ANATOMY-BASED • CONSENT-CENTERED • BIOMECHANICALLY PRECISE
Join instructors worldwide integrating the trauma-aware, anatomy-rooted Rubber Band Method® into their teaching to offer hands-on assists with clarity, skill, and confidence.
Hands-on Yoga Assists
Mission
Rubber Band Method® sets the standard for anatomically and energetically safe touch in yoga. We offer instructors a structured, accessible system for providing safe, individualized assists and adjustments—grounded in anatomy, sustainable body mechanics, purpose, and tissue reading. Our framework prioritizes both student safety and teacher longevity, empowering classroom environments rooted in personal agency, consent, and trauma sensitivity. We fulfill this mission through in-depth online trainings and a comprehensive guidebook for teachers: Hands-On Yoga Assists
Vision
Rubber Band Method® envisions a world where energetically and anatomically safe touch is integral to the yoga practice. We cultivate a global community of RBM-trained yoga teachers who thrive in their profession—supported by a robust and loyal following of students who seek out and deeply value the benefits of the safe, purposeful touch they incorporate into their teaching. We see consent-based, purposeful touch as a cornerstone of yoga education—enriching the experience of both teachers and students for generations to come.
Our Origin Story
Rubber Band Method® was founded by Kiara Armstrong—Certified Massage Therapist (CMT), E-RYT 500 yoga educator, and trauma-informed practitioner—to help others access their innate capacity for healing through safe, purposeful touch. The method emerged from Kiara’s deeply personal experience with a long-standing misdiagnosis of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD)—a journey that led her to explore body-based healing when conventional treatments fell short.
For nearly a decade, Kiara endured intense symptoms and harsh side effects from treatments intended for a condition she didn’t have. The buildup of trauma, stress, and overmedication ultimately triggered a critical health crisis. It was only then that a physician identified the role chronic stress had played and encouraged her to explore healing practices that addressed the body—not just the mind.
That advice changed everything. Kiara immersed herself in yoga, breathwork, meditation, and healing touch. Among these, it was safe, supportive touch that made the greatest impact. In moments of emotional overwhelm, this kind of contact offered grounding, comfort, and safety—restoring her sense of stability in ways nothing else had. Within months, she began to recover.
Though raised by a massage therapist and exposed early to the therapeutic power of touch, this lived experience reshaped her understanding of its role in healing. It also revealed a glaring gap in yoga instruction: the lack of trauma-informed, consent-based, and anatomically sound approaches to hands-on assists.
Determined to fill that gap, Kiara began developing what would become Rubber Band Method®—a specialized system for yoga assists grounded in consent, biomechanics, and trauma sensitivity. Drawing on her background in massage therapy, cadaver dissection, thousands of hours of teaching, and real-time classroom feedback, she created a methodology that empowers yoga instructors to use hands-on assists ethically, adaptively, and with confidence.
Today, Rubber Band Method® sets a new standard for touch in the yoga classroom. It’s taught globally through online trainings and is fully outlined in Kiara’s book, Hands-On Yoga Assists: A Teacher’s Guide to the Rubber Band Method® (Human Kinetics, 2025), available now.
At its heart, Rubber Band Method® reflects a simple, powerful truth: healing through yoga becomes more effective—and more ethical—when we apply awareness, purpose, and safe touch to our teaching.
While RBM is informed by trauma sensitivity, it is not a clinical intervention or trauma treatment.
Meet the Founder
Kiara Armstrong, ERYT500 YACEP CMT
Kiara Armstrong began practicing yoga in 2002 as part of her personal healing journey through mental and physical illness. She completed her first 200-hour teacher training in 2010 and began teaching in 2011. Since then, she has led 200-hour, 300-hour, and continuing education programs worldwide, and served as an anatomy instructor in both yoga and massage schools.
With a clinical background as a California-certified massage therapist and a former anatomy lab student who independently worked with a cadaver, Kiara brings a rare depth of understanding to the body. Her trauma-informed approach is shaped not only by formal study, but by lived experience—both as a survivor and as an educator committed to consent-based, safe, and adaptive touch.
Early in her teaching, Kiara became captivated by the power of hands-on assists. But repeated exposure to imprecise or unsafe touch—including in her own body—led her to question conventional methods. During her time at Yoga Journal, she witnessed a broad range of assist techniques and recognized the urgent need for a clear, teachable, and anatomically sound system.
Formal Thai massage training offered useful principles but lacked direct application in the yoga classroom. Over time, through thousands of hours of teaching, experimenting, and refining, she developed the Rubber Band Method®—a structured approach that distinguishes between assisting and adjusting, prioritizes teacher sustainability, and helps instructors read student tissues through tactile awareness.
Through years of feedback and refinement, RBM has become a practical, scalable framework used by yoga teachers worldwide. Kiara continues to teach the method through her online trainings and in her book, Hands-On Yoga Assists: A Teacher’s Guide to the Rubber Band Method® (Human Kinetics, 2025).
