Rehabilitative Yoga

The yoga Viv teaches is based on scaravelli yoga. It's gentle and dynamic. You move in the way your body is designed to move, you don't stay in one position. This helps you to feel comfortable in a body that moves well, within your own personal capabilities.

Viv combines this yoga with more traditional rehabilitative exercises. She identifies movement restrictions and teaches you how to ease through them comfortably. You learn what you are doing that causes pain, stiffness or instability. You then learn how to move without these restrictions. This helps you to feel stronger, get rid of discomfort and prevent it from returning. Your muscles and joints work smoothly and you start to move more freely and comfortably, with a sense of greater strength and stability.

​This yoga can help you to:
  • Free up the spine, hips, shoulders and neck.
  • Improve mobility and strength in the knees, ankles, feet and hands.
  • Improve posture - find ease and comfort in how you sit and stand
  • Re­discover and improve your balance, strength and confidence if you feel unstable as you get older, or after an operation or illness.
  • Get rid of long-standing aches and pains, that often don't show up on a scan but cause you discomfort and stop you doing things you enjoy.

Viv has a lot of experience working with older people to help them regain confidence and stability in their balance and coordination, whether it's for a spot of gardening or a short walk to the shops, or to keep you doing more strenuous exercise that you want to do for as long as you possibly can.
More about rehabilitative yoga

This type of yoga approach is not about levering yourself into a tricky, slightly worrying position! It's not focused on toning and firming muscles, however if you practise these movements regularly you will get stronger. This yoga allows you to let go of tension, and find comfort, stability and strength, by taking your body through its range of natural movements - movements which you may have thought you would never be able to do again. It is about allowing your body to move in every possible way, gently, within the range of what your body can do. If you can't squat right down onto your feet, that isn't because you're not trying hard enough, it's because you just aren't built that way.
If you do these types of movements over time, regularly, you free up your spine, joints and muscles and this allows your body to work the way it should. Your muscles, connective tissues (fascia), nerves and breathing work well, so that you have a much more comfortable body. Then, when you move around in daily life or do the activities you enjoy, your body recruits the muscles it needs to do that activity. Doing this won't make you cartwheel or skip like an 8­-year old again, but it will help your body move well and feel stronger and more flexible.