Yoga and the Pelvic Floor and 5 Diaphragms ONLINE Continuing Education

Welcome to Training the Pelvic Floor & 5 Diaphragms!

DATES: March 6, 13, 20 & 27, 2025.

The first week of videos will be released on February 28, 2025.

Live Zoom Meetings: 4:00-5:30pm (LONDON) | 5:00-6:30pm (BERLIN) | 8:00-9:30am (LOS ANGELES, CA) OR  11:00-12:30pm (NEW YORK) Recordings available if you can not make the time.

In this 25 hour training, we will explore the health of the pelvic floor and the anatomy and function of the 5 diaphragms of the body.  Trainees will learn how to teach students with common pelvic floor issues, such as pain, pelvic organ prolapse, and incontinence. We will also discuss working with those born with a prostate. The course is intended for yoga teachers, yoga therapists, health care professionals, midwives, doulas, fitness trainers, massage therapists, and just plain curious practitioners of yoga who want to deepen their practice.

The course includes:

• 15 hours of videos plus and additional time on reading and short homework.  (Reading to be assigned closer to start time)
• 4 Live Zoom calls for questions and reflections.

Course Learning Objectives 

Once course is completed you will be able to:

1. Describe the basic anatomy of the 5 Diaphragms beginning with the feet asthe foundation to diaphragmatic alignment.
2. Understand how the diaphragms of the body relate to one another, when mis-aligned how this can cause problems in breathing and pain syndromes and how to re-align through a yogic lens.
3. Understand the 3 layers of pelvic floor muscles and fascia.
4. Practice a variety of breath techniques for the health and balance of the pelvic floor and offer what’s needed to students based on assessments.
5. Become curious about pelvic floor pain and symptoms and how they relate to common pelvic floor conditions.
6. Guide students using trauma sensitive language, basic cues along with adjustments using yoga props.
7. Understand and develop the eyes to see the connection of all thediaphragms of the body, accessory muscles and support the students infeeling the value of practicing with holistic and whole body methods.
8. Discover asana and sequencing that will benefit both hypertonic (too tight) and hypotonic (too lax) pelvic floor conditions.

Topics to include:

• In-depth anatomy of the diaphragms, pelvis, accessory muscle groups and fascia and how they relate to one another and to pelvic floor health.
• How posture affects the breathing body, emotional body and the health of the pelvic floor.
• Basics of identifying hypertonic vs. hypotonic muscles as well as locked long and locked short muscles groups.
• Body reading.
• The role of the breath and how it impacts the pelvic floor, surroundingmuscle groups and the emotional body.
• Trauma sensitive and gender-neutral language.
• Creating a “prescription” for clients to balances hypertonic or hypotonicmuscle groups.
• Working with the pregnant client.
• Working with cis-male clients.
• Using Restorative yoga (passive poses) for increased breath awareness andpelvic floor health.

All videos and assignments will be self-paced. Please keep in mind that the recommended time to be 60-70% complete will be one month, so that you will be prepared with questions and reflections, for the live calls.

Program Dates: March 6, 13, 20 & 27, 2025.

Cost: Early bird $397 by Feb 21 | $497 USD after

25 hours Yoga Alliance CE credits. 23 Hour APD with International Association of Yoga Therapists.

About Samantha Akers
Samantha is a C-IAYT Certified Yoga Therapist, E-RYT 500 Yoga Instructor and Massages Therapist with an extensive background in structural anatomy and is a certified Massage Therapist, as well as a certified Hatha, Kundalini, and Kids yoga teacher. Sam earned certification as a mindfulness teacher through the Mindfulness Institute of Berkley. She has been practicing and teaching yoga since 1999.

Sam’s love of therapeutic yoga inspired her to open TheraYoga Studio, in Los Angeles Ca. From there she went on to develop the TheraYoga Method, which is not only a 200 and 300 hour teacher training, but also encompasses smaller trainings and workshops in Restorative Yoga, Mindfulness and Yoga for Special Conditions, Fascial Fitness in Asana and Yin Yoga.