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Welcome to the resource page of RYA's Ayurvedic
Education initiative. We offer in-depth
on-site and distance options for training in
Ayurveda, within the context and worldview of
the broader Vidya tradition. Our courses
are suitable for beginners to aspiring
practitioners, as well as those who wish to
improve their health and self-awareness, those
who wish to serve their families, or those who wish
to add holistic depth to their interactions with
others and the world.
AHECP in a nutshell:
intimate, supported, traditional, practical
9 courses: 4 foundational and 5 supplementary
courses 1, 2, 5, 6, and 7 are all suitable for
beginners
pay-as-you-go fee structure
a relaxed learning pace to promote intellectual
and intuitional digestion
500+ class hours
100+ hours of online testing
daily practice guidance: diet, cleansing,
exercise, hygiene, contemplation
interactive reading of root texts and
commentaries
chanting of mantra and shlokas
case study work: theoretical and live
lively online forum interaction
ongoing support of student's individual health
questions
ongoing mentorship of advanced
students, towards confidence in practicing Ayurveda
Click here to
listen to Matthew talk about his own Ayurvedic
daily regime.
Quick links to course descriptions and dates:
AHECP #1 Everyday
Nectar: Ayurveda in Your Life: Fall, 2010
**This course is available remotely for those
living beyond the GTA.**
AHECP
#2 Deepening Ayurvedic Understanding:
Theory: Fall, 2010
**This course is available remotely for those
living beyond the GTA.**
AHECP
#3 Deepening Ayurvedic Understanding:
Therapeutics: Fall, 2010
AHECP
#4 Deepening Ayurvedic Understanding:
Consulting: Spring, 2011
AHECP #5 Ayurvedic Cookery: Fall, 2010
AHECP
#6 Using Ayurveda to Support Yoga
Practice: TBA
AHECP #7 Ayurveda
and Sexual Wholeness:
Winter, 2011
AHECP #8 Ayurvedic Psychotherapy:
Winter, 2011
AHECP
#9 The Ayurvedic Mindset: Fall, 2010
AHECP Supplemental: Introduction to
Meditation -- Winter, 2011
Register for current courses online.
Testimonials"Every aspect of my life
has been touched. While each lesson brings
clarity to practical concerns, beneath this
there is a sacred perspective being gifted, or
maybe just uncovered... The teacher's words
travel to the realms of my ancient knowing,
waking it up;
in fact, perhaps that is really all that takes
place in this classroom: a benevolent
dream-walker gently nudges us back into a
conscious state." -- Leah Herman
"Exploring the depths of the ancient Indian
science of Ayurveda is probably one of the most
insightful, enlightening and meaningful ways to
learn more about your own physical and spiritual
body and to reach out to other people in your
life with greater understanding and empathy. You
begin to view the world around you from a very
different perspective, enhancing your
relationships and your overall wellbeing. The
AHECP is fascinating program, indepth, well laid
out and detailed in structure. Matthew, you are
a veritable fountain of knowledge and an
amazingly caring teacher - attending your
classes has set me on the path of
self-introspection and given my life a whole new
meaning. I cannot thank you enough for this
wonderful experience." -- Havovi Mehta, RYT
(Downward Dog, 2008)
"Having spent the majority of my 27 years of
nursing in the teaching hospitals of Toronto,
I consider myself well established in
traditional Western medicine. Although most
nurses try to do the best with the knowledge
and the resources available to them,
challenges with the Western system still
exist. When I first heard Matthew
giving a talk on Ayurveda, I felt like I was
being handed the pieces of the puzzle that
seem to be still missing in Western
medicine. This system is holistic - it
understands the necessity of mind, body, and
spirit integration. It is individualistic -
It incorporates the individual in treatments
with the understanding that the patients will
only get out what they put in. This seems to
be in stark contrast to the Western system of
medicine where patients often take little
responsibility in the care of their own
health. Ayurveda first and foremost
deals with the promotion of lifestyle and
dietary responsibility. The integration of the
needs of the mind and the needs of the spirit
is involved in the balancing of the body. The
language and belief systems were sometimes
tough for my rigid, skeptical way of thinking
but Ayurveda meets the needs of health care
that I have found so lacking in our Western
system at this time. I have been studying for
a year now and find Matthew to be an
phenomenal teacher who is totally passionate
about having his student and clients get the
most out of this ancient science. I
highly recommend his courses!" --
Linda Miller, RN
LONG
DESCRIPTION:
What the AHECP is
This programme consists of 9
courses, over 500 contact hours, and up to an
additional 500 hours of supervised home practice
and study, and will train the student to become
an Ayurvedic Health Educator. (Courses
1, 2, 5, 6, and 7 are all suitable for general
interest students.)
It is self-paced, but can be
completed within 4 years. The time commitment
consists of weeknight classes and a number of
weekends of study over two years.
What it will allow you to do
This training will allow the
advanced student to assess clients’ constitution,
general health, sources of imbalance, and
lifestyle factors according to Ayurvedic theory
and intuition, and to suggest and teach various
dietary, herbal, cleansing, daily routine, and
contemplative therapies towards the recovery and
nurturance of elemental balance. It will grant
facility in dealing with imbalances up to the
point at which clinical intervention (whether
allopathic or Ayurvedic) would be advised, a
point that advanced students will learn to recognize.
Advanced
students may also find themselves sliding into a career of lecturing and other means of
presenting this venerable and evolving tradition
to the general public. Finally, the
advanced student
will be primed with the structures, research
tools, and creative strategies that make for a
lifetime of learning and contribution to the
indigenization of Ayurveda to our culture.
In this particular lineage of vidya (ancient
science), it is assumed that if you've learned
with integrity, you are beholden to go on and
teach.
Who it’s for
This programme is ideal for those
interested in life-long methods of caring for
self and others, those who wish to expand their
repertoire of healing modalities, and those who
seek to be full-time Ayurvedic Health
Educators. In this age of necessarily increasing
specialization in Yogic studies, this course is
especially useful to yoga instructors who wish
to add Ayurvedic wisdom to their classes and
private lessons, both to ground the structural
therapies they offer with lifestyle contexts,
and to become agents of union between these two
disciplines.
Programme focus and method
Our programme’s well-rounded
presentation of standard traditional Ayurvedic
theory emphasizes innovative
concept-translation to modern Western thought.
Its pedagogy will be supported by lifestyle
experiments, contemplative homework, journaling,
class discussion, case history review, research
assignments, interactive study of self and
others, online testing and oral exams. It will utilize
standard texts from respected authors, research
notes and creative writings of the instructor,
and is rooted in a substantial research
bibliography. The Foundation courses will lay
the groundwork for therapeutic practice, while
the Supplementary courses will cover
ground-breaking topics such as sexual wellness,
psychotherapy, issues of spiritual emergence,
and “the Ayurvedic mindset”. These
Supplementary courses, with their sensitivity to
Western interests and their bias towards
indigenization of Ayurvedic culture, make this
programme unique amongst similar programmes. The four Foundation courses will be
pre-requisite-linked in ascending order. Each
course features its own student manual,
consisting of roughly 100 pages of condensed
notes and memory aids.
A Note
about Integral Pedagogy
In the Vedic system, skill
and accreditation is not marked by time or
certificates. It occurs like the acquisition of
a native language, a process of transmission
from the guide and the environment into
the student which awakens a native intelligence.
In time, the student begins to mirror her guide
and her environment with her own distinct voice,
thereby contributing to a living tradition
of spoken wisdom. At some mysterious point which
cannot be marked by a diploma or graduation, yet
indeed extends throughout the life, she finds
herself channeling the ancient vidya.
Needless to say, this
pedagogical framework is completely foreign to
the contemporary model of education-for-hire and
learning-by-the-clock, which is defined by
hours, campuses attended, texts covered, essays
written, experts listened to, all-nighters
pulled, and exams crammed for, all thrown
together for rendering the 'product' of the
degree. While this framework can be highly
valuable, and serves to provide at least a veneer of
standardized knowledge in a bewildering world,
it cannot replace the richness of personal
learning in an intimate and domestic setting --
the gurukula, Sanskrit for 'community of
learning'.
The richest and most
ingrained learning of your life probably did not
take place in any formal school, but in the
homes of your mentors, beginning with your
parents in your childhood home. How did
you learn to speak? How did you learn
texture, and temperature, and pleasure, and
pain? How did you learn about tastes, and
dreams, and the elements? It was in the
context of living: the kitchen, garden, and
bathtub; along with siblings, animals, trees.
You learned the majority of your humanity before
you cracked a book.
The gurukula is a simple
and transparent extension of this root learning
experience. You live close to the teacher.
Lessons are interwoven with meals and business
relations. Professional practice and
devotion form a seamless flow. The
transmission of information happens in
digestible chunks (no more than 2 or 3 hours at
a time, before the contingencies of life
interrupt with their own commentary upon
the tradition!) Ayurveda has never been
something that's been studied from 9 to 5, and
without personal, even familial, contact, with
the guide. The modern model of full-time
education makes for a lot of hasty
data-processing, without full digestion into the
fabric of the lived experience.
The opening prayer of all
classes, along with its translation, is as
follows:
om sa ha navavatu / sa ha
nau bhunaktu
sa ha viryam karavavahai / tejasvinavadhita
mastu
ma vidvisavahai / om santi santi santih
May the Spirit indeed
protect us both.
May the Spirit indeed nourish us both.
May we together rise up through study and understanding.
May our study shine.
May we not disrespect each other.
Om peace, peace, peace.
This prayer can inspire
pages of commentary, but what is most germane
for our purposes is its repetitive focus on "us
both". This phrase implies that the ideal
learning situation in ancient pedagogy is
personal and individual, and rooted in oral
tradition, which books cannot fully convey, but
only comment upon. Indeed, it is said that
all of the ancient vidyas (Ayurveda and Jyotisa
highest among them) are only truly communicated
"chest to chest". We might also remember
here that this is the delivery mode for the
pinnacle hymn of the Yogic tradition, as we hear
Krsna sing the Bhagavad Gita to his one student
of the moment, Arjuna, who has been primed by
training, friendship, devotion, and finally, an
ontological crisis. We have the text,
which is wonderful, but by reading it, we feel
ourselves to be eavesdroppers -- consumers of
knowledge, rather than enjoyers of relationship.
Stable education is not
eavesdropping. It is connected and
intimate, and it proceeds until it is through.
It is like life. This is the old way.
Here at RYA, we are trying to peel back our own
modern conditioning to see and feel it.
Regulation
In Canada, Ayurveda is still an
unregulated modality. This means that
advanced students
of this programme will be standard-bearers for
the safety, integrity, and usefulness of
Ayurveda as it gains cultural and regulatory
acceptance. RYA is active in the community of
Ayurvedic practitioners who are envisioning what
regulation might mean. If and when regulation
occurs, we hope that this programme might serve
as a solid base for the as-yet-to-be-defined
clinical practitioner certification categories.
However, our primary goal is to promote the
profession of the Ayurvedic Health Educator,
which, because it does not issue
medically-defined diagnoses and perform
clinically invasive procedures, is currently
beyond the purview of licensing concerns, while
retaining general standards of knowledge and
solid facility with client management.
Most of the advanced
students at RYA have begun their Ayurvedic
practice in small and informal ways, as a
contextual adjunct to the yoga instruction they
provide, or other healing modality they work
within. It ends up seamlessly building towards
being able to provide full consultation.
Tuition
Tuition for each separate course
is $400 (+GST), or $13.33 per contact hour. We
require that you
register for current courses online. For those in need of it, we
offer a payment plan. We ask for payment
on a course-by-course basis, so that the choice
to continue with studies is continually made.
Online
Testing
Our new online quizzing engine
will prompt you to
master 108 bits of Ayurvedic theory per class,
based on lecture information, and taken from the
required readings. This is obligatory for
certification-track students.
Consultation
If you are
enrolled in any of the 9 courses, your private
Ayurvedic health consultation with Matthew is discounted by
15%. This is a voluntary
investment that may help you to apply the
various course principles to your unique life
circumstance in a measured and progressive way.
While not ideal, consultation may also happen by
phone, unless the health concern is of such
complexity that physical examination is
required.
Continuing Education Credits
Our AHECP has been reviewed for
integrity and approved by
Westbrook University, which will
provide 51 documented Continuing Education
Credits (CEUs) to graduates, which can be used
in a wide variety of programmes. The Westbrook
University issuing fee of 100 USD will be
incurred by students needing transcripts of
these CEUs.
Foundation Courses
1. Implementing Ayurvedic Lifestyle: a
practical introduction
- Ayurveda Basics
- The Gunas and Elements
- The Doshas –
Bio-Spiritual Forces
- How the Doshas Express
in the Individual
- Agni, the Root of
Digestion
- Ayurvedic Diet
- Tissues, Wastes, and
Essential Vitality
- The Five Functions of
Prana
- Optimizing the Breath
- Daily Routine
- Cleansing – Daily,
Seasonal, Lifetime
- The Life Cycle
2. Deepening Ayurvedic
Understanding: Theory
- Deepening the
Foundations – Spiritual Basis, Layers of
Consciousness
- Course 1 review and
supplemental: elements, doshas, and subdoshas
- Course 1 Review and
supplemental: Agni
- Course 1 review and
supplemental – Prana, Tejas, and Ojas
- The 20 Gunas and the
Basis of Therapy
- Tissues in Detail –
Plasma, Blood, Muscle
- Tissues in Detail – Fat,
Bone, Nerve, Reproductive
- Channels
- Organs
- The Mind
- Enumeration of
Principles
- Oral Examination
3. Deepening Ayurvedic
Understanding: Therapeutics
- deeper constitutional
analysis
- disease process 1-2
- examination of disease
1-2
- vata disorders
- pitta disorders
- kapha disorders
- therapeutic approaches –
from diet to meditation
- therapeutic approaches –
reduction, tonification, purification
- food lists: details +
memory work
- herbalism, gunas,
potency, forms of application, indigenization
4. Deepening Ayurvedic
Understanding: Consulting
- contrast to Western
psychotherapeutics in terms of investigating
the “self”
- who/what are you looking
at/treating: the uses of judgment and
neutrality
- Defining your skills:
how boundaries and limitations lead to
self-empowerment as a teacher/consultant
- Consultation contexts:
how to manage the consultation room (vastu),
the yoga studio, “informal” contexts
- Consultation manner:
preparation, communication strategies, seeing
clearly
- 8-fold diagnostics part
1
- 8-fold diagnostics part
2
- education vs. treatment
- change management: how
to not over- or under-whelm
- vata recommendations
- pitta recommendations
- kapha recommendations
- compliance and follow-up
- clearing the space
Supplementary Courses
5. Ayurvedic Cookery
and Herbalism: a hands-on ‘localvore’ course
- diet review, and ethics
of food sourcing
- tasting-classes: grains
- veggies
- fruits
- proteins
- doshic menus: pitta,
kapha, vata
- memorization of food
lists
- localvore research
project, including carbon footprinting
6. Using Ayurveda in
your Yoga Practice
- reading Patanjali
through Ayurveda
- Ayurvedic perspective on
asana detail: asana and sattva guna, structure
and dosha, energetics of asana
- Ayurvedic keys to
meditation practice
- Using the horizontal to
support the vertical, and the vertical to
enliven the horizontal
7. Ayurveda and
Sexual Wholeness
- Review: cycle of
nutrition; meaning of shukra, arthava, and
ojas
- Men’s issues
- Women’s issues
- visions of sexual
expression in Yoga and Ayurveda
- contrasts: western
sexual zeitgeist – expectations and elephants
in the room
- doshic types and
kamasutra types: compatibility
- ayurvedic bedroom
advice: incl. prep and rasayana
- “deviations”
- pregnancy and
childbirth, and the return to sexual vitality
- menopause and other
transitions
8. Ayurvedic
Psychotherapy
- contrasts to Western
psychotherapeutics in terms of “self” –
vertical versus horizontal approaches
- spiritual ideals of the
east versus reparative ideals of the west: are
we uncovering “true nature”, or simply “the
past”; the benefits and limitation of ‘solid’
world-views
- functions of the mind
- the subtle body
- the gunas of mental life
- the prison of unaware
living: blocked communication, reactivity and
sensory overload
- yamas and niyamas
- sattvavajaya: sensory
purification and therapies
- behaviour modification:
avoiding self-judgement pitfalls, and finding
the smoothest learning curve
- usage of mantra and
meditation, making it your own through natal
language and imagery
- the prison of spiritual
life: narcissus, wanting to be someone else,
the paradox of authority
9. The Ayurvedic
Mindset: Making Natural Science your own
- Our own holisms: the
transcendental reading list, plus others
- The assumptions of
biomedicine
- The claims of ayurvedic
traditions
- The problem of
foreignness and Ayurveda’s collision/collusion
with modernity
- Ayurvedic usage of
language: slippage of terms, poetry, mantra
- How linguistic slippages
force intuitional development
- Self-study: ways and
means
- Ecological challenges to
Ayurvedic practice: the 90% carbon emission
reduction goal
- Indigenizing: bringing
Ayurveda home; challenges and solutions
- Establishing self-trust,
both at home and as a therapist
- Case-study supervision
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