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Your Yoga, Your Practice, Your Way

Ready to dive deeper into the physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits of your yoga practice?

Whether just for you, or as a stepping stone towards your Yoga Teacher Certification, we've got you covered.

Orthopedic Yoga Therapy

Core Curriculum

I WANT TO TAKE MY PRACTICE DEEPER AND HEAL ON ALL LEVELS. Do you love yoga and want to learn how to make it a safe and sustainable practice that can nourish your body and mind for now and the rest of your life? Maybe you have some pain or injuries that need some healing? Perhaps your posture isn’t as great as it used to be, and you want to learn how to combine fascial release and therapeutic yoga to realign your body and put some more pep in your step? Maybe depression or anxiety has been creeping up on you and you want to work on changing your mindset to move forward with a positive outlook. Our core Curriculum is a great way to dive deep into the healing practices.

How?

Retreat option: Join us in paradise for an in-person immersion this Winter on a pristine beach where baby turtles hatch for an unparalleled healing experience.

Staycation option: Join us online, either live or at your own pace with our recorded classes!

Retreat Option Staycation Option

50

Trainings Completed

∞

wisdom shared

Why choose us?

How is Orthopedic Yoga Therapy Different?

Yoga is much more than exercise.

Orthopedic Yoga Therapy is a distillation of ancient wisdom, modern movement science, and customization that can be suitable for all persons - regardless of their history, ability, or limitations. Every single person is different - and their yoga practices should be, too!

If you have ever wished that you could get the big picture on life, then this is the path for you! From the best practices of Physical Therapy to the ancient wisdom of Breath, Body, and Energy Work, everything is connected. Once you can see those connections clearly, you will be able to take the best possible care of yourself and the people you love.

Zoom In

Detailed Anatomy, Yoga Poses, Cultivating Balance - On and Off the Mat!

Zoom Out

Yoga in the World, Body Reading, Recovery, Chakras and Energy Systems

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TESTIMONIALS

Experiences with Orthopedic Yoga Therapy

Enroll in Course Today

Michelle's ability to tease out exactly what you need is unparalleled. Whether it's physical, emotional, or spiritual, she is the greatest teacher and inspiration. I came on her Goddess retreat stuck in fear, but I was able to release and accept throughout each yoga session, each day, each intention. She does this with love, grace, and a touch of spiciness that she embodies. I am grateful for this incredible healing experience. Thank you Michelle!

Heidi Sanders
Michelle is an amazing healer and puts her heart and soul into delivering a best in class retreat setting with farm to fork fresh food, beautiful ambience near the ocean in Playa De Coco, Nicaragua. The morning yoga practices and daily workshops will touch your heart and soul in ways never imagined. If you're looking for a week to disconnect from the outside world and reconnect with your inner goddess - this retreat is for you!

Jill Franze
Following my stem cell transplant and chemotherapy treatment, I was left with a pain in my chest that was residual from my tumors there. My doctor said that it was the “new me” and something I would get used to. I heard about Michelle’s transformational bodywork, and after one session my pain is 100% gone. I want other people to know, so that hopefully they too can be freed from their pain.

Amy Webb
Michelle transformed my practice in the first Downward dog of the class... So whether it’s running a microscopy lab or teaching a yoga class, I carry Michelle’s teachings with me and try to pass them on. She is a light to everyone she touches, and I cannot recommend her teachings enough.

Barbara
As I dug deeper into the program and compared it with others, what I found was a miraculously organized yoga teacher training. Michelle has designed the program to include required classes as well as offering flexibility in the elective courses.

Tiffany Taves
After you worked on me again today I want to tell you again how wonderful your work is. My arthritic knees and legs feel great tonight. I have in the past done extensive PT for my legs and have never had the results or the insight you offer about solutions. I am remembering back to last summer after I had a nasty fall from an unmarked extra high step, a flying fall across a parking garage floor that resulted in two fractured elbows, my PT who I have known and worked with over the years told me I should be working with both you and my dear chiropractor Katina for healing. She said she had exercises to provide but you and Katina together were providing the real healing. You were an incredible team for that time and for the subsequent more recent intense back pain. I am very grateful and appreciative of the unique quality evaluation and healing skill that I am lucky enough to experience.

Patricia Mazza

Meet Your Instructors

Michelle Fleming

Michelle is a Yoga Therapist, a Thai Bodyworker, a Nerve and Artery specialist and a Board Certified Structural Integrator in the lineage of Ida Rolf. It was through these complementary practices of wellness that she healed her body - and from there Orthopedic Yoga Therapy was born.

These days she trains teachers and students to find a fluid pattern of movement that protects and nourishes the joints while stretching the muscles and connective tissue and quieting the mind. She is the owner of Sanctuary Wellness Studios, Director of Orthopedic Yoga and Transformational Yoga Therapy and founder of Equilibrium, a non-profit dedicated to bringing breath, movement and nutrition education to young people with anxiety and mood disorders.

Ray Crist

Ray Crist, of Jaguar Path, has spent the last three decades immersed in shamanism, various styles of yoga, Chinese medicine, martial arts, and Reiki. He has been offering workshops and trainings at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, NY Open Center, Yoga Journal, Blue Spirit, Boddhi Tree Yoga Resort and around the globe for over 15 years. Ray’s trainings focus on how to use shamanic tools and yoga as technologies that assist us to reach an optimal state of being in order to to live a balanced, empowered and extraordinary life.

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Chip Hartranf

Chip Hartranf, PT (Yoga, Insight Meditation, Yoga-Sutra) bridges the traditions of yoga and Buddhism. He is the founding director of The Arlington Center, dedicated to the integration of yoga and dharma practice, and has taught a blend of yoga movement & insight meditation in the Boston area since 1978.

An independent scholar of yoga and early Buddhism, Chip is the author of "The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali: a new translation with commentary" (Shambhala). His work has also been included in "The Wisdom of Yoga" by Stephen Cope, "Freeing The Body, Freeing The Mind" by Michael Stone, the Shambala Sun, and many other publications.

Chip teaches the origins, evolution and practices of yoga and Buddhist traditions at Lesley University and at teacher trainings and retreats across the country.

Vanessa Pattison

Vanessa Pattison lives and passionately teaches meditation and yoga in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua where she built and runs the only yoga and meditation studio in town. Originally from California, she traded the golden handcuffs (they're real and shiny) for a more authentic life which includes a surfboard. The surfboard is her husband's (he tricked her into moving) but the yoga studio and the people it serves are what keep her connected, inspired, and growing.

A forever student she has acquired over 3,000 hours of yoga certifications in Hatha, Prenatal, Vinyasa, and Yin since 2005. Vanessa has trained with many teachers in various styles of yoga but two of her first and most influential teachers were Peter Sterios, founder of Manduka, and James Bailey an Aryuvedic Doctor. She co-founded Nicaragua Yoga Institute which hosts and runs Yoga Teacher Trainings and Wellness retreats year-round. Being a mother to three boys herself led Vanessa to support other women as a birth doula and she has assisted and/or delivered over 20 babies in Nicaragua and the United States.

Trained and certified by The Chopra Center in Primordial Sound Meditation Vanessa will take you through a series of sessions to ignite or deepen your meditation practice. You will walk away with not only your very OWN mantra based on your place, date, and time of birth in Vedic astrology but also a greater understanding of your pure potential through this ancient yet relevant practice of meditation. We will explore the practical aspects of how and why we practice, what gets in the way, and practice using our personal mantra as well as open ourselves up to higher states of consciousness.