Demystifying Down There: Explore the Pelvic Floor

A healthy pelvic floor is more than doing Kegels. Proper work of strengthening and stabilizing the pelvic floor helps to create the correct foundation of each movement in the body. It is a basic tool to avoid loss of energy from this important area. A strong pelvic floor helps keep the pelvic and abdominal organs healthy as we age.

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Come find out specific details of what mula bandha is and is not. The female pelvis and the pelvic muscles are an under-appreciated region of the anatomy. Important not only for sexuality, the pelvic muscles are crucial for optimal functioning of the body. The pelvic muscles begin at perineum and are complex arrangement of muscles that hold all of the lower organs. Heredity, life-style, and childbirth all have an effect on the perineum and the pelvic floor muscles.

Common problems that are related to the health of the pelvis are:

• lumbar spinal problems
• sacroiliac, hip or sciatic pain
• bladder weakness
• digestive, menstrual and sexual difficulties

This area can be too gripped, or too weak or both. You will learn how to distinguish the three layers of the pelvic floor and how to soften and strengthen these areas.

This workshop will begin with descriptions, drawings, handouts, and identification of the pelvic floor muscles. What follows is a series of specific exercises for self-discovery, and then specific poses and exercises to increase the flexibility, strength, and coordination of each of the pelvic functions.

*This workshop is for women only.*

 For more about our 300 Hour Teacher Training CLICK HERE.

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About Leslie Howard:

  As a yoga practitioner and teacher, I specialize in the therapeutic use of yoga for many issues but specifically for pelvic floor problems. After suffering from hypertonic pelvic syndrome, I found relief from my symptoms by a careful application of Iyengar-style/influenced and breath work and since then I have continued to refine and develop the application of yoga for the pelvic floor for myself and others. To this end, for the past seven years, I have taught women of all ages to practice yoga to alleviate pelvic floor conditions, including urinary incontinence, through a combination of small group teaching, public workshops, and national conferences.

 

 I currently have over 3000 hours of yoga study and 15 years of yoga teaching. Unlike the western medical academy, there does not exist an analogous institution of higher learning in yoga. Instead there exist various schools of yoga and students who learn through close apprenticeship with a teacher. The school that I am most closely affiliated with, Iyengar, is known for its focus on anatomy including proper alignment of the body, precision of asanas, therapeutic applications, sensitivity to injury, and keen attention to asana sequencing. I have studied intensively with top-tier teachers in the Iyengar school: Manouso Manos, Ramanand Patel, Tony Briggs, Patricia Walden, and others. I hold a 320-hour Advanced Studies Certificate from Piedmont Yoga Studio, a 300-hour Tony Briggs teacher training certificate, and a 500 hour Yoga Alliance certification.