Tag: teaching

Effort and Ease

Yoga

I’m teaching at a new gym, and sometimes potential students ask me if the yoga classes I teach are hard. That’s a difficult question to answer.

Depending on your flexibility, and the way your body is structured, some poses that are hard for me, will be easy for you, and vice versa. There’s no set level of difficulty in any given posture.

To add to the complication, some poses that look cool in photos, aren’t typically all that “hard”. Take 8-angle for example. You’ll see a lot of yogis using this one in profile pictures and such, because it looks really cool. But if you have the flexibility it takes for the first step of the pose, the rest of the journey there is pretty easy.

It’s practically a law to post a photo of yourself here if you live in or visit Houston.

Baby grasshopper is another one. The tricky part is grabbing your extended leg. If you’ve got that part down, you just have to shift your weight on to your planted foot and… voila!

This was taken at a surf break in Mexico. Edgar is somewhere in that water behind me.

Meanwhile, poses like happy baby, that don’t really…. uh… photograph all that well, can be really really hard. I inserted this pose into a sequence for a long hold recently, and had second thoughts when I was rehearsing it myself. I decided to leave it in, but made sure to give students the option of coming out of it mid-way through the set time. It’s no joke.

Other poses are “hard” for other reasons… especially if you’re someone with a long to-do list, that’s not getting “ta-done” while you’re on your mat. It can be hard to sink into child’s pose, or surrender to savasana if your mind won’t slow down. I struggle with this, and tend to give myself permission to think these thoughts when they come at me for three breaths. The idea stays for three long breaths in and out, and on the third one I exhale it away.

Ease and effort …. effort and ease. There’s room in everyone’s practice for both, but only you can decide where you find it.

What Your Yoga Teacher is Really Thinking

Leigh, Yoga

I can’t speak for every yoga teacher of course, but as a student I do wonder what the view is like from up there, at the front of the class, and what the instructor might be thinking as he or she is taking us through the flow.  On the flip side, I know exactly what I’m thinking as I’m teaching a class.  Here are some of those thoughts:

I like her outfit.  Total chick move, but yes, I am noticing the cute tanks and leggings the students wear to class.  If I ask you where you got it, just tell me it was super expensive.  I need to stop.

I’m sorry my hands are so cold.  Every time I assist someone, I rub my hands so they are aware of my presence, but also to try to warm them up.  It’s a lost cause. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone waived off an assist because I was freezing them out, but so far that hasn’t happened.

Am I making sense?  Even though the cues I’m giving come from my training, experience and my own practice, sometimes I wonder if they make sense when they fall on my students’ ears.  I know your can’t really “shine” your chest forward… unless it’s a really sweaty class… but it might make you open up more and that’s what we’re after.   If I ask you to breathe into your left thigh, you have my permission to throw a block at me.

I’m really glad you’re here.  I am grateful for everyone who shows up to class.  I know the good that it’s doing them, and I selfishly feel good about helping them feel good.  It’s a regular feel-good-festival going on.

Y’all are doing so great!  I give encouragement during class all the time, but sometimes I just want to yell, “Oh my gosh! You guys look great!!”  I don’t want to disrupt everyone’s flow, so I don’t.  But just know that watching a class all flow together is awesome.  It’s like a dance.  It’s expressive and vulnerable and just beautiful.  You’re doing amazing.  Trust me.

Until I became a teacher, I didn’t realize how much instructors root for their students.  We notice if you look stressed walking in, and we hope you are less stressed walking out.  We notice if you are hard on yourself or if you are pumped at holding dancer for a few seconds longer than usual.  We see your focus and your progress and we are just so dang proud.

At the end of class, when we’re seated in easy pose and I look out at the faces, what I’m thinking most, is thank you.  Without the students, there is no teacher, and the act of teaching makes me a better student…and there’s that feel-good-festival all over again.  So when I bow I am saying thank you.  Thank you for choosing to be on your mat and to be in this class and to contribute to our flow.  The light and love in me, sees and reflects the light and love in you.  Namaste.

Snoring Pigeons and Barking Up Dogs

Leigh, Yoga

I taught yoga to a group of kids this weekend, and it was pretty hilarious.  If you have a chance to teach yoga to kids, or at least attend a yoga class taught to kids, I would strongly recommend it.
Here are some things I learned from my students:

Try it.

You should have seen these kids go for whatever pose I said we were going to do next. I had to slow them down because they wanted to jump into it. I’ve never seen such excited yogis. My class intention was to challenge themselves to try new things, since most had never tried yoga before, and they certainly followed that suggestion.

Be creative.

Some of their poses looked nothing like the pose I was demonstrating and describing. Who cares?! You prefer to do chair pose in a low squat? Go for it! Your up dog likes to bark as she shines her chest forward? Why not?!? As long as you’re not causing injury, do you.

Giggle.

I laughed through the entire class. So did they.

It’s okay to get teary.

One little girl of about four came in crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said she “didn’t know how to yoga.” I told her none of us did and we’d learn together.  She got into the first game and got on board.

Stray off course if it feels right.

When we got to pigeon pose, and then sleeping pigeon, some of them started fake snoring. That lead to talking about how we each sleep at night and they all demonstrated their sleeping poses for a minute before we moved on.

At the end of class, they did have a hard time staying still in savasana. I didn’t force it — even adults have a hard time letting everything go and not wiggling. I heard movement to my right and opened my eyes. A cute little yogi was face to face with me. “I lost a tooth,” she told me. “I left it for the tooth fairy and she gave me a receipt.”
Namaste, friends. Namaste.