![]() If they can’t show the logic behind the sequence – they go to yoga hell. My teacher Gary Kraftsow often jokes that when yoga teachers die, they go to Purgatory where they have to prove every yoga sequence they ever taught. This is called “sequencing a yoga practice”. Based on that you make your decisions about how you are going to start, what you are going to include, how you will arrange different elements and how you plan to wrap it up. For the practice to be effective, you need to have a clear vision of what you want to accomplish (your intention). All the teacher had to do was spend a little more time in certain poses, bring them to life with breath and attention and that would have turned a “nice” class into a great one. But I didn’t feel like I’ve done any particular work in the course of the practice and I did not feel much different on any level – physical, energetic, mental – at the end of the class. The choice of poses was good, and the instructions were clear, and the teacher seemed like a nice enough person, and the whole practice was, well, “nice”. I’ve attended a yoga class recently where it was on display loud and clear. This is what happens if you do each pose briefly and then quickly move on to the next one. Ultimately, we want to teach our students to pay attention to what’s going on in their bodies and it’s hard to do that if you are racing from one pose to the next.Ģ. So in a generous 90 min class we are looking at 65-70 min dedicated to 65 yoga poses (and we are not counting transitions), which makes it around 1 min per pose. That same teacher recommends about 5 min set-up to focus + 5 min of Sun Salutations + 5-10 min Savasana + 5 min meditation at the end. And those are not some simple stretches – we are talking strong back bends, deep twists, complex standing poses, inversions, etc., that require great care going in, staying in and coming out of. Keep in mind that about two thirds of all poses need to be done on both sides, which will take the total number of poses to about 65. The average number of poses he suggests is about 40(!) per class, not counting the Sun Salutation. I have this book written by a somewhat famous yoga teacher, that has a number of yoga sequences he recommends for teaching. My hope is that you would never do anything like that but there are still some common mistakes that we all make now and then.ġ. Fortunately, he stuck around as it took us some time to reestablish his trust in yoga and yoga teachers. He was brought to see me by his wife, his hips still tight. Ben was amused by the look of horror I had on my face when I heard that story. His yoga teacher had a solution – he instructed Ben to get into a cross-legged position on the floor (Easy Pose) and then had two students literally sit on his knees for some time(!?) Needless to say, that experiment did not end well for Ben and set him up for years of hip pain and, ultimately, hip replacement surgery. ![]() So he went to a yoga class hoping to remedy the situation. One of my clients, let’s call him Ben, ended up with a hip surgery because of what his very first yoga teacher did.
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