Yoga Therapist & Yoga Teacher Training in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California

Please Note: My trainings are currently on hold and being re-imagined in the face of the COVID-19 shelter in place order. If you have applied to any of the training cohorts, I thank you for your patience as I work with our staff at Ease Mountain Yoga to find a way to move forward. 

I encourage you to visit our virtual studio for live-streamed classes at Ease Mountain Yoga & to consider becoming a member of The Care Forest Project to support people living with grief, loss, and major life transitions while conserving a Redwood forest that would otherwise be used for timber production.
​ This work will become even more vital once this crisis has passed.

825-Hour Yoga Therapist Training
Next Cohort Begins Spring, 2021
Yoga therapy applies the teachings and practices of yoga to the process of improving a client’s health and well-being. This 825-hour is 3 years long, designed to be taken part-time, and provides a foundation for current yoga teachers to expand their capacity to serve clients in a variety of practice settings. Taught at Ease Mountain Yoga in the Santa Cruz Mountain of California, this training is part-time, with a hybrid online and in-person format. The curriculum emphasizes both mental health and entrepreneurship for social change, helping yoga teachers learn both therapeutic and business skills to create careers they love.

What is Yoga Therapy?

Yoga Therapy is an approach to caring for the whole-person, and includes the creation of an individualized plan with practices that can help you find a path to balance.

​Yoga postures (asana), breathing exercises (pranayama), clarification and exploration of personal values (yamas and niyamas), a variety of meditation practices, connection with a caring yoga community, and guided self-inquiry are some of the most important yogic tools I use in my practice.

I work both one-on-one and in group workshop series, and specialize in supporting people living with anxiety, depression, significant life transitions, grief, and loss. You can read more about my qualifications and experience here .

Why Choose Yoga as a Therapeutic Tool?

Yoga, both as a system of beliefs and collect of practices, contains an array of potent tools for well-being. In particular, it offers people the opportunity to breathe, move, and practice being present. ​
From a 2016 randomized controlled trial looking at the use of yoga to support people living with low moods published in Depression and Anxiety, a peer-reviewed journal :

"Yoga plus regular care was more effective in reducing symptoms of depression compared with regular care alone."
Excerpted from a Mental Health Letter from Harvard Medical School: 
"But for many patients dealing with depression, anxiety, or stress, yoga may be a very appealing way to better manage symptoms. Indeed, the scientific study of yoga demonstrates that mental and physical health are not just closely allied, but are essentially equivalent. The evidence is growing that yoga practice is a relatively low-risk, high-yield approach to improving overall health."
Regular physical activity can not only help with depression, but help people be more resistant to getting depressed in the first place, according to research summarized in the New York Times:

"The studies pool outcomes from past research involving more than a million men and women and, taken together, strongly suggest that regular exercise alters our bodies and brains in ways that make us resistant to despair."

Yoga Therapy Foundations for Mental Health Professionals
100-Hour Training 
Yoga therapy applies the teachings and practices of yoga to the process of improving a client’s health and well-being. This 100-hour training focuses on using therapeutic yoga in the practice of psychotherapy, counseling, and related fields. Option to complete 200-Hour Yoga Teaching Certificate available.