Blog Archives

Cleared to Land - Yoga Adjustments

1/24/2017

Here are two resources for making your hands-on yoga adjustments safer and more effective. And why I love each of them:

The Yoga Flip Chip
I love the Yoga Flip Chip because it is first and foremost about establishing and maintaining consent between yoga instructors and their students. This consent tool works for me in the following ways:

Puts all the power in the hands of the client
Client may easily change consent mid-session
Visual cue for practitioner (instead of relying on memory, show of hands, etc.)
Practitioner can easily adjust to a change in client request for touch/not touch
Visual cue for client (reminds them they are in control of what happens to their body)
Brings up the topic of consent between practitioner and client at every session (so long as the practitioner explains it every time)

Click here to check out the Yoga Flip Chip.

Chopra Center Rules
I love the Chopra Center's rules for hands on yoga adjustments because it first and foremost addresses consent between yoga instructors and their students. This article works for me in the following ways:

Asking permission is the first rule on the list!
It addresses lack of touch when touch was wanted as well as touch when it is not wanted
Subtle cues are incorporated - paying attention to client's breath, etc.
Includes practitioner skills like intention, mindfulness, breath, approach, verbalizing, etc.
Encourages starting at a level the practitioner is qualified and comfortable with

Click here to read the article.

Comment below to share your favorite tools, articles and resources about safe hands-on yoga adjustments!

0 Comments

The Enthusiastic Yes

1/20/2017

0 Comments

This is what we want, right? For our clients to be enthusiastic about what we offer. That's the dream - the person we are about to lay our hands on is SUPER excited about what comes next. They understand what to expect and they are INTO it. They are ready to receive. We are ready to give. They aren’t just going along with it, they really want it!

Isn’t it mind-boggling how sexual all of that sounds?!?!

No wonder we have a giant consent problem in the bodywork industry. Dialogue around consent has been relegated almost entirely to the arena of sexual engagement. Phrases like “touch me there” have become suspect in and of themselves. So how can you ask your clients the most important questions:

Is it alright if I touch you here?
How about there?
How do you like to be touched?
What kinds of touch do you not like?
May I touch you now?
Are you ready?
Do you want me to touch you?

Words that describe the quality of touch are likewise tainted to varying degrees: stroke, press, rub, massage, manipulate. We are afraid of a lot of words. We are not practiced in how to comfortably alter them for either a platonic or sexual context, personal or professional meaning, depending on the person and situation at hand. We’ve lost the ability to contextualize consent, clarify what is meant and talk openly about touch without sounding like we're talking about sex. We are therefore limited as bodyworkers in how we can talk with our clients and ask for their permission to touch their bodies. As long as we are tentative or limited in the words we use, as long as we skate along with the barest bones of a consent dialogue, the possibility for the wrong kind of touch exists and increases.

The majority of practitioners who I receive bodywork from and mentor have a bare bones consent form, talk very little about consent before beginning treatment, and treat consent mostly as a formality. To put it more bluntly, for most of us, getting client consent is a cover-your-ass move. This is not because we are bad people nor because we want to touch our clients in ways that cause harm. It’s because we have become a country of people who are more and more wounded by touch, suspicious of touch, skeptical of touch and avoidant of touch.

Touch based professionals are cautioned to protect themselves from their clients. The majority of practitioners we’ve interviewed about how consent is handled in training programs confirm that the subject is limited and almost entirely addressed through a liability lens. But consent, true consent is a tool. A powerful tool we can use to increase client safety, agency and receptivity to healing. I once heard someone say that the number one indicator of whether or not an employee sues after being fired is how they get treated as they are packing up and walking out the door. Being kind and compassionate and treating someone like they matter directly decreases their likelihood of litigating. How we treat one another matters. And I think it must be the same for bodywork - caring about your client’s safety, treating them like they matter by asking explicitly for their consent and assuring that you have tools in place to maintain it… this is the greatest liability protection of all.

Let’s change the trend, people. Start using all the touch words in all the appropriate contexts. Be clear and open with your clients about why you are doing so. It’s up to us to lead the change, be the change and grow the change in others. Client consent can be enthusiastic. Client consent should be enthusiastic. And client consent is not the absence of a no. It is the present of an enthusiastic YES!

0 Comments

Cleared to Land - Yoga Adjustments

The Enthusiastic Yes

Heather Lenox

Archives

Consent