Structural and ayurvedic yoga therapy in The Netherlands (website summary in English)

Teacher     Structural yoga therapy     Hatha yoga     Locations

Teacher

My name is Willem van Poelje. I teach hatha yoga and structural yoga therapy in the eastern part of The Netherlands. Please contact me if you have any questions or if you wish to make an appointment.

I have been practicing hatha yoga for twenty-five years.  I obtained a teachers training degree at the Yoga Academie Nederland in Amsterdam.  This yoga school offers a four year training course.  Mukunda Stiles taught me to become a structural yoga therapist.   I'm inspired by the practice of zen meditation and classical hatha yoga.

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Structural yoga therapy

Briefly:

Yoga therapy is a yoga lesson tailored to individual needs.  The goal is to alleviate pain, stress and dis-ease.  Yoga therapy uses yoga postures, breathing and relaxation techniques.  Experience with yoga is not required.

What is yoga therapy?

In yoga therapy the traditional yoga postures are adapted to individual needs.  Yoga therapy is a form of complementary health care and can relieve many chronic, psychosomatic and stress-related ailments. Yoga therapy seeks to reduce pain and discomfort, while promoting health of body, mind, and soul.  Yoga therapy is usually given on an individual basis.  Clients who practice regularly will benefit most.

Benefits

Regular hatha yoga classes already improve our health and sense of well-being.  However, every body is unique in terms of its history of illness,  injuries, pain, and stress.   Yoga therapy addresses the uniqueness of each individual - ayurvedic constitution,  health issues and lifestyle.  It strives to restore balance whilst reducing pain and dis-ease. Yoga therapy is very effective for treating back pain¹.  A USA study demonstrated that yoga therapy provides the most effective, long lasting improvement for back aches².  Asthma, hyperventilation, high blood pressure and stress are other examples of ailments which may be alleviated by yoga therapy.  Yoga therapy is not suited for acute conditions like accidents and infections.

Sessions

Yoga therapy starts off with a one and a half hour interview and examination.  The exam looks at posture,  joint flexibility and muscle strength.  This leads to an individual yoga program to be carried out at home.  Advice on diet or lifestyle may be part of the program.  The yoga program consists of hatha yoga components,  such as the joint freeing exercises (pavanmuktasana),  poses (asana), series (vinyasas), breathing exercises (pranayama), and relaxation (yoga nidra or meditation). The program is adapted to the needs of the individual. Prior experience of yoga is not required.  The individual program will be monitored and adapted as time goes on.  Generally,  a significant improvement should be seen within two or three sessions.

Structural Yoga Therapy™

I learned yoga therapy from Mukunda Stiles, well-known yogi and author of the books Structural Yoga Therapy³  and Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy⁴. The strength of his method lies in the assessment. This is based on a combination of ayurveda and physiotherapy tests (range of motion and muscle strength).  Recommendations are made with two sound principles in mind:  Adapt to the individual and teach only what you practice yourself.  Look at body posture and investigate which muscles need toning, stretching or release.  Then prescibe an individual yoga program selected from 21 joint freeing exercises, 24 basic asanas, 10 vinyasas, and 7 pranayamas.  More about structural yoga therapy can be found at www.yogatherapycenter.org. If you are interested in yoga therapy for whiplash, read this. 

Teach what is within you,

Not as it applies to you, to yourself

But as it applies to the other.

It is not that the personal must accommodate himself to yoga

But rather that yoga must be tailored to suit each person⁵.

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Hatha yoga

Hatha yoga classes are given once a week.  The program is adapted to the class members and seeks to improve flexibility, strength and endurance.  The keywords are:  Awareness, breath and relaxation.  Harmony between breath and movement leads to "meditation in action", a healing experience for the bodymind.

Yoga is called balance.

Yoga is skill in the performance of actions⁶.

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Locations

• Yoga therapy is given by appointment in  Zutphen.  This town is about 110 km from Amsterdam (1,5 hours by car or train). 

• Hatha yoga lessons are given in Zutphen (Thursday evenings). There are special classes for people with (rheumatoid) arthritis in Warnsveld (Friday mornings).

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