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Integrated Holistic Yoga Movement is the second volume in the three-volume series Therapeutic Yoga Teaching, Clinical Service, and Practice, an integrated holistic approach to teaching, clinical service, and practice of therapeutic yoga, grounded in the eight limbs and the five layers of human experience. Each volume can stand on its own.

Integrated Holistic Yoga Movement explores yoga asana as a movement practice that attends to physical, energetic, emotional, cognitive, and relational needs, patterns, and habits, regardless of practitioners’ backgrounds or biopsychosociocultural contexts. It combines yogic wisdom about human nature with scientific insights about anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology. It examines what it means to be a moving human being, exploring the development and transformation of movement within a holistic context that considers not only physicality but also vitality, cognition, emotion, behavior, and relationships. Integrated holistic movement emphasizes compassion, mindful embodiment, and wise understanding in support of personal and collective healing and thriving.

Section 1 addresses anatomy and physiology as relevant to teaching yoga movement. It begins with key concepts of integrated holistic movement, including biopsychosociocultural individuality, physical resilience, and anatomical language, and of physiology, including tissue types and the organ systems relevant to yoga. It then examines connective tissues, bones, joints, muscles, and myofascial lines, followed by the anatomy and kinesiology of the axial region (head, vertebral column, and thorax), the lower appendicular region (pelvic girdle, thighs, legs, ankles, and feet), and the upper appendicular region (pectoral girdle, arms, forearms, wrists, and hands).

Section 2 presents integrated holistic approaches to asana that are distinctive in being therapeutic, tailored to each person, and grounded in all eight limbs of yoga, even though the focus is on shapes and movement. Asana is taught as one limb within a whole practice, interwoven with ethical and lifestyle practices, breath, and inner practices, and shapes are adapted to the needs, preferences, and contexts of individuals rather than to a fixed ideal form. The section begins with principles for teaching shapes and movement, including sequencing, cueing, working with pain and resistance, biomechanics and load, stretching, open and closed chain movement, and reflexes. It then offers guidance for eight categories of shapes (upright standing, arm standing, seats, twists, forward folds, backbends, inversions, and restoratives), with attention to benefits, contraindications, risks, preparations, variations, and adaptations.

Integrated Holistic Yoga Movement stands on its own as a foundation for individuals seeking yoga teacher credentials, yoga teachers who seek to transform their current teaching to become therapeutic and person-centered, dedicated yoga practitioners who want to deepen their personal practice, and healthcare providers seeking to integrate yoga therapeutics into their clinical practice. It supports health and wellbeing through therapeutic yoga classes, yoga-therapeutically informed healthcare, and individually tailored personal practices.

Christiane Brems, PhD, ABPP, ERYT500, C-IAYT, is a clinical psychologist, experienced yoga teacher, and yoga therapist. She directs YogaX, a special initiative in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Stanford Medicine, dedicated to bringing therapeutic yoga to those who need it most. It is her passion to train yoga professionals and healthcare providers to bring therapeutic yoga services to individuals with physical and mental health challenges.