Ashley Getz: Bringing Together Christian Yoga and Dance Therapy
November 1, 2009 by Yahweh Yoga
Filed under Your Stories
Meet Christian Yoga Instructor and future Dance Therapist Ashley Getz
Many people become Christian Yoga teachers for personal fulfillment. Others become certified in order to teach yoga classes in a local studio. But for Registered Yoga Teacher Ashley Getz, Christian Yoga is providing a way to outreach to those from all different walks of life.
Ashley teaches Christian Yoga while she studies Dance Therapy as a second-year graduate student at the celebrated Pratt Institute in New York City. She has used her studies to work in a variety of settings; a methadone clinic (substance abuse), homeless shelters, and mental health.
Getting Her Start
Ashley first discovered Christian Yoga while she was earning her undergraduate degree in Modern Dance from Arizona State University.
After taking a studio class at Yahweh Yoga, Ashley knew it was an answer to her prayers and believed God had led her to Christian Yoga. She felt that it aligned perfectly with what God was calling her into as a dance therapist. “I love to dance and I love the Lord,” she says. “With Christian Yoga, I felt like I could use my body to glorify God.”
Ashley quickly moved from taking studio classes to enrolling in the Yahweh Yoga Christian Yoga Teacher Training program, where she graduated in 2007 with her RYT designation. The following summer, she went home to Michigan where she taught classes all summer to family and friends. Five women from her home town including her mother and two sisters, loved Christian yoga so much that they recently also got certified through Yahweh Yoga.
Looking Forward
When she graduates in 2010, Ashley wants to pursuer her career as a Dance Therapist as well as teaching Christian Yoga. “I would first like to stay working in a clinical setting,” Ashley says. “Eventually I would like to start my own practice where I can combine Dance Therapy with Christian Yoga.”
Dance Therapy is well-known as a psychotherapeutic use of movement that effects changes emotionally, cognitively, physically, and socially in individuals. So what can Christian Yoga add to a patient’s treatment regime?
“Yoga and dance by themselves are extremely therapeutic,” explains Ashley. “But without the Lord there is no hope. I believe Christian Yoga can provide individuals true healing, which can only come from Jesus Christ.”
Hi,
Yoga is beneficial for the health in ways that modern science is just beginning to understand. Even though it has beenapplied with therapeutic intention for thousand of years, Yoga Therapy is only just now emerging as a discipline initself.
More health care practitioners are starting to include yogic techniques in their approach to healing — andmore yoga teachers give a therapeutic intention to their teaching. People who have never tried yoga before are startingto consider including Yoga in their treatment plan.
As science begins to document the importance of understanding the interrelation of all existing things, it looks to Yogawith an intrigued eye, for Yoga speaks Unity in every word. As yoga techniques are researched and new data is gathered,it becomes easier for science and the medical establishment to understand and accept the benefits of Yoga Therapy.Yet there is still not one consensual definition of the discipline.
In order to arrive to an adequate definition and tocome up with proper standards for Yoga Therapy, it is crucial at this early stage to properly address some delicateprofessional and ethical issues. At the same time it is important to educatethegeneralpublic about Yoga Therapy’sbenefits and careful use.
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