‘Resilience Retreat’ with Tiffany Cruikshank

It is our great pleasure to welcome international guest Tiffany Cruikshank, founder of Yoga Medicine, for a unique immersion weekend.

Whether you’re on the burnout spectrum or looking to optimise your health and performance, this series has the resources to put you on the right track. You’ll get a heavy dose of breathwork, myofascial release (MFR), asana, and yin yoga along with research & educational resources to use when you leave.

This workshop series has been designed as an urban retreat, offering a chance to dive deep and create continuity & community with a small group over the weekend, so it is offered as a package only.

// Yoga Medicine® Resilience Retreat

Feeling burned out or looking to optimise your health & resilience? Then this Resilience Retreat has your name on it!
Yoga Medicine® has careful curated a weekend of practices to give you the experiences & tools you need to revitalise your health & wellness using both research-based & traditional practices to get the most out of your time on your mat. This Resilience Retreat will take you through a weekend long journey to help you train your nervous system, revitalise your physiology, shift your mindset, optimise tissue function, and most important of all give you the tools to continue this work on your own regardless of where you practice.

Resilience implies an ability to adapt and recover quickly in challenging circumstances and this capacity for resilience is within our human design. Cultivating a deep sense of resilience means addressing both our physical capacity & physiological function as well as our mental & emotional well-being. Most importantly it requires a shift in perspective to override the negativity bias automations of our brain that protect us from danger but can also perpetuate the cycle of burnout.

This retreat has your name on it if you’re struggling with exhaustion, sleep, recovery, focus, motivation, anxiety, overwhelm, concentration, memory, or are looking to enhance your overall health & resilience. Whether you’re on the burnout spectrum or looking to build resilience the inputs are the same- challenge the system to rise to the occasion when needed and make rest and recovery your superpower.

This retreat will involve challenging & stimulating practices as a training impulse, along with nourishing introspective practices to support recovery & optimal energy levels that allow your internal systems to recalibrate to a new baseline. Prompts will be given to guide you to individualise the experience to support your unique needs & goals. There will be flow to embody the transformation, introspective practices to guide the deeper work, and a heavy dose of breathwork & MFR to give you some potent tools at your fingertips when you leave. You’ll leave with tools to continue to support your resilience, insights on areas you can individually focus on, and a shift in perspective to how you approach your practice. Expect both active, accessible classes as well as more introspective & restorative experiences, both empowering you with tools to unlock your resilience.

>> All you need is some vinyasa experience, all levels are welcome.

// SATURDAY 10:00-12:30 - Leveraging stress as a resource

Contrary to popular belief, stress is not the enemy! In fact, stress can be a potent tool in our lives to instigate change, support energy levels, and balance the nervous system when approached skilfully. Ultimately stress can be an important friend that warns us of danger but also one that pushes us to be our best selves. Whether you’re looking to enhance performance, concentration, energy levels, or motivation this class explores ways to get you going in preparation for the task at hand. We’ll explore resources to turn stress into an asset with both stimulating and nourishing practices to help you appreciate the fullness of your life. This class uses breathwork, asana, myofascial release (MFR), acupressure and Traditional Chinese Medicine concepts to bring this work to life and unlock the tools you need to make the most of a full life.

// SATURDAY 14:00-16:00 - Recovery as a superpower: fuel for a fulfilling life

Recovery is a critical part of our health, whether you’re a professional athlete or a professional desk sitter, recovery practices can amplify so many of the therapeutic effects of this practice. Enhancing recovery helps us bounce back from stress, strenuous physical activity, big life events, and illness. You may already be very familiar with the value of the introspective practices like yin & restorative yoga to train the parasympathetic nervous system to enhance recovery however we’ll look at ways to amplify these effects. This workshop will look at some other options that can have a potent effect on recovery, a great one for those who want to maximise health & resilience as well as those who struggle with yin & restorative (or who work with students that do). In Chinese Medicine the introspective practices are a potent resource to fuel our lives and in our busy, modern world the small ways we support recovery can have a big impact on our lives. We’ll explore the science & techniques behind some potent breathwork & myofascial release practices, yin yoga, and Chinese Medicine theory to help you (& your students) maximise recovery and get the most out of these more introspective practices.

// SUNDAY 10:00-12:30 - Decoding strength & resilience

Thanks to the media, we’re all pretty familiar with the importance of strength training nowadays. From the effects of myokines on cognition, blood sugar, bones, & tumours to the importance of maintaining muscle mass over our lifespan, strength training is essential to our health. It’s easy enough to lift weights and increase our strength capacity at the gym but there is so much more to strength, like our functional capacity, movement efficiency, endurance, and the strength of our collagen matrix for injury resilience. After all, our muscles are only as strong as the connective tissue matrix that holds them together and allows them to transmit force. This class will investigate research-based practices that you can bring onto your mat to train the capacity of both the muscle and connective tissue to help enhance performance and minimise injuries. Tiffany has worked with professional athletes across the US and helped create the Nike Wellness Center programs (at Nike WHQ) and so brings a wealth of both cutting edge knowledge and depth of experience from her specialty in sports medicine over the past 28 years of her career. Whether you’re dealing with the last remnants of an injury, trying to enhance performance & strength, or looking to help minimise injuries & feel your best this class will explore ways to train the tissues toward strength & resilience over time to cultivate youthfulness through our lifespan. This class takes a modern lens to our traditional asanas with plenty of information to help you bring the concepts home with you.

// SUNDAY 14:00-16:00 - Myofascial release as a resilience tool

Myofascial release has been a life-changing tool for both herself and the tens of thousands of patients, teachers, & students that Tiffany has worked with. It can be used for both tissue resilience, pain regulation, recovery, and nervous system regulation to name a few. This workshop will look at the what, why, & how behind these techniques then dive into protocols for the legs, hips, back, & shoulders. A great way to get a scan of what’s going on in the major areas of your body as well as a potent tool to quickly shift your experience in your body. You’ll leave with a basic understanding of how to apply this work on your own and some areas to focus in on in your own body.

// ABOUT TIFFANY

Tiffany Cruikshank, L.Ac, MAOM, is the founder of Yoga Medicine®, a community of yoga teachers focused on fusing science & research with traditional yoga practices to serve the medical communities with a mission to help people thrive and live their best lives. Tiffany is also an acupuncturist with 20 years of practice under her belt and a specialty in sports medicine & orthopedics. She created the Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine program at the Nike World Headquarters Wellness Center and served as the Acupuncturist and Yoga Teacher at the Nike WHQ for over 6 years. Tiffany’s passion is empowering yoga teachers & patients with tools to enhance their function, performance, and appreciation of life. She has taught yoga for over 28 years and has trained over 15,000 teachers worldwide to understand the inner workings of the body and individualize therapeutic yoga practices.

Tiffany is also the founder of the Yoga Medicine Seva Foundation, a nonprofit that works to fight human trafficking & sexual exploitation in India through efforts of education and entrepreneurship. She has written 2 books, runs the Yoga Medicine® podcast, and posts new practices weekly on Yoga Medicine® Online.

Tiffany has graced the cover of over 15 magazines and is regularly featured as an expert in prominent publications such as Prevention, WebMD, Forbes, Huffington Post, New York Times, Yoga Journal, Women’s Health, Glamour, Self, Marie Claire, Fitness, Good Housekeeping, Readers Digest, Health, Cosmopolitan, Shape, Redbook, Men’s Health, LA Times and many others.