Therapeutic Yoga Summer Series

(Summer 2025), PR Rec Centre, Elm Room

Summer is the time of outdoor activities and fun. Yoga offers opportunities to balance in your life. This short summer series provides a perfect opportunity for balance and self-care. The classes will include elements for backcare, balance, gently strength, joint mobility and healthy aging.

Each class will incorporate breath awareness and guided relaxation practices at the beginning and end to ease you back to your summer life. The focus will be adapted to the needs and goals of the participants.

Chair Yoga

Increase flexibility, mobility, balance, strength, and stability in a safe way. Suitable for everyone who is looking for a mindful, supportive and therapy-informed Chair Yoga class.

This is a great class for people who live with compromised mobility, have a larger body, and prepare for or recover from surgery. No previous Yoga experience required.

This class can benefit your sense of mobility, balance, stability, strength, breathing, mood, stress & pain management and overall sense of wellbeing.

Options that emphasize your safety and encourage interoception are offered and a variety of props are readily available.

Small group of 3-6 participants. Pre-registion for each series of 4 classes is required! Please arrive a few minutes early.

Yoga for Healthy Aging

Participants will be supported to build strong muscles and bones, to improve balance, mobility and agility. Other benefits include optimizing the circulatory system and stimulating brain health. By incorporating relaxation, breath awareness and mindfulness, this practice becomes a complete yogic experience.  Small group of 3 – 6 participants.

Therapeutic Yoga for Back Care

Would you like to take care of your back and prevent injuries? Or maybe you have chronic back issues including low back pain, osteoporosis, arthritis and sciatica. This class series is for you! The focus is on building confidence, a sense of safety to support a healthy back. You will develop increased awareness of the spinal curves, learn how to use a full yet gentle breath and connect movements of the inner core to build strength and explore movements safely. Each class includes a relaxation practice at the end that will support managing pain and stress.

This pre-booked four-class series allows Regina to work with the goals and needs of the participants who see their progress unfold as they build community. A class series also allows for relationship building between the participants and therapist.

The “Core Four” or “Inner Unit”

Therapeutic Yoga for Pelvic Health –  4-class Workshop styles series for Women (sys)

This workshop style class series is for anyone interested in pelvic health either as a prevention or in support of conditions such as low-back pain, pelvic pain, incontinence, or prolapse.

Participants should be able to get up and down to the floor (may use a chair for support) and be prepared to look at anatomy models and illustrations of the pelvis and lower back. No previous yoga experience required.

Participants will gain a better understanding of the muscles, bone structure, connective tissue and ligaments that need to work together for optimal pelvic health. Participants will also improve their awareness about posture and how it can influence breathing, pain, body mechanics and alignment. You will learn to strengthen the Core 4 (pelvic floor, diaphragm, multifidus and transverse abdominals), improve breathing that supports pelvic health, and better understand the anatomy of the pelvis including bones.

Each class will start with a short talk and lecture followed by a guided therapeutic yoga practice and close with Q&As. Participants will get hand-outs/ take-home sheet to continue their practice at home.

Yoga Therapy for Insomnia

This Yoga Therapy series is for people who have trouble falling asleep, wake up frequently, are not being able to go back to sleep, suffer from sleeplessness or feeling unrested upon waking up.

Participants will learn yoga movements for calming their body and mind, preparing for sleep, will practice relaxation and breathing techniques that support a healthy sleep. Yoga’s tools that reduce stress, encourage self-compassion will be introduced to promote sleep recovery and peace of mind.

Each class includes gentle yoga movement, restorative yoga, a longer guided relaxation practice (including Yoga Nidra) and some education about sleep, insomnia and sleep recovery.

No previous yoga experience required and participants should be able to get on and off the floor independently. Expect an intake form to better inform the Yoga Therapist about individual needs and goals. This is a pre-registered series of 4 classes. Please contact Regina if you have any questions before registering.

In this series you will:

• Learn yoga movements for calming your system and preparing for sleep
• Practice relaxation and breathing techniques that help falling or going back to sleep
• Know more about Yoga’s tools that reduce stress which is a major contributor to insomnia
• Find self-compassion and increased peace of mind
• Take home practices and better understanding about sleep -recovery

“Yoga isn’t just beneficial for improving core strength, flexibility, and stress levels; it can also help you sleep better—especially if you suffer from insomnia. When people who have insomnia perform yoga on a daily basis, they sleep for longer, fall asleep faster, and return to sleep more quickly if they wake up in the middle of the night. This is also true for older people who have insomnia—those who are 60 and older experience better sleep quality, sleep for longer, and feel better during the day when they perform regular yoga.” (The Connection between Yoga and Better Sleep, July 28, 2020. SleepFoundation.org.)