I’m on the last leg of 18 hours of travel. My booty is sore, but my heart is excited to land in Africa to get to my first international yoga retreat which I’m co-leading with the great Brianne Grogan of Femfusion in Morocco! As I sit here stuck in the back row of a packed airplane I’m thinking about the classes I’ll be sharing with women who will assemble tomorrow. There’s woman and her baby spilling half way into my seat on my left and a little boy vomiting into paper bags on my right. Needless to say I am dreaming of these poses right now!

The first half of 2018 has been full of travel as I continue to spread the good word about the pelvic floor across the US… and the world! (cue creepy laughter).  Long flights, cramped train rides, and the occasional gnarly Los Angeles commute has had me looking to yoga for the pain, stiffness, and lack of energy that travel sometime leaves me with. Like many of my patients prolonged hours of sitting can flare my pelvic, back, or hip pain and yoga always does the trick to calm things back down.  

I’m was initially inspired to write this blog while adventuring in Bali researching yoga retreat centers for my next Retreat to Your Root (I know…. it’s a rough job, but someone has to do it).  24 hours on a plane had me and my travel bud/ yoga teacher/health coach extraordinaire, Michele Wilkerson, RYT of Yoga7even (pictured below) feeling tight, stiff, and generally unhappy in our pelvises!

Michele and I decided to each share our favorite yoga pose for travel and pelvic health as of a series of blogs since we both love adventuring the globe and hope that maybe you’ll join us in the near future…. like on Retreat to Your Root: Midwest this fall (or perhaps a more exotic location in 2019)!

I walked into the lecture hall at the well-renowned Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Stockbridge, MA last week and I paused to soak in and feel what was about to take place. I found out about “A Chronic Pain-Management Conference for Healthcare Professionals: Shifting the Paradigm” randomly through a colleague's facebook posting and as soon as I read the program I knew I had to be there. I’d been wanting to visit Kripalu for quite some time and the content of this conference was EXACTLY what Enlighten PT is all about! The week was a passion project for Denise Barack, Director of Programming at Kripalu and it was the perfect integration of western research meets ancient holistic practices-- with a nod towards a retreat style experience addressing the self-care needs and burnout problem in health care professionals like myself. 

It's been about a year and a half since the concept of "Retreat to Your Root (RTR): A Yoga for Pelvic Health Retreat" came into my consciousness.  The idea sprang from my Yoga for the Pelvic Floor program which I was implementing in the clinic with my patients and after attending 3 yoga retreats in a 3 month time period.  I knew I wanted to spread the word about yoga for pelvic health to a larger audience and I had just experienced the immense benefits of retreating away from normal life while immersing into a healing experience.  As the concept developed my mission and goals for RTR emerged.  With two retreats under my belt (pun intended), one coming up in the fall, and at least 3 in-store for 2018 the mission has grown and the benefits have revealed themselves.  
I want to share my mission with you as RTR has become an aspect of my personal and professional life which I feel most passionate about and feel incredibly grateful to be able to offer.

Our Memorial Day weekend retreat, Retreat to Your Root: An Immersion into Pelvic Health, is filling up fast, but Dustienne Miller of Your Pace Yoga and I want to continue to share previous retreaters' experiences.    

Today's blog features Sophia's experience which she has graciously offered to share as a glimpse into the retreat experience. 

Ok, nobody's vagina NEEDS to go on retreat...but then again, nobody really needs to travel to the world to find themselves or do 100 vinyasas a day to find enlightenment, either. We practice because we know and value the benefits it brings to our daily life. Well, as a CYT and Doctor of Physical Therapy (PT) with a specialty practice in pelvic health I have found that together, yoga and PT can heal and radically improve the lives of patients and yogis alike...and I can tell you with professional certainty that your vagina is an important part of the Mind-Body-Spirit equation.

It’s always nice to attend a continuing education course that involves savanasa (or “lying on the floor resting pose” for you non-yogis).  It’s even nicer to be part of a pelvic floor continuing education course which doesn’t involve everyone disrobing from the waist down and practicing on each other.  For you pelvic floor therapists out there, I know you know what I mean.  For the rest of you, let’s just say our education is experiential!   I have to say that it’s refreshing to trade the usual lube and gloves routine for yoga mats and practice breathing!