Bridging the Two Disciplines of Yoga & Dance/Movement Therapy
A personal and academic journey through yoga and dance/movement therapy, and how their integration deepens my work with others.
My Path to Becoming a Yoga Teacher
My yoga journey began on the day of my high school prom, when my best friend at the time encouraged me to attend a hot Bikram yoga class with her that morning. Bikram was all the rage in the 2010’s— I had seen new studios popping up throughout my hometown of LA and heard of a few parents of friends who adopted the practice. My ballet training and school polo involvement (water polo, not the kind with horses) gave me confidence in my abilities and my curious and adventurous spirit led to my enthusiastic yes. 15 minutes into the class I began to feel dizzy, and after another 5 minutes of forcing myself to concentrate and put my mind over my matter, I fainted. The teacher fed me salt and Gatorade as I stewed in my shame and embarrassment. Needless to say, that day marked the fast and sweaty start, and abrupt end, to my yoga practice. It is also an important beginning marker in my journey towards fostering a deeper connection between my mind, body, spirit, and community.
Flash forward to my years as an undergraduate, where my boyfriend at the time encouraged me to attend early morning yoga classes. I shuffled over to our school’s gym in a sleepy haze, still groggy from a late night of studying in the library. We set up our mats in the brightly-lit room as we were greeted by our cheerful instructor, a fellow student whose devotion to the practice still inspires me today. Despite my resistance to regularly practicing yoga— which was a combination of my disinterest in attending or doing anything routine at the time, and my physical discomfort with the poses that reminded me of my chronic inflexibility which also interfered with my dancing— I stuck with it enough times to learn that it is precisely the discipline of returning to the mat, day in and day out, that makes this practice transformational. I also began to understand yoga as a practice that goes beyond the physical realm. My boyfriend and I were oftentimes the only two students in the room so our yoga practice felt intimate, offering a very different context than my one chaotic Bikram experience. The instructor shared with us that yoga saved her life at the lowest point of her struggles with depression and anxiety. At the time, I did not and could not understand what she meant. I appreciated her vulnerability, though her wisdom never reached me until I witnessed my own healing through yoga.
Flash forward again a few years after I moved across the country, started a new job, developed new friendships and a new romantic relationship, questioned my sexuality and my career trajectory, applied for graduate school, initiated a breakup, and began practicing yoga regularly. I struggled with a loss of identity and companionship, and underlying anxiety. I credit my neighborhood yoga studio for giving me motivation to develop a daily practice, whether at the studio or at home. The teachers there modeled humor, humility, discipline, and valued our investment in ourselves and the people around us. I noticed that my patience and love felt more expansive and powerful than ever before; some days I would leave yoga and experience expansive energy radiating out from me. I dove into self-study (swadyaya), and began to experience the surrender (iswara-pranidhana) and contentment (santosha) that came along with it— these are three of the five personal practices that make up the niyamas in yoga, along with austerity (tapas) and purity (saucha). I felt powerful in the personal peace I had cultivated for myself. My self-trust grew. I decided to follow my gut and pursue my training as a yoga teacher so that I could deepen my practice, and develop skills for sharing this practice with others. I wondered how additional training might complement my graduate studies as well.
What is Dance/Movement Therapy, Again?
In the Fall of 2023 I enrolled in a three-year Masters program to begin my educational journey in Clinical Mental Health Counseling: Dance/Movement Therapy. Dance/Movement Therapy (DMT) is the “psychotherapeutic use of movement to promote emotional, social, cognitive, and physical integration of the individual, for the purpose of improving health and well-being”(ADTA, 2025). DMT builds on a long and global history of dance being used as a healing art form, though has only emerged as a professionalized field in the U.S. since dancers began to see the therapeutic benefits of their work in the 1940s (ADTA, 2025). DMT remains hard to describe as an expressive therapy modality, since it can include somatics, movement, touch, body histories and narratives, and formalized dance practices, depending on the practitioner and the needs and desires of the target clients. DMT is also heavily influenced by a Western psychological focus on pathology, or in other words, what might be wrong with the mind and/or body— as you can probably guess, as a field founded by and still heavily dominated by able-bodied white women, there is a huge, ongoing need to unpack biases and inaccessible and irrelevant approaches to minimize potential harm. For example, my graduate school peers and I have noticed an aversion from topics related to touch and sensuality in our curriculum, and in the available DMT research— a clear holdover from influential early puritan politics that sees touch and sensuality as impure, improper, and worthy of oppressing. DMT’s positioning as a clinical field that pushes back against, and is also informed by, the largely cognitive field of psychotherapies means it exists under heavy public scrutiny and a never ending need to define itself professionally. As a DMT-in-training, I have come to see this tension as an important part of our reflexive practice— continually re-asserting the importance of our work ensures we are evolving our theories of practice and our “why” in ways that meet the desires and needs of diverse clientele in a wide array of spaces.
A Brief Comparison of Yoga and Dance/Movement Therapy
Yoga’s roots are much more ancient than DMT, dating as far back to 5,000 years ago in Southeast Asia, and particularly in India, where Hindu and Buddhist philosophy emerged. Unlike the early you-just-have-to-be-in-the-room experiential origins of DMT, the philosophical texts were what first captivated Western attention for yoga— not asana (physical postures), which is arguably the most popularized/practiced aspect of yoga today (Misiak, n.d.). Yoga and DMT are both evolving practices that have historical roots and bright futures, inspiring healing, restoration, and action, especially as people navigate modern day challenges. Yoga and DMT practices center on relationships: Between consciousness and the unconscious, mind and body, self and divinity, and between two and more people, including between a teacher and student/therapist and client. These two practices also share an important philosophical premise that the mind, body, and spirit are all interconnected. Yoga therapy does exist, and is a growing and thriving field that fills in the venn diagram between yoga and DMT, though I do not have training about yoga therapy to integrate its insights for the scope of this article. All of these fields offer a useful ontological lens to move through the world.
Ways Dance/Movement Therapy Informs my Yoga Teaching
Body/Movement Analysis and Movement Cueing
I spent two graduate semesters learning about body/movement observation and analysis, which includes learning about observation and notation systems like Laban/Bartenieff Analysis (LBA), which identifies movement qualities and effort states, and the Kestenberg Movement Profile, which identifies developmental and relational patterns of movement expressed through rhythm. As a yoga teacher I try to assess clients’ movement baselines to gain more information about their physical presence— I do not add the layer of clinical meaning that I would if working with them in a DMT context, especially because they have only consented for me as their yoga teacher to observe their physical postures and offer physical suggestions and modifications. Through LBA, for example, I might inquire about their use of weight, space, time, and energy/flow: Am I seeing indirect or direct movement as they walk into class?; How do they hold their weight?; Are there movements bound or free, quick or slow, sustained or sudden?. This allows me to track a client’s “standard” movements, without automatically assuming areas of dysfunction, and pay more attention to any changes that take place for returning clients over a prolonged period of time. With this information, I can support clients who are challenging themselves physically without pushing past their limits. If I notice a significant change in their movement baseline, I can also bring that up in a 1-1 before or after class to discuss any new developments that I or they might need to be aware of as it relates to the asanas. I also utilize the vocabulary from LBA to support cueing as a teacher; for example, when cueing Warrior 2 (Virabhadrasana II), I could use the phrase “Keep a sustained, direct gaze over your fingertips to the front of the room,” or “Use rapid, firm exhales through your nose” when cuing Breath of Fire (Kapalabhati Pranayama).
Positionality and Body Narratives
Cultural humility and respect are qualities that yoga teachers and clinical therapists both need for their socially-oriented work. During a Power, Privilege, and Oppression class my first semester, my professor introduced me to the idea of positioning myself as a counselor not just in terms of my identities, i.e. as a young, able-bodied, white, cisgender woman, though also in terms of my bodily history. From identifying the everyday, banal movement rituals such as braiding my hair to the chosen, spiritual movement rituals I pursue such as yoga, these acts make up an important part of my bodily history, and the training, injuries, diseases, acts of love, and other impacts my body has moved through are also a part of that. These inherently shape my practice as a yoga teacher and DMT clinician, as well as my clients. Holding space for all different bodies to practice yoga to me now means offering ample modifications, making use of props, and reminding people of the inherent choices they have while practicing yoga, since honoring and respecting one’s body looks different for everyone.
This acknowledgement also necessitates teachers to hold space for their clients’ new body narratives to emerge. For example, I experienced a more powerful, patient, loving version of myself emerge when I began practicing yoga consistently, and I continue to learn new facets of myself (including my insecurities, my fears, and my stuck energy) as my practice follows me through different stages of life. Many of the clients I work with at my current yoga studio, which is also a physical therapy clinic, have their own traumatic histories, complex journeys, and reclamation narratives that they build each time they return to their mat. As Christine Caldwell, a prominent DMT in the field, writes: “By giving time and space and attention to the non-linear, non-rational self, a self that speaks with images, movements, sounds and emotions… societal neglect can be remedied, and body identity can be positioned as an equal partner to cognitive identity” (2016, p. 11). As a yoga teacher, I see an imperative to acknowledge the different energetic and physical selves we get to meet on the mat, and the sacred value that holds in a cognitively-driven world.
Emotional Regulation
Every counselor during their training is encouraged to adopt at least one or two theories and approaches for explaining and working through emotional regulation, since all clients will experience moments of dysregulation in their life. Dysregulation can happen while driving, for example, when someone cuts you off and your temper rises— you might think of this as “flight”/“hyper-arousal”— or when you are having a conversation with someone and they say something that makes you sad, or makes you dissociate (“freeze”/“hypo-arousal”). This visual guide of Dan Siegel’s “Window of Tolerance” offers an accessible breakdown of this concept, describing stages of hyper-arousal (high energy, anxiety, anger, overwhelm), the window of tolerance (grounded, flexible, present, open/curious), and hypo-arousal (shut down, numb, depression, passive, withdrawn) that we might move through. External factors have a huge influence over what stage we are in at any given moment, including oppressive systemic factors like classism, racism, and sexism. There are practices we can develop that can help us widen our window of tolerance, and grow more aware of the factors that dysregulate us. As a yoga teacher I indirectly and directly explain how yoga, and especially breathing (pranayama) and meditation (prathyahara, dhyana) helps us develop inner resiliency against dysregulating factors.
How Yoga Supports My Dance/Movement Therapy
Building a Somatic Routine
This past year I interned at a children’s hospital, working with regular-admission and psychiatric pediatric patients. Witnessing the physical, emotional, and mental suffering and distress was heart-breaking and overwhelming. My personal yoga practice helped me energetically prepare for the emotionally demanding work I was doing as a therapist-in-training, as well as re-regulate after a long day at the hospital. The routine structure and ritual of returning to my mat day in and day out offered predictability and comfort amidst days filled with unexpected turmoil. It also taught me the importance of utilizing three of the four S’s that my first DMT graduate professor explained: Safety, Structure, and Support (snacks is the fourth, though those are often on hand too!).
Reaching More People (Access)
The premises of yoga and DMT are similar as they work with mind, body, and spirit concurrently, though of course the focuses are distinct. Yoga, since it is not a clinical practice by U.S. definitions, exists in more public spaces and thus my teaching certification also lets me work with a wide range of varied populations— this is a responsibility and a gift! I have so far been lucky enough to teach yoga at a children’s hospital, at BlueCross BlueShield Blue Stores, at senior and community centers, in public parks and over Zoom, and at a yoga and physical therapy studio. With greater access comes greater knowledge— I have learned about myriad physical health conditions and injuries that have impacted people’s wellbeing, and learned how to adapt physical practices to their needs, based on their input and feedback as well as my own personal research to best offer support as a yoga teacher. The podcast Yoga Medicine, for example, has episodes structured around various developmental and injury-specific needs of clients, like women going through menopause, seniors suffering from osteoporosis, and men experiencing unique flexibility challenges.
Building up my Movement Toolbox (Versatility)
As I gain experience as a yoga teacher, I develop more familiarity and comfort with leading individuals and groups through various aspects of their yoga practice— especially asanas and pranayama. The cues I develop are easily transferable to Dance/Movement Therapy interventions, especially as warm-ups and closing activities— I will have clients practice head rolls and find cat/cow (marjaryasana/bitilasana) in their seats for example, to help them build some baseline bodily awareness and tune in to their own bodies before doing group work. Helping DMT clients learn how to tap into the power of their breath and how to use their imagination for visual meditations to regulate has also been helpful for my work as an intern so far.
Cultivating Presence as a Yoga Teacher and DMT-in-Training
My training and roles as a yoga teacher and as a Dance/Movement Therapist continue to inform one another, and I am grateful for the lessons. Importantly, these practices require PRESENCE. There is a common saying in yoga classes that showing up on your mat is the hardest part. In many ways, this rings true— committing to the first step allows a habit of making space for intentional movement to develop. As a yoga teacher and clinician, presence is also non-negotiable. These practices of teaching, and facilitating therapy, are practices of care that require us to show up with integrity and respect for the clients we are working with and the complex histories and lineages that these practices have evolved from. Yoga and DMT help me enact my values of collective healing and change through distinct yet overlapping paths.
References
American Dance/Movement Therapy Association. n.d. What is dance/movement therapy? https://adta.memberclicks.net/what-is-dancemovement-therapy
Christine M. Caldwell (2016): Body identity development: definitions and discussions, Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, DOl: 10.1080/17432979.2016.1145141
Misiak, Anna. n.d. Why we practice: A short history of yoga in the west. Yoga International. https://yogainternational.com/article/view/why-we-practice-a-short-history-of-yoga-in-the-west/
Siegel, D. J. (2012). The developing mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are (2nd ed.). The Guilford Press.
