Aiya

Thank you for the background, Kit! Bringing it down to 10 minutes makes it more reasonable for a 75-90 minute class. It could be subbed out for some of the neck stretching poses I've been doing at the end specifically because they seem to calm nervous systems the most. Agreed on the six months of meditation and breath work!

You started this thread with the question "Do people use this in their classes?" I've just started teaching, but am considering it. I'm also a yoga teacher and have used Yoga Nidra scripts at the end of yoga classes. When a 120-minute class attendee said "the only thing that would have made this better would have been 15 minutes of savasana at the end," I thought it might be valuable to add this in as part of the format for a long class!

Just a quick note to follow-up - the session went great. We used props liberally (chairs, bolsters, blocks, and even a table!). We used gravity to work with his weight and that helped give him leverage. And, I think the bolsters gave him the sense of support he needed to actually feel the stretches. All-in-all, while I don't think he became a big blob of goo, he DID say he felt better and more relaxed.

Thank you, Nathan! Very helpful and along the lines I was thinking - especially the exhaustion approach. Also, as per recommendations from others, I'm thinking about using some manual soft tissue movement (rubbing, light percussion, and even shaking the tissue) before stretching to help it let go. And, may use bands to help traction joints while getting into stretches. "Big blog of goo" might be a bit too woo-woo for him (he is, as I heard someone say in Oz, a bloke's bloke). Will let you know how it goes!

I'm a new Stretch Therapy Teacher in the US and have a student / private client who wants to stretch, but is large/bulky, very strong, and EXTREMELY tense. "Relax" doesn't seem to register in his system and he's reporting that he's not feeling much of a stretch in most poses because he runs into a movement "wall" before he feels a stretch. He has difficulty sitting on the floor (extremely tight outer hips, hamstrings) and cannot bring his knees together with feet on the floor while sitting on the floor. He's in his early-mid 40s and practices ju-jitsu. Challenges with ST poses (examples): Soleus stretch holding onto a rig didn't bring a stretching sensation - only discomfort with the pose Bringing knees to parallel while sitting on floor with feet on floor isn't possible Not feeling sensation with C-curve spinal flexion Body too tight to feel small changes in a twist Because of all this, we've scheduled a private to modify stretches for him. He wants to focus on hip flexors, piriformis, calves, achilles, and spinal extension). Because he cannot comfortably sit on the floor, I'd like to use a chair as a prop for daily 5 and as many other stretches as possible until the floor is a reasonable place to work. I believe his core challenge is not being able to track body sensations due to excessive tension / belief that feeling the body is only feeling discomfort, but I'm not sure I'll get traction starting in that place with him. Can you advise on two things: 1. Where would you start / recommended mods for him? 2. Success you've had in getting clients who can't access body sensations to move that direction? (I will, of course, recommend relaxation scripts) Thank you in advance! Aiya