Yoga Therapy
A yoga class teaches yoga. Yoga therapy applies it — to one person, with one set of circumstances, usually with something specific that needs to change.
The practical difference is where you start. A class starts with a sequence. Yoga therapy starts with an assessment: what you can and cannot do, what hurts and when, how you breathe, how you hold yourself, what your day actually looks like. The practice is designed after that, and revised as things shift.
Charmaine has worked as a yoga therapist since 2007, with people ranging from four years old to their seventies.
How it differs from a yoga class
| A yoga class | Yoga therapy |
|---|---|
| Sequence planned in advance | Practice designed after assessment |
| You adapt to the class | The practice adapts to you |
| Progress measured by the poses | Progress measured by what you came in for |
| Same plan for everyone in the room | Revised session to session |
What people come with
Most often: persistent back, neck and shoulder pain, usually postural. Stiffness and reduced range that has crept in over years. Rebuilding after injury or surgery, once cleared to move. Stress, poor sleep, and breathing that has quietly become shallow and high-chested. Fatigue, and hormonal or thyroid conditions where gentle, regular movement forms part of a wider picture.
Yoga therapy is not a substitute for medical care and Charmaine does not diagnose or treat disease. It works alongside whatever else you have in place — and where yoga is not the right tool, she will say so.
Yoga and Ayurveda together
Yoga and Ayurveda are sister traditions, and Charmaine practises both. Where a complaint has a digestive or dietary dimension — and a surprising number do — the movement work can run alongside Ayurvedic digestive health coaching. Her own route into Ayurveda came this way: after a Hashimoto's thyroiditis diagnosis, changes to diet and daily routine brought her to remission inside a year.
What a course looks like
The first session is longer, and mostly assessment. After that, sessions typically run weekly or fortnightly, and you will usually be given a short home practice — often only ten or fifteen minutes, because a small practice you actually do beats a long one you do not.
Sessions are booked as private lessons. Where support or traction helps, the yoga wall and ropes come into it.
Talk it through first
Describe what is going on and what you have already tried. Charmaine will tell you whether yoga therapy is likely to help before you book anything.