About Gloria Hester

Gloria is an ERYT with Yoga Alliance specializing in Therapeutic Yoga and has trained and studied extensively with Bruce Bowditch, one of Anusara’s top therapeutic teachers as well as holding many Yoga Alliance Certifications with the nation’s most respected teachers. (Ganga White & Tracey Rich of the White Lotus Foundation, Integrative Yoga Therapy's Scott Blossom and Joseph LePage, Therapeutic Yoga Certification with Cheri Clampett).

As Developer and Director of Yogic Wisdom for Horse and Human and Restoring the Wisdom of the Body for Horse and Human, Gloria is a Hanna Somatic Educator for both horse and human, mentored by Eleanor Criswell Hanna, and currently travels holding retreats, workshops and teacher trainings nationally on both coasts and in the southwest. 

For more information on when Gloria will be in your area, please contact her at gloriahester@gmail.com

About Somatics

Equine Somatics is a hands-on method of assisting the horse in recognizing any forgotten patterns of movement that were previously accessible to him.  We are literally re-educating his nervous system.  The bones can only go where the muscles put them and the muscles do not work of their own accord.  It is the nervous system that controls the muscles.

Equine Somatics is an adaptation of Hanna Somatics and was developed by Eleanor Criswell Hanna, EdD.
Horses as well as humans, over time, develop chronically contracted muscles ("sensory motor amnesia") as an adaptive process to common stressors such as flight, fright, pain, compensations for injuries and repetetive use.  This results in unconscious patterns of holding in the musculature.  We are asking the horse to sense this unconscious holding pattern and release it.

It is very effective and is a lot of fun to work with a horse in this way.  Some of the benefits are a more confident, athletic, happy horse, resulting in a closer connection between horse and human.  EHS offers pain relief from common conditions associated with aging.

The work is very subtle and requires mindfulness.

It is my great privilege to bring this work to both horse and human.

About Teacher Training

Gloria Hester’s “Restoring the Wisdom of the Body” Yoga Teacher Training Program is set apart in that the training emphasizes educating the trainee in these key areas:

1. Educates the trainee in recognizing the commonly held adaptive/reflexive patterns in the body and how these apply to asana.
2. Educates the trainee to design classes to address and release those commonly held patterns.
3. Educates the trainee in the use of yogic tools used to restore balance to the autonomic nervous system.
4. Recognizes that each student is unique in his or her body and experiences.  This warrants a practice focused on addressing ones individuality.
5. Educates the trainee in the application of therapeutic alignment vinyasa with hands on assists to soothe as well as transform.
6. Educates the trainee in how to recognize proper alignment and how to enable the students own nervous system to recognize it. 
7. Educates the trainee in the application and execution of restorative yoga.
8. Educates the trainee in the four traditional sun salutations and how to modify and apply those to individual needs.
9. Educates the trainee in the use of props to restore body awareness and alignment.  (The re-education/remembering/re-awakening of the body).   
10. Educates the trainee in the benefits of the postures and their sequencing.  (Includes suggested sequences.)
11. Educates the student in the use of the tools and techniques of meditation, (mudra and mantra).
12. Educates the trainee in the application of pranayama.
13. Educates the trainee in understanding the energies that pervade all things.  (The gunas) and their application to yoga.
14. Educates the student in the design and application of Yoga Nidra.
15. Educates the trainee in applying traditional yogic tools of self care and body care.  

The training is non-dogmatic and honors all traditions of yoga and all modalities of bodywork.