Anne Pitman
M.Sc., C-IAYT, E-YRT500
BIO
Anne Pitman
M.Sc., C-IAYT, E-YRT500
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Anne Pitman (she/her) holds a Masters in Kinesiology, is the Director of the School of Embodied Yoga Therapy and is a clinical Yoga Therapist at the Ottawa Integrative Cancer Centre (www.thechi.ca).
She has 40 years of experience in educating movement teachers, teaching embodied yoga and pioneering yoga therapy in Canada. Trained in functional biomechanics and Scaravelli-inspired yoga, Anne is a continuing scholar at the Orphan Wisdom School, an apprenticeship in grief literacy and the skills of living and dying well.
Recently, Anne (with Leigh Leibel) published Yoga Therapy Across the Cancer Care Continuum, which demonstrated the philosophical approach, vast education and human compassion required in oncological yoga therapy and showcased the stories of professional yoga therapists working in clinics and hospitals, worldwide, from cancer diagnosis onward.
A champion for healthcare integration, she regularly speaks at medical and yoga therapy conferences on diagnosis shock, the unrecognized grief of living in turbulent times, and the tender practice of accompanying people who are facing their dying days.
Befriending Corpse Pose
Sunday 9:00 - 10:30
What if death was known and respected and endings of all kinds, practiced? How can we be strongly in our body and in our life, at the same time as prepared to leave both as we die? Yoga has a lot to say about the human condition and offers a holistic perspective to help us practice with impermanence. In this session, study Savasana, or Corpse Pose, in depth. Not a rest, not a pause, not a time to grab a nap, Savasana is a practice of dying. Instead of mastery or control, yoga makes room for a befriending of death. Learn subtle breath, gentle movements, cross-cultural practices and skills of release that enable us to approach death compassionately and mindfully, even in the face of pain, fear and anxiety. Appropriate for all humans who will fail to live forever.
Embodied Grief
Sunday 12:00 - 2:00
"Bringing grief and death out of the shadow is our spiritual responsibility, our sacred duty", writes Francis Weller. When our clients speak of trauma, pain, anxiety and depression, grief is often the unrecognized source of discomfort, the one who also needs to be heard and honoured. "Grief is not a feeling, but a skill", says Stephen Jenkinson. If so, how do we, as yoga practitioners, cultivate that skill for ourselves and in service to those who suffer, within a culture that demands we "get over it and move on"? In this session, turn toward grief with attuned ears, and a newly willing heart, so that we might learn how to recognize and listen generously to other's grief and carry our own with a practiced willingness and honed broken heartedness.
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