Though these rules generally serve some purpose (if only just to keep classes familiar from one studio to the next), I wanted to see if it could be possible to decrease the predictability of my classes and reinvigorate a sense of curiosity, challenge, and freshness, for my students and for myself. Yet there exist unwritten “rules” in most vinyasa classes: sun salutations must be used as a warm-up, Pigeon Pose signals the end of the “hard part” of class, and open-hip poses need to come after closed-hip poses. The style of vinyasa yoga is intentionally free-form, eschewing the rigidity of more traditional kinds of yoga. Pigeon PoseĪs teachers we become familiar with this constraint it can be easy to get in a rut of repeatedly teaching the same poses or sequences. If you are creative, it is possible to combine these beginner poses into a huge number of variations.” The challenge became crafting appropriate challenges for a variety of students, and reigning in our impulses to sneak in fancy or unfitting moves. With this check, however, the instructor was careful to give us freedom: “Look at all of the different sequences you all made. It was an important lesson: We would be responsible for others’ safety and enjoyment of the class. This was not solely our practice anymore we had to sequence for others, for whoever happened to join the class. At the end, we were chastised for the better part of an hour for including poses that were too advanced, such as inversions, complex transitions, and complicated poses. We accepted this warmly, sequenced our classes, and practiced them in the hot loft studio we used. We would be responsible for sequencing an hour on our own, with the added caveat that we could use only beginners’ poses. One afternoon in my teacher training, the instructor told us that we would be leading our own practices for the first time. Teaching is challenging in a completely new way it forces me to think more about the big picture of the class, to create sequences that will make students feel both challenged and successful, and to foster a sense of curiosity and presence that some students may not get elsewhere. I completed teacher training last summer before moving to Chicago, and I currently teach three classes per week around the city to people of all ages, places, and walks of life. While I was initially drawn to the immediate endorphins from yoga, I stuck around for the variety of movement and continued challenge that it offered. I was tight from frequent running, living in Ohio and in need of a creative and active outlet. I started practicing yoga five years ago.
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