Restorative yoga is a very gentle yoga practice designed to calm the nervous system and create overall health in the body. It offers simple yet powerful postures that can be integrated into existing yoga classes, healing treatments, or used to teach restorative-specific classes. Restorative yoga is a regenerative healing tool that reduces stress by supporting the body’s innate responses towards homeostasis and health.

Through the use of supported yoga postures, breathing, and meditative techniques, a profound sense of relaxation can infuse one’s entire being, which leads to healing.

Restorative yoga techniques are helpful in the treatment of nervous system disorders, such as insomnia, hypertension, anxiety, and also with specific ailments such as cancer, although it is often used for structural re-alignment and the healing of injuries.

When the body is fully supported, it will naturally relax, releasing deeply held tensions. Restorative yoga is the yoga of non-doing, and focuses on effortlessness and ease, using well-placed blankets, bolsters, yoga straps, and chairs to safely support the body in various postures. This process invokes a natural state of balance, regeneration, and healing rest.

During this program, you will learn a full series of restorative postures, complemented with gentle stretching, breathing, and meditation. Through direct experience, practice teaching, and feedback, you leave with the ability to confidently teach a primary series of restorative poses to your students as well as incorporate them into your own practice.

The Restorative Yoga Teacher Training is an experiential and fundamentals course designed to provide teachers with a foundation for teaching a safe and effective restorative practice. Students will learn how to meet each student where they are, no matter the age or ability, and teach safe effective postures to heal the body and relax the mind.

Who will benefit from this training?

Certified yoga instructors wishing to expand their knowledge of restorative yoga, teach restorative yoga classes, and add to their class offerings.

You will learn:

• The benefits of restorative yoga
• Asanas that naturally induce a state of relaxation and restoration
• How to effectively support the body in each posture with props
• How to support people with injuries, stress or chronic pain
• Restorative postures that can be effectively integrated into hatha yoga classes
• Restorative yoga as a stand-alone practice.

You will be able to:

• Improve your ability to see imbalances in the body more clearly and to use restorative poses to realign, rebalance, and restore the root of the imbalance
• Set up 25 postures with available props and verbal cues
• Assess support and comfort of your students
• Ease agitation and promote relaxation
• Suggest postures for particular therapeutic effects
• Explain the organic and emotional benefits of postures
• Develop an understanding of the healing process
• Improve your ability to heal yourself and to empower others to heal themselves.

The Fundamentals of Teaching Restorative Yoga

• Basics of restorative yoga
• Understanding the nervous system: parasympathetic and sympathetic
• How restorative yoga affects the nervous system
• The well-propped pose: to prop or not to prop and why
• Stress-related disorders caused by an imbalanced nervous system
• How traditional wisdom and scientific understanding can be blended into a restorative yoga practice
• Exploring restorative yoga and the five senses in a practical way.

Get inspired!
Read The Benefits of Restorative Yoga by Nora Benian (Sundari) and Finding Relaxation and Stillness in Yoga Postures: Q&A with Nora Benian (Sundari) on our blog.