary vessels, can provide calm, quiet and deeply supportive care for the woman, and will help you to feel those things too.

Yin exercises for a birth partner to try:

• stroking, perhaps head to tailbone
• massaging the shoulders
• encourage the mother-to-be to rest in between contractions: lie together, let her lean on you, making sure first of all that you are comfortable enough so that you can continue to support her 

Self-care is extremely important for the birth partner, so take time out for yourself, make sure that you rest, perhaps with a meditation. And leading up to the birth, practise some breathing exercises and birth positions with the mother-to-be, so that you know how to physically and emotionally support her. Perhaps go to a yoga or antenatal class together, try hypnobirthing or listen to some relaxation audio together.

One of my birth preparation clients had a long labour with high blood pressure - the solution for her was to be held by her birth partner on the belly and lower back (called the Girdle Vessel or Dai Mai in shiatsu). Also rocking, circling and leaning exercises (developed by Suzanne Yates, creator of Wellmother) where the woman was able to follow her own rhythm but she was supported by her birth partner as she moved. And like this they were able to continue for several days with poise and calm...

Essentially using the same techniques for the woman on yourself as the birth partner can be really valuable, so make sure that you give yourself enough time to prepare for the birth so that the exercises become second nature and you can engage completely in your partner's and your own experience. With the balance of Yin, you can certainly preserve and increase your energy levels and find equanimity in the face of challenges during labour, helping you embrace the joy in the arrival of your new baby.

Harnessing Yin - some practical exercises

How do you harness Yin? By becoming it... stopping, yielding, finding fluidity, stillness... being aware of the Earth, substance, water... and above all, practising self-nourishment. Here are some physical and meditative exercises that you can try these ideas out with...

I recommend finding a place to practice that you enjoy, outside if possible, and barefoot if you can. Wearing some Yin clothing might help too, something flowing, that responds easily to your movement.


Waking up the body and connecting to the Earth through the Conception Vessel

The first exercise is a warm-up, helping you connect with one of the Yin extra-ordinary vessels in shiatsu, called Ren Mai or the Conception Vessel. It runs from the chin down to the pelvis, and can be felt as a band as well as points in a straight line down the centre of the body. Have a look at the video first...

This exercise comes from womb yoga created by Uma Dinsmore Tuli, combined with shiatsu 

practices of the extra-ordinary vessels as developed by Suzanne Yates... as well as connecting 

with the Conception Vessel by stroking the front of the body, this exercise stretches and 

stimulates the opening and coupled points for some of the Yin extra-ordinary vessels in the 

hands and wrists: L7 (for CV), P6 (for PV). In womb yoga these hand gestures include 

"mothering lotus" and "yoni mudra". More about how I use the extra-ordinary vessels and 

womb yoga as mutually sustaining practices in future posts...

Standing exercise
Feel your feet on the earth, and separate your toes. Be aware of the connection between the outside corner of your heel and the ground... be aware of the outside edge of your foot and the ground, from the outside corner of the heel to the little toe... then maintaining these connections, also be aware of your big toe on the ground... if you know K1, then be aware of its connection to the ground too.

Have your hands palms together in front of your heart.

Maintain this position, and listen to the response in your legs, your pelvis, your spine and your head.

Then whenever you wish, start stroking down the front of your body, perhaps making contact or at a little distance away from the body. Then come as far down to the ground as you wish, then lift your arms up, stand and return your hands back to your heart.

You may like to give a little "thanks" to the ground as you come close or touch it, for the beautiful planet we live on.

Sitting exercise
Find a comfortable sitting position, I suggest using blocks, or a bump in the sand or grass wherever you are, so that your hips are above your knees. This makes the position more sustainable and reduces pressure on your knees, hips and ankles.

Join your palms together at the level of your heart. Then stroke down the front of the body, making contact or a little distance away from the body, down to the lower belly or pubic bone, then lift your hands up to your mouth, perhaps brushing your lips with your fingertips before you come down again.

Try this as many times as you like... it may take a minute or so before you start to feel it, so be patient and don't try too hard, let it happen almost by itself...


Allowing your body to be supported... leaning and using the wall

Sometimes it is the hardest thing to ask for help. In your shiatsu and yoga practice, leaning is a gentle way of opening yourself to feeling physically supported. Walls can be really useful for developing your strength and balance, and they are also fantastic for resting...

Have a blanket or two underneath your hips if this suits you and rest your hands on the midline, Conception Vessel, wherever is comfortable for you. As well as a meditation, this may help tired or puffy legs if you have been sitting, driving or standing for a long time. If you are newly pregnant, it can be a good way to connect with your baby and rest.

You can use this to help prepare for handstands. Start by saying something open-minded and positive to yourself, such as "I'll give this a go and see what happens" :-) Then on all 4s have your feet by the skirting board, then walk up the wall, pressing your feet firmly into the wall. Perhaps use chalk on your feet and hands to stop from slipping. Breath gently.

This may help slow your breath and also stretches the back of the leg... have the front knee against or close to the wall, one hand on the wall at chest level, the other hand on the wall above your head. The stretch in the back leg is gentle, don't do it if it hurts, and stop if you feel faint. To rest after this, turn your back to the wall and lean, enjoy the support!

Holding the ancestral connection to our heart

This is a meditation on the Penetrating Vessel, that links the heart to the reproductive organs and the ancestral "Life Gate" or Mingmen Du4 in the lower back. I find this helpful for women with issues of menstruation or childbirth, whether recent or a long-time ago, and for men with lower back pain, working with fertility and anxiety.

The Benefit of Yin

Yielding, waiting, being slow and silent, standing still... these are skills we hardly give credit for these days. But in the practice of shiatsu, mindfulness meditation and certain styles of yoga, these Yin abilities are exactly what we try to develop.

We love activity and movement, we love adrenalin and stimulation, we love making things happen and creating the lives we want - all of these things feel powerful, and in that power there is security and happiness. These are the outward-moving qualities of Yang.

We have gone for Yang style living in a big way in Britain, at least since the 1980s, the time I was growing up. I remember in early childhood everybody had old cars, hand-me-down clothes, we didn't fly for holidays, we cooked and ate at home every day, we played in the streets we lived in and we didn't need to make dates to meet friends. But by the time I was a teenager I didn't value any of these things, I wanted more and better, I moved overseas and loved flying around the world so that I never had a winter (winter is the Yin time of year, summer is Yang), I loved earning money, solving problems, working independently and in this way, I felt free.

Of course Yang is not a permanent state, Yang transforms into Yin, which in turn becomes Yang again. Even though I have friends who love switching between southern and northern hemispheres twice a year so that they can live in constant summer, I decided to live all year round in the UK for a while and dive into Yin. As my shiatsu, meditation, and yoga practices developed, and particulary when I began studying with Suzanne Yates, who created Wellmother, a deeply healing Yin approach to shiatsu for pregnancy, birth and postnatal care, I really started to experience the power of Yin in my practices, and in my everyday life again... what I'd had as a child and had forgotten about. I remembered the effortlessness and fun of standing in the kitchen with my family and shelling peas together, the power in not trying, not improving what you have but accepting and enjoying things exactly as you find them. The fun of sharing a car ride and waiting for everybody to be ready to go, instead of choosing when I wanted to go. The freedom of not getting what I want, and not trying to get it. The thrill of riding my bike somewhere new and not knowing exactly where I'm heading.

From a painting by Andie Butterfly Yoga

In my shiatsu practice and my yoga and meditation classes, I find the resistance to Yin in most of us. Some of us admit that we can't "sit still", that we need to be doing something all of the time. On a cultural level, we don't value rest as much as we value doing things. We see action as the solution to problems. We love big gestures, great plans and we love achieving goals. But when we ignore Yin, the quietness, the stillness, the waiting, we miss a lot of information that can only come to us when we are truly listening. For example, when we receive a shiatsu or massage, we're often waiting for the next bit to happen, hoping the therapist will get to a particular spot on the shoulders or massage us in the way we want to be massaged. Sometimes when we get what we need from the session, we jump up from the futon mat or couch to take on the world, make plans and make use of the extra energy we've found. But I suggest staying with your extra energy in a gentle way, and actually try meditating on this new energy, rather than letting it pour out in action. So perhaps be still and watch the sensations of the new energy...

In yoga, many us are in a hurry to come into shoulderstand or headstand, and in the rush we forget to control the abdominal muscles, we lose control of our relaxed state of mind, all for the sake of getting up there... and for me at least, missing the whole point of the asana. Perhaps there's the thought, "I'll get up then I'll relax", but by then perhaps you have already missed several seconds of your calm state of mind, you may have injured yourself and you might not get back into your relaxed state after that.

So next time you find yourself fidgeting in a meditation or a yoga pose, while receiving a massage or while talking to somebody, when you find you can't be still, try bringing your attention carefully and patiently to your present experience... There are many techniques for doing this, you can also invent your own... check out my next post for some examples.

Putting kindness into your practice

Dr David Hamilton gives an inspiring talk on the chemistry of kindness & compassion...
He proposes that acts of kindness increase the hormone oxytocin, which increases the space inside blood vessels, bringing about a drop in blood pressure and other benefits for the heart, so that kindness is like a cardiovascular protector. This is his theory, and he gives an example of research that found people consciously acting with kindness said they were happier than people who didn't. I think we know this intuitively, but it's good to hear it from a scientist because science informs our culture, the things we say to each other, our expectations of ouselves and each other. So rather than think of kindness as an optional but not very practical thing to do, listening to Dr Hamilton we might think that compassion is actually a way to be healthy in the heart, that adds to our happiness as well as the happiness of others around us.




This is something that crops up all the time in yoga and meditation as unkind thoughts surface such as "I'll never be able to do this", "he/she can do it, why can't I?", "I ought to be able to do this one by now"... The first thing is to notice when this is happening, because we can be so used to the dialogue in our minds that we don't realise it's there. But when you do notice an unkind thought while you're practising, rather than add to it by chastising yourself for having an unkind thought, try saying something sweet to yourself, something compassionate, supportive or reassuring, perhaps "I'm alright, I'll get there", "I've got this far, haven't I?", "I'm doing ok"... Make up your own, whatever is meaningful to you. Then notice how your body responds to a kind sentence, and then how it responds after you say something unkind to yourself. What do you find?

How wonderful to be outside this morning for my yoga practice... the smell of the early morning air, the grass drew me out & rewarded me as I stepped out to find a place for my mat, protected from the wind by the trees, the feel of the earth through the mat reminded me what yoga is for... what it's about... connecting my mind and my body, my body to the place I'm in. Yoga means yoke, not the yoke of slavery, subservience we think of in the West, but connecting whatever we believe in, what we are. I encourage you to practise outside whenever you can, in your garden, in the park, on the green, by a river, wherever you feel a connection, or *would like to feel a connection* with the place you live in...

Don't be embarrassed, just watch the elements around you: water, earth, air as you move or meditate. You may well inspire somebody passing by, but most importantly, you could inspire yourself :-)

For outdoor yoga you will need:

• base mat for the grass/mud/sand, a cane beach mat is cheap & easy to find, then when you finish your practice don't roll it up, fold it into to itself so it doesn't get you and your other things muddy
• your usual yoga mat goes on top of the cane mat
• jumper/something you can wrap around your waist or shoulders as you practise then put back on for your meditation or final relaxation
• as little else as possible... shoes and door key if you're going far, otherwise just barefeet to step out to your garden... start carrying a bag, a book, sunglasses and it's a faff you don't need, keep it simple :-)