Feminist Wellness Series
The CWSE is excited to announce that we will resume our Women’s Wellness Series with six sessions for 2011-12!
This year’s sessions include an anger-release workshop with renowned physiotherapist Shayna Hornstein, lunar cycle ayurvedic workshopping with Angela Lytle from the Women’s Human Rights Institute, free-flow dance with Erica Ross from Dance Our Way Home, and two breast health workshops with Julie Groulx and beloved author Sat Dharam Kaur. Details below.
These workshops are designed to help us remain grounded and reflective, while empowering us to make positive changes, personally and collectively. Workshops are open to all fitness and experience levels.
$60 per class, $50 student/unwaged
Register at cwse@utoronto.ca. Space is limited, do register in advance.
Series held at the CWSE, 252 Bloor W, downtown Toronto
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Session 1:
Facing Anger, Staying Steady: Self Care in the Thick of Things
with Shayna Hornstein, Registered Physiotherapist
When a person surprises, shouts at or insults you, it’s perfectly natural to be thrown off, or even to feel threatened. Telling ourselves to stay calm or not to take it personally often doesn’t ease the uncomfortable sensations we feel inside (dry mouth, pounding heart, shaky knees ...). What we do first, for ourselves, helps us to handle situations more effectively. This workshop will help you recognize your natural reactions to surprise and anger, and give you tools to steady yourself before you respond.
October 29, 2011, 1—4pm
$60 ($50 student/unwaged)
Shayna Hornstein has been a registered physiotherapist since 1981 and has intensive training from the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute of Colorado. She works with people who have injuries that are slow to heal and those who live with stress-related and chronic illnesses and pain. For more than eighteen years, she has worked as a consultant, therapist, and group facilitator to reduce the impact that stress has on morale, safety, and communication in organizations.
Email cwse@utoronto.ca to register
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Session 2:
Lunar Rhythms: Women’s Cycles, Yoga & Ayurveda
with Angela Lytle, MEd
This workshop will explore tools from the yoga tradition and Wise Earth Ayurveda® healing practices for women to help (re)connect the Shakti (divine feminine energy) in the womb to the cycles of the moon, promoting menstrual health. These practices are designed to help reactivate the body’s inherent wisdom and to help women optimize their physical, emotional and spiritual wellness in harmony with nature’s rhythms. Practices will include: some gentle asana (postures/suitable for diverse bodies); breathwork; lifestyle awareness; and specific Wise Earth Ayurveda® practices for women. For more information: www.insiteyoga.com/WEA.
November 12 2011, 1—4pm
$60 ($50 student/unwaged)
Angela Lytle (Parvati), MEd/RYT, is a yoga educator and human rights trainer and activist. She directs the Women’s Human Rights Education Institute (WHRI) and teaches holistic yoga and ayurveda, focussing on women’s wellness. Her training includes: yoga education at Anand Prakash Ashram in India; Wise Earth Ayurveda Women’s Health & Spirituality training; and ongoing study with the American Institute for Vedic Studies’ “Yoga and Ayurveda Health Educator” program. www.insiteyoga.com
Email cwse@utoronto.ca to register
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Session 3: POSTPONED: Bellylicious: She Who Flows & Feels
with Erica Ross, Co-founder of DOWH
In a gently guided, safe and sacred female space, Erica offers a healing movement journey through the transformational DOWH (Dance Our Way Home) practice of freestyle dance, relaxation, and guided imagery. Together we will discover our personal and collective flow, grace, and depth of feeling; exploring and honouring the treasures and wisdom of our belly's watery realm, to become more relaxed, open, soft, and available to change, healing, balance, and fluid living. This workshop will touch your body, heart, mind and soul. No experience needed. Only a willingness to move, and be moved! For more info: todanceourwayhome.com
Postponed, new date TBA
$60 ($50 student/unwaged)
Erica Ross is co-founder/director of DOWH, a woman's transformational dance practice. She is a dancer, artist, facilitator and DJ. For 30 years she has traveled and lived around the globe exploring an array of modalities, traditions and teachings. Her calling is to offer experiences of healing dance, divine feminine teachings, relaxation, and imagery. Erica has been featured in the Globe and Mail Newspaper, Vitality Magazine, CIUT and CKLN Radio, Extraordinary Women TV and OMNI TV.
Email cwse@utoronto.ca to register
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Session 4: POSTPONED
Breast Health with Julie Groulx, RMT
Become proactive about your breast health by exploring stretches, breathing, hydrotherapy, and massage techniques that support your body’s natural ability to heal itself. Discover how your lymphatic system and breasts work in a fun and supportive environment. Massage therapy techniques for breast-feeding, scar tissue and edema will also be covered.
Please bring a notebook or a journal.
New date TBA
$60 ($50 student/unwaged)
Email cwse@utoronto.ca to register
Julie is a compassionate and supportive registered massage therapist, educator, and yoga teacher who has worked in alternative therapies for a decade. Her approach to women’s health is both integrative and holistic, and she believes that through education and healthy lifestyle choices, we can support our bodies’ natural ability to heal itself. She is a certified Manual Lypmphatic Therapist focusing on lymphedema, breast health, family health, and palliative care. She was the creator and a teacher at The Breast Health Seminar in 2006, and works regularly with Sat Dharam Kaur, ND. Julie continues to educate women about breast anatomy, physiology and self-care in workshops taught in the Toronto area as well as in her practice at Inspired Life Health Centre. Inspiredlife.ca
Series hosted by
the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education (CWSE)
www.oise.utoronto.ca/cwse, 252 Bloor St W, downtown Toronto
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Session 5:
Women's Wellness Series 4: Qi Gong & Well-Being: Ancient Practices for Daily Life
with Roxana Ng, PhD
How do we, as women, care-givers, educators, and change agents, remain centered and grounded in our everyday lives, with too much on our plates? How can the ancient Chinese meditative exercise of Qi Gong help us with balance in our everyday lives?
This workshop will introduce participants to the basic principles of Qi Gong; explore simple Qi Gong exercises; and create space to reflect on our activities, make connections with like-minded people, and enhance our capacity to transform ourselves and our society.
February 18, 2012, 2:30—5:30pm
$60 ($50 student/unwaged)
Roxana Ng is Head of CWSE and a professor at OISE. She is a long-time activist in the feminist and anti-racist movements, and a Taiji Juan and Qi Gong practitioner. For more than twenty years she has been integrating Eastern practices into her teaching and exploring the transformative potential of combining Eastern and Western wisdom and theoretical traditions. The result is an approach called “embodied learning”, which she is sharing with individuals and groups doing social justice work.
Email cwse@utoronto.ca to register
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Session 6:
Breast Health
with Sat Dharam Kaur, ND
Not sure how to eat or what supplements to take to have optimum breast health? Learn the advantages of a primarily plant based diet, why organic is best, and the benefits of numerous foods that can help prevent breast cancer. Clear up any confusion you may have around phytoestrogens such as soy and flax, and learn the principles of the Healthy Breast Diet. We will also explore the 10 best supplements to promote breast and whole body health.
March 2, 2012, 6—9pm
$60 ($50 student/unwaged)
Email cwse@utoronto.ca to register
Sat Dharam Kaur, ND, is a naturopathic doctor, author, and Yoga teacher. She graduated from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine, and was awarded the Naturopathic Doctor of the Year award in 2000 for her work in breast cancer prevention. She has developed The Healthy Breast Program, a training designed to help educate women in breast cancer prevention through diet, nutrition, detoxification, Kundalini Yoga, and lifestyle change. She has written several best-selling books: A Call to Women: The Healthy Breast Program and Workbook, The Complete Natural Medicine Guide to Breast Cancer, and The Complete Natural Medicine Guide to Women’s Health.
Series hosted by
the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education (CWSE), 252 Bloor St W, downtown Toronto