The Pelvic Four

Chelsea shares her definition of embodiment and the value of guiding clients and students to explore what their bodies' need.  She discusses how embodiment has many different facets and not all of them and rainbows and unicorns. Through her somatic psychology tools she encourages a spectrum of awareness and highlights the importance of meeting the discomfort that shows up in the body to best support whole person health and healing. Chelsea talks about the barriers in one's environment, relationships, and trauma that have a profound impact on embodiment. This is a great conversation with a practitioner who is blending the tools of science and yoga to meet people where they are and help them connect to their bodies. 

In this episode Alison West shares how she used the breath to support her Covid-19 recovery.  Alison guides us through her journey over the years with her yoga and how her anatomy informed teachering harness the power of the breath.  She provides examples of how we can get creative with props to support our breath practices in times of recovery and beyond.

Tyler Tanaka shares how he uses the breath in his clinical practice as a Physical Therapist and Strength Coach.  He talks about the importance of how he "packages the breath" for different populations and provides some approaches that work for him.  He dives into the mechanics of breath and what language helps to facilitate an experience of breath in the body. Tyler sheds light on his clinical approach of  applying breath to every exercise for movement efficiency.

Julia O'Shea runs the Pulmonary Rehab Program at the University of Vermont Medical Center. She dives into her work with the breath as a Respiratory Therapist and a Kaiut Yoga teacher.  She gives insight into how both her yoga and her teachings about the breath have changed over the years. Julia provides practical anchors for teaching breath practices to beginners and talks about the role of the nervous system in her offerings. She shares how Covid has influenced her work and what tools can be offered to people experiencing post-Covid symptoms.

Avi Greenberg, a teacher of mindset training and breath-work, talks about the subtle and nuanced ways we can work with the breath and its interaction with the nervous system. He describes both calming and invigorating benefits of the ancient practices of breath-work and thermogenesis. Avi shares with us how he sprinkles the science into client sessions and workshops. He offers different starting points for beginning breathing practices and talks about the shifts and bumps in his own journey with the breath.

*This episode involves discussion of sexual assault that is graphic in nature, from the 10:00 to 11:00 minutes time frame for those that would prefer to skip over that part of the discussion.  Dan finds ways to bring a sense of joy to all his classes, even when teaching about the pelvic floor. In this episode, Dan discusses how important a strong foundation knowledge of the pelvic floor is and how to allow space for creativity in delivering the topic to students.  Dan emphasizes knowing the why behind what we are teaching and that what we are offering is best for our students. He shares how he uses breath as a gateway for teaching pelvic floor function and addresses trends and stereotypes in the yoga, pilates and fitness industries that don't serve optimal pelvic health.

Brian Roy-Garland claims that men also have a pelvic floor! This conversation provides insight into why it is important to address pelvic health for men.  He shares with us the importance of layering in awareness of the pelvic floor for higher level performance activities like weight lifting, cycling, and gymnastics. Brian gets into some of the nitty gritty anatomy and function and provides accessible ways to talk about and cue the pelvic floor. He highlights the importance of an optimally functioning pelvic floor for musculoskeletal, urogenital, sexual health, as well as, a flexible nervous system.

In this episode we gain a better understanding of pelvic health physical therapy. Dr. Liz Simons helps to shed light on what pelvic floor dysfunction means and provides some guidance for determining if your own pelvic floor is dysfunctional. Liz describes what pelvic floor physical therapists can offer and when to see a pelvic floor PT. She discusses how conditions like chronic constipation provide valuable information about pelvic health.  Liz helps to break down some of the barriers of initiating conversations surrounding these topics.