"I teach 'vagina yoga' for a living."

Image via iStock. 

We all know about the positive benefits of yoga on our body and mind, but relationship expert and founder of Getting Naked, Tamra Merceica, has taken things a step further. She teaches yoga for the vagina. Yes, yoga for your nether-regions. We spoke to her while was participating in the amazing Wanderlust Festival to find out all about it…

Yoga For the Vagina is a practise I created after stumbling across the Jade Egg many years ago.

 It’s essentially a series of very specific Yoga-style moves and poses that a woman does with a Jade Egg inside her vagina. There are hundreds of different poses but the common theme in most of them, is that they use the pubococcocygeus muscle (the PC muscle) which is the muscle you use to stop yourself urinating.

In most exercises you would squeeze the vagina on the inhalation and gently relax the vagina on the exhalation.

That is a very basic contraction a beginner would start out with (while doing a specific pose with the rest of their body), and once they get more advanced, they start learning how to divide their vagina into 12 different quadrants so they can contract and release them independent of each other, giving them a very dexterous vagina.

My first experience of vagina yoga actually pushed me away from the Jade Egg.

The woman teaching me took a very masculine approach and was all about lifting weights with your vagina. Upon further research, and personal experience, I found that lifting weight with the vagina can actually create scar tissue which not only causes health issues, but can inhibit orgasm.

So I sought out a second teacher and she took a much more feminine approach to the Jade Egg practise - which is how it is meant to be carried out - and I loved it.

It was so nurturing and gave me time out from my day to simply 'be' with myself and connect with myself on a much deeper level. What I found over time, was that I went from not being able to feel much inside me when I was having sex, to being able to feel every pulse, every quicker, every subtle sensation.

The Jade Egg itself, has been around for 5000 years.

While the Jade Egg practice has been underground for much of this time, it's gradually being recognised as a valuable tool in women's sexual health, while also helping women truly step into their pleasure.

As mentioned above, the Jade Egg practise involves learning how to slip a Jade Egg inside the vagina and then doing various exercises with it to help bring fresh blood to the area, tone and strengthen the pelvic floor, heal any vaginal health issues and draw out trauma from the vagina.

'Wow! I have to get a Jade Egg,' is the reaction I get from most women after my classes.

When I teach the Yoga for the Vagina class face-to-face I always take the ladies through the beginner's 'eggsercises' without using the Jade Egg, so they can get a feel for the practice.

You still get benefits from doing the practise without the egg, but the benefits grow substantially when you start using the egg, because the egg creates resistance in the vagina. They leave the class feeling like something inside of them has awoken and they want to develop that inner connection to themselves. (Post continues after gallery.) 

It's important to be aware and connected to your vagina.

We are taught the importance of needing to exercise our body to stay fit and healthy, but there is little information on the need to keep our vagina fit.

I do often get asked about Kegel exercises - but the thing with Kegels is there is no resistance. It's like going to the gym. If you want to tone and strengthen your bicep, you need to lift weight. The same goes for your vagina. And when the Jade Egg is inside of you that creates the necessary weight to create muscle tone without causing damage.

 Tamra Mercieca is a Relationship expert and founder of Getting Naked Pty Ltd. She is the author of 'The Upside of Down' and 'The Dating Game.' You can find out more about Yoga For The Vagina at www.gettingnaked.com.au

Would you be keen to try vagina yoga?