Pranakriya Thai Yoga Therapy Program

 

Bill Hufschmidt, E-RYT-500, Director

 

Program Overview
Certification Requirement
Course Descriptions
Program Calendar
About Bill 

 

Program Overview


For many centuries, Thai people have practiced Nuad Boran ("Thai massage") as an integral component of their medical and spiritual protocols. Modern Thai therapy draws from the influences of yoga and Ayurvedic medicine, Buddhist philosophical teachings, and the indigenous cultural experience of the Thai people.



Thai therapy recognizes that energy flow through the body can become blocked or diminished as a result of daily life, injuries, and disease. When energy flow is blocked, we lose vitality and health. Thai therapeutic practices use physical techniques to stimulate and clear the energy pathways by manipulating the body's muscles and joints, thus inviting the body’s inherent healing mechanisms to function properly. Because the practitioner creates a flow of movement that guides the client’s body from one position to another, this work has been called both the “Thai healing dance,” as well as "Lazy Man’s Yoga.”



Pranakriya Yoga focuses on cultivating and enhancing our relationship with prana (life-force energy) to create changes (kriya) in awareness, body, and understanding which move us toward an experience of wholeness. As a social experience, Pranakriya Yoga aims to cultivate a community of yoga practitioners who can access moments of connection and unity that celebrate our unique expressions of the one consciousness of Spirit.



As yoga teachers, we are asked to fill diverse roles for our students and clients, from movement instructor to exercise physiologist, from healer to life coach, from transformational anchor to spiritual facilitator. During their 200- and 500-hour trainings, most teachers gain some skill with hands-on work (i.e., posture assisting), as well as holding nurturing space for their clients during group classes and private-client sessions. Yet, it is our experience that most yoga teachers would like to have more training using their hands and cultivating their interpersonal skills.



The Pranakriya Thai Yoga Therapy certification program combines the modalities of Thai bodywork with yoga science to give yoga teachers and yoga practitioners the skills, confidence and experience necessary to explore healthy and nurturing touch as an extension of physical and spiritual practice. This work proves time and again to be a powerful tool for deepening individual and shared experiences of living a life fully alive.

 

 

Program Overview

Certification Requirement

Course Descriptions

Program Calendar

About Bill