This intensive is Module Four of the 300-Hour Advanced Yoga Training, but can also be booked as a standalone course.
Overview
With perceptual awareness, assessment, and continuity established in earlier modules, this intensive moves into hands-on intervention. Here, anatomy, breath, spine, and pelvis are brought together to support adjustments that are intelligent, ethical, and sustainable.
Using the pelvis as a primary reference point, this intensive helps participants understand how structure, load, and movement patterns influence the way support is offered and received.
Rather than learning adjustments as fixed techniques, the emphasis is on developing clarity around readiness, intention, and response. Foundational shapes with fewer joint articulations are used as primary learning tools, allowing participants to observe and respond with greater precision before working with more complex variations.
This intensive supports participants across roles—those deepening personal practice, those working with peers, and those teaching—by exploring hands-on work as a form of communication that can support learning, agency, and long-term trust.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this intensive, participants will be able to:
- Demonstrate understanding of pelvic anatomy, including key bony landmarks and joint relationships, and how pelvic organization influences spinal alignment, load transfer, and leg support in asana.
- Assess readiness for hands-on support by recognizing patterns of stability and mobility, effort and collapse, and flexibility versus control.
- Apply anatomical insight of the pelvis to inform adjustments that are clear, ethical, and sustainable across varied bodies and contexts.
- Practice hands-on adjustments with attention to consent, timing, pressure, and restraint, understanding touch as a form of communication rather than correction.
- Differentiate between simple and complex adjustments, recognizing how foundational shapes with fewer joint articulations often provide clearer information for assessment and support than more complex variations, such as a seated forward fold in half lotus with a bound arm.
- Adapt adjustments to support individual needs without diminishing agency, depth, or learning.
- Discern when hands-on intervention supports awareness and skill development, and when it may interfere with integration.
- Develop confidence in offering adjustments that prioritize clarity, responsiveness, and long-term trust.
Anatomy of the Pelvis with Shila LaGrua
Participants explore the pelvis as a central organizing structure in movement, stability, and load transfer. Attention is given to how pelvic shape and position influence both spinal organization and leg support.
Key areas include:
- Identifying key bony landmarks and joint relationships
- Understanding the pelvis as a meeting point between spine and legs
- Exploring load transfer, stability, and mobility
- Recognizing common pelvic patterns that appear in asana
Reading Readiness
Before touch is ever applied, participants learn to assess whether support is appropriate. This section focuses on recognizing capacity rather than assuming need.
Areas of exploration include:
- Assessing structural readiness before offering hands-on support
- Differentiating flexibility from control
- Recognizing effort, collapse, and compensation
- Understanding when hands-on work supports learning—and when it may interfere
Adjustments | Part I — Foundations
Adjustments are introduced as intentional actions rather than habitual gestures. Participants learn to approach touch with clarity, restraint, and purpose. Emphasis is placed on working first with simpler structures—where fewer variables offer clearer information—before applying these principles within more complex postures.
Key themes include:
- Distinguishing purposeful touch from habitual touch
- Understanding when simple (less body parts) adjustments are more effective than complex (more body parts and joint articulation) ones
- Establishing clear, respectful points of contact
- Working skillfully with direction, pressure, and timing
- Supporting agency rather than creating dependency
Accessible & Applicable Adjustments
This section focuses on adaptability—learning the art of adjustments with physical touch, consent, and restraint, and how hands-on work can remain relevant across different bodies, contexts, and practices. By understanding how complexity increases variables, participants learn to choose when simplicity supports clarity and when complexity is appropriate.
Participants explore:
- Adapting adjustments across varied bodies and experiences
- Working within limitations without diminishing depth
- Understanding how adjustments translate beyond a single pose
- Applying anatomical insight to support broader movement patterns
Hands-On Practice
Participants engage in experiential learning through both giving and receiving touch, with emphasis on awareness, consent, and feedback.
Practices include:
- Experiencing foundational adjustments through sensation and observation
- Practicing touch with clarity, consent, and responsiveness
- Refining tactile awareness through feedback
- Developing confidence and restraint—whether working with oneself, peers, or students
By the end of this intensive, participants recognize that effective adjustments are guided less by technique and more by clarity, readiness, and restraint. The pelvis becomes a gateway for understanding how anatomy informs touch, and how thoughtful, restrained intervention supports longevity, trust, and sustainability in practice.
Whether applied to personal embodiment, peer-based exploration, or professional teaching environments, this intensive marks the transition from foundational anatomy and assessment into more complex applications of touch, where participants begin working with increased load, variability, and nuance while maintaining clarity, restraint, and ethical responsibility.
Teaching Schedule & Focus
Friday | 5:30–8:30 PM
Orientation & Intentional Touch
- Opening circle and module orientation
- Establishing consent, boundaries, and communication
- Exploring touch as information rather than correction
- Developing sensitivity through observation and presence
- Gentle partner-based explorations
Saturday | 9:00 AM–12:00 PM
Seeing Before Doing: Pelvic Structure & Observation with Shila LaGrua
- Understanding the pelvis as a central organizer of movement and stability
- Exploring pelvic shape, orientation, and common structural variations
- Observing how pelvic positioning influences the spine, hips, and breath
- Learning to recognize habitual patterns held in the pelvis
- Developing the skill of seeing and sensing pelvic organization before intervening
- Guided movement and observation practices focused on clarity, support, and ease
Saturday | 1:00–5:00 PM
Adjustments as Dialogue
- Exploring adjustments as conversation, not instruction
- Practicing subtle, responsive hands-on support
- Knowing when touch supports and when it interrupts
- Partner labs focused on clarity and restraint
- Group reflection on experience
Sunday | 9:00 AM–12:00 PM
Discernment in Application
- Choosing when and how to intervene
- Adapting touch for different bodies and needs
- Supporting agency through thoughtful contact
- Case studies from group and one-to-one settings
- Discussion and inquiry
Sunday | 1:00–5:00 PM
Integration & Teaching Practice
- Integrating observation, touch, and restraint
- Teaching labs with feedback
- Reflecting on ethics and sustainability
- Integration of learning across modules
Capacity
To preserve the integrity of the learning environment and support meaningful mentorship, this intensive is capped at 20 participants.
CEUs
5 Anatomy CEUs + 20 CEUs
Cost
$467
Location
Body Electric Yoga
3015 7th St. North
St. Petersburg, FL 33704
Dates
- 2026: September 4-6 (book below)
- 2027: September 17-19