Yoga Chikitsa (Therapy) Foundations Course
This foundation course in traditional Yoga Chikitsa (yoga as therapy) teaches the essential principles and methods applied when adapting yoga for a therapeutic purpose. Traditional Yoga Chikitsa is a holistic method of assisting people through phases of being unwell, dealing with injury, or simply working through their own obstacles within self and life or to deepening yoga practice and path.
Yoga Chikitsa also works powerfully and essentially at the level of mind. It utilises very effective means that clear the energies that override and obscure the function and power of a stable, centered, creative mind state. Yoga Chikitsa will seek to identify the sources of habitual suffering, the deep imprints within our consciousness. Individualised practice will generate release from the deep grooves of habitual mental tendencies. The mind carries an innate state beneath the surface of disturbances that is calm, peaceful and deeply perceptive. The practice of Yoga Chikitsa will guide a simple, insightful and empowering pathway to an unconditioned mind.
Yogic understanding of origins, nature and purpose of mind is essential knowledge to anyone desiring to know intimately the nature of our reality and how to live consciously and intelligently within it.
This is a profound method of teaching and guiding others with significant differences in methods of practice and orientation to the generalised experience people meet in classes. Yoga Chikitsa utilises the essential teachings of yoga that inform its many methods of practice to invoke the required shift and healing each individual seeks.
This is a unique training as a meaningful foundation to this subject. Teachers often find themselves ill-equipped to meet the very specific needs of individuals in a general class context. Through this foundations training students will learn various methods and levels of adaptation incorporating skill sets unique to traditional yoga chikitsa. Shantarasa specializes in this form of practice and orientation. This Training will suit those with 200 or more hours of teacher training.
This training will add a whole new range of skills for teachers with a real call to meet the people’s individual needs and capacities. Yoga Chikitsa is the traditional practice of yoga as therapy. This training will give Yoga Teachers a new set of skills and a deeper understanding of how yoga is intended to work more deeply at the levels of subtle energy, psyche and soul while also influencing significant change at the physical level restoring the ecology of all body systems and constituents to more optimal function and potential healing.
Fully qualified Yoga Chikitsa therapists are highly trained to assist an individual to find a pathway to the cause of physical conditions and disturbances. It requires a very different kind of therapeutic orientation that is not focused on symptoms but rather the whole person. Such a way of working will reduce symptoms without all focus being on them as the person grows more skillful within themselves. It is not about curing and interventions which rarely addresses the root cause. It focuses on reclaiming the innate powers of body, psyche, and soul to heal, to make wise use of the life given, equipped with the self-knowledge to guide it meaningfully and joyfully.
This course of foundational training will introduce the methods to meet an individual, gain an understanding of their needs, with methods to design a practice and focus that serves their healing. The course will explore a range of methods yoga utilises to restore wholeness, restore access to vital energy and improved self awareness.
Sadhana brings her extensive 5 decades of training in Yoga Chikitsa (Yoga as Therapy) to this training. Her knowledge of the therapeutic benefits and methods of yoga to restore health and recovery is exceptional. The focus will attend to the holistic nature of the individual and meet the needs of body, heart, mind, spiritual development while imparting ways to cultivate a lifestyle balance which is unique for each of us. She teaches adapted forms of asana, breath, pranayama, bandhas, mudras, yoga nidra, meditation, contemplation practices, self reflection - an extensive reach into yogic philosophy and psychology as it applies to our recovery of whole being and wellbeing. Her partner Keval Pezet will also bring a wealth of meaningful and practical yoga psychological and philosophical content relevant to healing and becoming whole.
A Stand Alone Course for those with 200 or more hours of accumulated Yoga Teacher Training
Course Dates
Commences November 21st 2026.
Course scheduled over 4 weekend intensives
Content themes include:
Guiding principles
Holistic focus – (non-symptomatic focus) how to move past symptoms orientation
Tools used in yoga as therapy / A focus on chikitsa methods of practice
Accessible beneficial practice when injury/recovery, illness, and disease is present
Teaching adapted practices with healing in focus
Therapeutic understanding and methods of yoga and Ayurveda as sister sciences of life
The difference between healing and curing
The yogic understanding of the subtle layers and dimensions of the human vehicle
Diagnostic tools: diet, lifestyle, life stage, breath, vayus, koshas, gunas, doshas, kleshas,
Asana and Pranayama, Mudra and Bandha as Chikitsa/therapy
Yoga Nidra, Mantra and Meditation as Chikitsa/therapy
Self-study (Svādhyāya) and karma Yoga as Chikitsa/therapy
Tapas as a counterbalance when conditions seem fixed/ service as practice when karma obstructs healing
Yoga for mental health. Practices to assist mind health - reclaiming the power of the mind
Unpacking the innate knowledge and guidance as revealed in the essential yogic texts and traditions.
An understanding of mental health from allopathic, ayurvedic and yogic perspectives
Ethics and scope of practice, referral and working with other health professionals.
The sadhana of a yoga instructor/ self care, self observation and inquiry, skill development, personal practice.
Download a training guide for more information.
