Mj D.

My work as a coach is to help you access your body intelligence, discipline and creativity to develop unique movement practices to support your athletic, career and personal goals.

Individual yoga coaching sessions are great for:
- Athletes who are looking to supplement their training with yoga
- Beginners looking for a solid introduction to yoga
- Seasoned Yogis who want to incorporate practice into daily routine
- Coaches who want to learn new movement exercises for their athletes

Relevant Training and Experience:
- 200 hr Teacher Training
- Gymnastics Coach
- LCSW with 8 years experience

Health Benefits of Yoga:
- Reduce stress
- Strengthen muscles and ligaments
- Chronic and Acute injury prevention
- Core strength and stability
- Balance flexibility and strength
- Improve posture
- Improve bone health
- Reduce back and shoulder pain
- Improved immune system functioning

In teaching movement, my focus is consistently on core stability, balance, body awareness, and deepening concentration. First sessions will include a brief assessment and discussion of goals as well as a full introductory practice followed by several sessions of executing poses and sequences. You will learn methods for creating unique routines which support your performance in other sports and other areas of your life. (Sessions can also incorporate basic gymnastic moves for those with interest).

People who practice yoga often find that the lessons they learn on the mat, quite naturally stay with them off the mat, and are surprisingly applicable to many areas of life. If you have been a serious athlete, then you know this to be true of your sport as well. What you learn in training you learn to master of your sport, but ultimately you learn these things to be a master of your own life. You will find that yoga movements can teach you so much about your own body, your injuries, your strong points, your potential, and your capacity to direct your own athletic, career, and life path.

Martha has 10 years of training as a gymnast, 6 years of training in Track and Field. She held the state championship gymnastics title in PA in 1997 and competed as a level 9 gymnast during high school. Martha was among the first wave of female pole-vaulters when the option opened up to women in PA in 1999, setting the standards for many female athletes to follow. She received a scholarship for pole-vaulting and held the collegiate record at her school for over 5 years. Martha attended her first yoga class in 2003, discovering yoga to be much more than the simple stretching she had thought it was. She found yoga to provide not only healing from her injuries, but a great way to synthesize the learning and awareness of her body and movement she had gained over the years as an athlete. She is excited to share this experience of injury prevention, healing and mobilization of athletic skill through her coaching.

First session:
Brief Assessment including athletic and medical history
Discussion of goals and interests
Introduction to Hatha Yoga, full 1 hour session

Sessions 2-6 will include:
Guided practice ending with restorative poses
Discussion of goals and feedback

Sessions 6-12 will include:
Guided practice
Student specific smart sequencing - students learn to create their own sequences
Time at beginning and end for discussion of goals and feedback

At session 7 students will receive a binder of guidelines for each pose and ideas for creating personalized practices - for coaches, this can be used to guide your team through a basic practice