What is Total Yoga Nidra?

• Total Yoga Nidra is a comprehensive, inclusive and non-dogmatic approach to yoga nidra that respects and explores not only a range of practice methods, but also acknowledges and supports a variety of different levels of experience during yoga nidra. Total yoga nidra empowers you to encounter yoga nidra in its totality: as an adaptogenic meditative practice without limits in terms of its capacity to heal, nourish and liberate.
• Most people who are familiar with yoga nidra have listened to some kind of pre-recorded audio track(s), but might not have had the opportunity to encounter the practice live from a teacher in a group setting; and although many people may have experienced a live group yoga nidra, where a teacher delivers a standard script to a group of students, this relaxing experience is very different from practising yoga nidra that has been specifically tailored for a particular individual, for example in a one-to-one setting. This experience in turn is different from the encounter with yoga nidra that comes during a practice that is co-created by teacher and student together, with the specific intention to meet the student precisely where s/he is right now, both in language and method of practice, and in terms of the level at which that practice can be most appropriately met.
• And whilst all of these experiences of yoga nidra certainly bring huge benefits, an entirely different set of possibilities open up when yoga nidra is set free from the need to have any external auditory guide of any kind. At this level of self practice, the protocols for practice are so deeply familiar to the practitioner that when we simply lie (or sit) quietly, then the practice can be invited to unfold silently, in the voice of our own intuitive inner guide.

What you will learn

• to devise and deliver Total Yoga Nidra practices appropriate to your needs and those of your students and clients;
• a clear practical understanding of the structure and function of Total Yoga Nidra, including models of best practice, and techniques to be avoided;
• a practical understanding of the key principles of yogic psychology and philosophy relevant to the practice of Total Yoga Nidra;
• a contextual understanding of the development and history of Total Yoga Nidra across different lineages;
• to share Total Yoga Nidra with an informed sensitivity to the emotional and spiritual experiences of those receiving the practice;
• to teach a range of restorative yoga asanas suitable for use during yoga nidra practice;
• to teach within the appropriate safety guidelines for this type of yoga practice.

Topics covered include

• Understanding the structure and variations in approaches to, and levels of, Total Yoga Nidra practice
• Clinical hypnosis, self-hypnosis and yoga nidra – a full exploration of the relationship between these practices
• Further explorations in history and development of yoga nidra: nyasa, tantra, Satyananda Yoga, Himalayan Institute, Richard Miller, Swami Veda Bharati, Swami Jneshvara Bharati
• Deeper explorations of yoga philosophy and cosmology in relation to Total Yoga Nidra
• Exploring research on yoga nidra exploring the value of understandings from neuroscience, clinical psychology, psycho-neuro-immunology and physiology in relation to the function of yoga nidra, including stress and the relaxation response
• Restorative asana: refinements on propping poses for yoga nidra
• Sankalpa: resolution and intention setting, listening to inner guidance, framing and using Sankalpa within and around yoga nidra
• Breath awareness /pranayama: specific use within the structure of yoga nidra session, and to support the practice of yoga nidra
• Visualisations: a range of different traditional and creative scripting options, contra- indications, appropriateness and therapeutic value
• Creativity and innovation: devising your own Total Yoga Nidra experiences; metaphor, poetry and grammar for enlightened communication
• Responsiveness: tailoring script to needs of target populations, bespoke scripts: utilising client images in yoga nidra
• Self-development: sample practices, support for self-reflection and growth
• Dharana: yoga nidra as an aid to improve concentration
• Dhyana: yoga nidra as the meditative heart of yoga
• Living yoga nidra: practical and effective integration of yoga nidra into daily life
• Total yoga nidra as a therapeutic tool

Pre-coursework

There is pre- and post-course work for this training. In order to attend the training, you need to participate in the Total Yoga Nidra Immersion * Online version
* a similar workshop previously

Uma Dinsmore-Tuli

I was first introduced to yoga at the age of four by my mother and I began meditating at nine on a pilgrimage with my maternal grandmother. Yoga and meditation have been part of my daily life ever since. As a naturally curious and enquiring yogini, I have engaged passionately and critically with a variety of schools of yoga and yoga therapy, especially Structural Yoga Therapy, Satyananda Yoga and Iyengar Yoga. Since 1997, the heart of my daily personal and therapeutic practice has been yoga nidra. I practice yoga nidra a minimum of twice daily, finding it to be the most powerfully transformative and nourishing of all yoga techniques. I first encountered the practice at the Satyananda Yoga Centre in 1996, and have been exploring all aspects of it with fascination ever since. I have studied a variety of approaches to the practice both in India and the UK, with nationally renowned exponents including Swami Muktidharma (Satyananda Acharya, New Zealand), Mukunda Stiles, and Richard Miller. I have refined a range of particularly feminine therapeutic applications of yoga nidra, including its use for the promotion of fertility, positive birthing, postnatal recovery and conscious menstrual health. I have shared yoga nidra with hundreds of people, in every conceivable environment, from nursery schools, hospitals and airports, to giant geodesic domes filled with yogis sheltering from wild storms at yoga festivals and gatherings. I have been sharing the technique with teachers from all lineages on Yoga Therapy training courses and retreats since 1999. After completing the Yoga Biomedical Trust Diploma in Yoga Therapy in 1999, I continue to find the fully integrated approach of yoga therapy to be the most practical route to the healing power of yoga. I have further trained in Structural Yoga Therapy and Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy with Mukunda Stiles, and I now work as a yoga therapist with special expertise in women’s health. I am currently refining Womb Yoga through a series of international workshops and retreats My PhD is in Communications from Goldsmith's College, University of London. Since 2001 I have been a training tutor in Yoga Therapy. I was a recognised teacher of the British Wheel of Yoga and taught British Wheel of Yoga In-service training days between 2001 and 2015, when I resigned in protest about their failure to address ethical issues of abuse and exploitation in the yoga world. As a mother, I have been both personally and professionally engaged with the development of pregnancy yoga, yoga for birth and postnatal recovery, and family yoga, and have been training teachers in this field since 2002, when I first tutored for the Birthlight Trust. Since then I have delighted in creating my own courses to promote excellence of teaching in this field, including Well Woman Yoga, Pregnancy Yoga and a uniquely responsive Integrated Mother and Baby yoga teacher training. With the intention of widening access to pregnancy and postnatal yoga, I founded Sitaram Yoga with my husband in 1998, and it continues to offer pregnancy and postantal yoga classes in London, including at Kings and St Thomas’s hopsitals. I leads retreats and courses worldwide, sharing the approach to yoga therapy set out in my CDs, DVDs and books: Mother's Breath, Teach Yourself Yoga for Pregnancy and Birth, Feel Confident: Yoga for Living, and Yoni Shakti - a book about the evolution of feminine spiritual authority through yoga and tantra. I am currently co-writing another book, The Celtic School of Yoga: An Introduction. For full product listing see Buy Products or go to www.yogamatters.com. Before yoga and mothering took over my life completely, I spent seven years as a journalist and ten years working as a lecturer, tutor and course designer in higher education. I draw on my experience as writer, educator and mother to create positive learning experiences and high standards of teaching, training, appraisal and support on all my courses. I am mother to three children: Tejomaya, Abhisheka, and Rajakumari Prayaag, who were all born at home in the Sitaram yoga rooms. www.umadinsmoretuli.com International Association of Yoga Therapists' Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT) (the presentation of Uma is from the Yoga Nidra Network website)

Beverley Bruce

• Beverley Bruce specialises in therapeutic applications of breath, movement, meditation and rest, creating a nurturing and supportive space for each individual to honour their needs as they find their way to feeling resourced and balanced, at any stage of life. She combines her extensive experience across the fields of yoga, psychotherapy, somatic therapy and yoga therapy in both private practice and group classes. In all of her sessions, she encourages kindness, compassion, and deep listening within, sensing and following what feels right for each of us. For her, Yoga is really a practice of awareness and coming home to ourselves. Beverley is inspired by therapeutic practices which resource and balance us, and loves sharing creatively blended forms of the healing practices of Restorative Yoga, Total Yoga Nidra, YogaSOMATICS and Womb Yoga. She is currently completing a Professional Doctorate in Psychotherapy with the University of Edinburgh, where she has been exploring the bridge between psychotherapy and yoga. Beverley has studied Restorative Yoga with Judith Hanson Lasater to an advanced level, YogaSOMATICS and Somatic Bodywork with Ateeka, and Total Yoga Nidra and Womb Yoga with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, whom she assists in trainings and workshops around the world. www.b-ing.co.uk

Nirlipta Tuli

Nirlipta Tuli is founder and co-partner of Sitaram Partnership and also Yoga Nidra Network. Nirlipta's particular interest lies in the therapeutic applications of yoga nidra, where he focusses on insomnia and sleep related issues, lucid dreaming, dealing with stress, enhancing productivity for individuals and groups, and pain related issues. Much of this has been informed by his own experience, using yoga nidra to manage a life lived with cardiomyopathy, autism and insomnia. He offers mentoring and pastoral care to other yoga teachers and to students on all Total Yoga Nidra courses and events. Before creating Yoga Nidra Network Nilripta worked as a registered clinical hypnotherapist. He trained at the London College of Clinical Hypnotherapy and has specialist training in perinatal hypnotherapy. He is a full member of the British Society for Clinical Hypnotherapy and also an associate member of the British Association of Clinical Psychotherapy. At the heart of his unique hypnotherapy practice was a specialised approach to perinatal hypnotherapy, including work with birth trauma resolution and the release of fears and anxieties around childbirth. Nirlipta has been practicing yoga since 1988 and teaching since 1990. He has yoga teaching diplomas from three different yoga teacher training organisations: Bihar School of Yoga, British Wheel of Yoga and Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres. He has also has undertaken further training in pregnancy yoga, yoga therapy and the health and safety aspects of yoga teaching. He has particular expertise in teaching yoga practices for positive mental health, stress relief and relaxation. Nirlipta also holds an MA in Indian Religion and Philosophy from the School of Oriental and African Studies. (the presentation of Nilipta is from the Yoga Nidra Network website)