Physical Therapy and Yoga Therapy have converged for me so that left to my own devices you get both. Should you need the clear focus of one or the other, we will make that shift tailored to your needs.
Services
Physical Therapy and Yoga have the potential to be incorporated into an ultimately thorough and lifelong investigative rehabilitative process. The '“inside scoop” on structural pain from either field is a healing process that will continue to unfold and resolve and refine, for as long as one is willing to investigate. It is more clear and more common knowledge than ever before that the mind and body and emotional and spiritual self are so interconnected that injuring any of these elements, ultimately injures them all in varying degrees. And so the reverse is also true. Healing any one of these four elements catalyses healing all of them. The fundamental background of Physical Therapy, specifically the structural elements and mechanical dysfunctions that contribute to pain are all addressed in the ancient art of exercise and movement, Yoga. Like Physical Therapy, Yoga is a therapeutic movement technique and it gently incorporates and elicits the other three elements - the focus and discipline that must be the mind, the emotional self-awareness that elicits healing in spite of obstacles, and the spiritual guidance that warrants self-confidence, compassion and trust.
Booking with Sherry
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Consultation
In a private consultation, we get to know each other and I get to learn how you’re feeling, what might be disconcerting and or painful and especially your ideal of what healing means to you. With that, I can share how that registers with what I can see in your movements, how and why I might choose specific progressions that invlude bio and psycho and social and spiritual threads with the intention for them to come together in your use of them toward your intention.
Private Consultation 75min
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Private Sessions
In a private session we review your current sense of your health and routine to learn what does and doesn’t feel effective. I have the privilege of observing your practice and we collaborate again to modify and create movements that let you feel your intention and progression.
Private Session 60min.
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Yoga Therapy Classes
In small group yoga therapy classes the group heart prevails. The classes are warm and sometimes talky at the top (often lifestyle components occur here) yet the work is deep folding layers of being in quietly while challenging sequence gives space and time to listen in. We hear ways that we speak to ourselves, discover the relevance of our own words and intensions, and the sequence becomes a dance as you learn and feel more about yourself yielding self awareness and more accessible presence. Not long after a lesson that seemed near or fully impossible becomes doable, tolerance to challenge becomes a lesson in itself. We look back and feel into to a newly acquired skill that came by listening in for yourself to now owning the authenticity of learning. These lessons also become accessible off the mat often without realization. We surprise ourselves with balanced responses and more heart open living.
Beginner 90min.
Intermediate 90min.
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Forms
Prior to your consultation, please download both forms below and after filling them out please email to sherry_brourman@mac.com.
THERAPIES & WORKSHOPS
Physical Therapy
50 years a PT gives a special kind of perspective. Physical therapy was first known as a “Fix my ______ please” mentality. Evolving slowly but surely it then became more widely known as a “movement systems Fixor modality.” This meant you could reframe your engineering system and all would be well. Beautifully intentioned, yet inadvertently giving people the notion of being impaired, and still “Fixable.” Still changing, today we can use less scary language and share suggestions including some for bodily presence, some for lifestyle help, some for nutritional guidance, and some for being in closer touch with themselves, that people can ‘choose to use’ to help themselves. My intention is to impart the knowledge that gives confidence to ‘choosing to use’, and be able to morph these suggestions as needed for better health.
Gait Therapy
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction (Newton’s Third Law). To create this force we engage with the ground, (imagine deepening footprints) which increases our use of gravity. Energetic symmetry-- (my words for the inner) balance that comes with choosing to use more gravity whether by pressing onto the ground with feet--, standing or walking, in the midst of a posture, or pressing into the seat of our chair with our ‘seat print’.
Every breath is a reflection of how we move, and every movement is a reflection of how we breathe given energetic symmetry. When movement restricts the breath there is work to do. In order to shift something about how we breathe, we need to feel sensations such as those in our chest, throat, and shoulders that can shift differently minus this choice to use gravity a bit more.
When our center is disengaged structurally, emotionally, or mentally, our breath can become compromised. Fluid breathing becomes integral to bodily balance as well. Our focus toward balance becomes fluid breathing rather than proper shapes and alignment. Within balanced movement, breath is unrestricted, and complete. By practicing movement whether through yoga, walking, or basketball, we can access our ability to feel the breath. By using movement to access conscious breathing, we likely balance the body.
In my walking clinics, the introduction includes a simple, fun, and quick discussion of how walking works, from the ground up. Next I’ll observe a student, share what I see, and compare with what they feel. We make shifts, which all participants see and explore on themselves. Experiential learning is the most long lasting learning. When you learn by feel you recognize sensations, weightiness, and the mildest discomforts, you become your own therapist, able to shift on your own. The beauty in classes is the experience of seeing how a small shift on someone else creates a whole body effect, and gives a sense of confidence that this is also possible in your own body.
Yoga Therapy
Yoga Therapy pulls the beauty of the spirit and wisdom of yoga into a collaborative system where therapists and individual clients create a plan to address all of the layers of being that may have become intrusive on their inner balance, breath and movement. The art and depth of these many thousands of years developing yoga and now yoga therapy have as central the inner sense, awareness, and inner guidance, as priority. These layers- koshas- the bio/body, the psycho/mind, the social/community life, and the spiritual/belief systems, are all interwoven such that they are relating to each other continually. This means that therapeutically, which ever we begin with, we are addressing them all. Our focus can shift to any that seem more currently relevant, as they have effected each other in a process that became intrusive, so it is that self empowered healing intention with any of these layers also affects the others.
Work with Sherry
Sherry is available for day long, weekend, and whole week seminars on any combination of her three fields. Content can include various aspects of gait therapy, yoga therapy, physical therapy, and pain science education. Style of meeting taking place can be fireplace style interviews, lecture series, or group classes, all live or virtually.
Please fill out the form below or call 310-279-6668 to work with Sherry.