Skillful Touch: The Art of Hands-On Adjustments

Develop the confidence, sensitivity and practical skills to offer safe, effective, and professional hands-on assists in your yoga classes. This immersive 4-hour intensive is designed for yoga teachers and teachers-in-training who wish to deepen their understanding of physical adjustments and learn how to support students with greater precision, awareness, and care.

Through demonstration, partner work, and guided practice, you will learn how to assess alignment, recognise individual needs, and apply assists that enhance stability, mobility, ease, and embodiment within a pose.  Emphasis will be placed on adapting adjustments to suit different bodies, abilities, and levels of experience, while maintaining clear communication, consent, and professional boundaries.

This highly practical workshop will provide you with a valuable toolbox of hands-on techniques for a wide range of common postures, helping you refine your teaching skills and develop greater confidence, presence, and sensitivity in working with students. Whether you are currently teaching or completing your training, you will leave with practical tools and hands-on experience to support your students with greater skill, confidence, and nurture.

Topics Include:

• Principles of safe and effective hands-on assists

• Consent, communication, and professional boundaries

• When to use verbal cues versus physical adjustments

• Assists for standing, seated, balancing, twisting, backbending, and restorative postures

• Understanding alignment and functional movement within asana

• Reading bodies and adapting assists for individual students

• Creating stability, support, and ease through touch

• Developing confidence, clarity, and presence in your teaching

• Developing confidence, presence, and intuitive teaching skills

• The energetics of touch and cultivating sensitivity through assisting

• Using touch to enhance awareness, alignment, breath, and embodiment

Teachers Bio:

With Julie Gargano, Founder of Prana House & Creator of Pranaa Yoga

Julie Gargano, is a respected yoga teacher, educator, visionary, and industry pioneer with more than 27 years of experience in the fields of yoga, meditation, and transformational practice. As the original founder of Prana House (2006–2022), one of Australia’s most renowned yoga and wellness centres and a leading institution for yoga and meditation teacher training, she has played a significant role in shaping the contemporary yoga landscape in Australia.

A former professional ballet dancer and Iyengar-trained teacher, Julie brings a unique blend of technical precision, embodied awareness, and spiritual depth to her teaching. Since training directly with world-renowned yoga master Yogi Amrit Desai in 2004, she has carried the living transmission of the Lakulish Lineage and was instrumental in pioneering Amrit Yoga (I AM Yoga) and I AM Yoga Nidra in Australia.

As the creator of Pranaa Yoga and Pranaa Yoga Teacher Training, Julie has developed a transformational methodology that integrates yoga technique, meditation, conscious movement, energy practices, and spiritual development. Over the years, she has trained, certified, and inspired hundreds of yoga teachers through her innovative and heart-centred approach to practice and education.

Known for her authentic presence and deeply transformative teachings, Julie guides students beyond the physical dimensions of yoga into profound self-discovery, embodied awakening, and the evolution of consciousness.

Julie is a registered Senior Level 3 yoga teacher with Yoga Australia.

This is an In Peron event, held in Lilydale at Aktivate Yoga & Wellbeing studio. Yoga mats, bolsters and blankets are all provided.

CPD: 4 CPD points

Bring:

This is a practical session, however you may want to bring pen & notebook to take down notes along the way.

Please bring a water bottle and any snacks you’d like to have as this is not a catered event. There are some shops and cafes nearby.

Getting There:

Car Parking: There is onsite, free car parking available

Transport: The Lilydale Train Station is only a few minutes walk away.

Please note:

We do require minimum numbers for this event to proceed. If the event doesn’t receive capacity to run the event by 20th July, we will cancel or postpone this. Should this occur, refunds will be allocated if you prefer not to reschedule.