Learning the right way to sequence a yoga class isn’t easy.

In yoga teacher training, you almost certainly learned the fundamentals: Progress from warming the muscles in basic poses to more intense postures, and begin with easy shapes and movements before you ask students to mix them in additional complex poses.

For those who teach vinyasa, you almost certainly also learned that every class needs a trajectory from warm-up to intensity to cool-down. Perhaps you were instructed on the right way to break down the category into sections—including mat stretches, standing postures, balances poses, core work, and cool-down—and roughly how much time to dedicate to every during a one-hour class.

Yet there’s so far more to find out about developing a sequence of poses for a yoga class. Sequencing requires planning, practice, making adjustments, and more practice. It demands an understanding of anatomy and of transitions which might be intelligent and, when you desire, creative. And it requires thoughtful consideration of what is going to help your students find strength, release, and awareness of their bodies—all while being mindful of keeping them secure.

The art of sequencing a yoga class isn’t something you learn from a manual. It’s something that you just learn, partly, by taking classes with other teachers and observing what feels right—or mistaken—in your body. The remaining you learn by doing. This implies getting in your mat and moving through each posture and transition by yourself, before you teach it, to know what feels right—or mistaken—in your body as you progress throughout the practice and what helps you’re feeling balanced at the tip, as if all of the pieces of the puzzle finally fit.

But that leaves an amazing amount of variability by way of the right way to put together all of the potential parts of a sequence, and to accomplish that in a way that keeps in mind all the above and has a logical organizing principle to guide you. It’s not unlike putting together that puzzle—except there isn’t a single right technique to do it.

There are 4 common approaches that teachers take in terms of how sequence a yoga class that you would be able to turn to as a place to begin. Allow them to guide your decision-making process.

4 ways to sequence a yoga class

(Photo: Andrew Clark; Clothing: Calia)

1. Construct to a peak or challenge pose

This method structures class around properly preparing students’ bodies to return into a selected pose. Class progresses from easy to more complex poses, with careful consideration given to warming the muscles that may come into play later in the height pose. For college kids who’ve less experience with yoga, a peak pose is likely to be Half Moon Pose (Ardha Chandrasana) or Pigeon Pose (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana). For other students, a peak pose is likely to be a backbend like Wheel Pose (Urdhva Dhanurasana) or an arm balance like Firefly Pose (Tittibhasana).

Nonetheless, a challenge pose approach involves greater than simply warming the muscles. It also asks that you just practice the identical shapes required by the challenge posture but in less demanding scenarios. This familiarizes students with the fundamentals of the posture before asking them to coordinate different shapes in a single pose. This might include taking students into Low Lunge before High Lunge in order that they begin to work hip flexion and extension near the mat before you ask then so as to add strength and balance.

For those who were sequencing a peak pose of Parivrtta Trikonasana (Revolved Triangle Pose) you’ll need to ask students to first practice stretches for the hamstrings and, individually, twists within the upper body. You may include Trikonasana (Triangle Pose) and maybe Parsvottanasana (Pyramid Pose). Individually, you’ll take students into twists with the upper body by which the arms are outstretched, perhaps while reclining on the mat early in school with knees to 1 side, and nonetheless later in Low Lunge and High Lunge.

Sequencing with a selected pose as your destination also can involve practicing poses that demand the identical muscular engagement as needed in the height pose but in completely different shapes. For instance, when you were coming into Firefly Pose, you may first teach Lizard Pose and emphasize drawing the thigh into the upper arm, which is important in that arm balance.

(Photo: Andrew Clark)

2. Body part

Hips. Core. Twists. Backbends. Shoulders. Lower back. Any a part of the body will be the inspiration for a sequence. Include poses that emphasize that a part of the anatomy and sequence poses in a way that progressively increase the intensity, engagement, or stretch in that a part of the body throughout class.

It will probably be easy to overdo a superb thing and include an excessive variety of poses for a single body part. Pace yourself and your students throughout class. Don’t focus exclusively on that body part or sequence an excessive variety of poses goal the identical area in a row, even when the transitions are beautiful. Also, don’t forget to counterbalance with poses that stretch muscles that were engaged, each throughout class in addition to at the tip during your cool down.

(Photo: Andrew Clark; Clothing: Calia)

3. Theme

A theme will be almost anything that gives an idea for you and your students to deal with throughout class, including:

• A side of non-public growth (similar to surrendering, confidence, patience, heart-opening, freedom, etc.)
• Yoga philosophy (similar to one in every of the yamas or niyamas)
• Seasonal (including equinox, solstice, Martin Luther King, Jr., Day)
• A poem or quote

This approach requires a basic understanding of the energetics of yoga poses. Start by exploring the poses that you’re feeling most drawn to practice. Study them. If you teach what you understand, you teach from a spot of authenticity and, often, confidence.

Once you select a theme to your class, take a while to contemplate it. How would you summarize it in a single sentence or two? What poses embody the meaning of the subject? What phrases or words relate to the theme? Are there on a regular basis features of it, in each yoga and life, that you would be able to offer as examples? How will you incorporate it into your warm-up, cool down, transitions, and moments of stillness?

It is advisable to create a yoga sequence that emphasizes satya, or truth, by difficult students to truthfully ask what version of a pose is best for them that day.

Or when you decide to sequence a category across the concept of tapas, which pertains to self-discipline and warmth, you may start the category by asking students to lean in and deepen their practice when it gets tough. Poses could include Chair Pose (Utkasana), Forearm Plank, and Goddess Pose (Utkata Konasana). You may encourage students to feel a way of appreciation for themselves in the course of the cool down. You might ask students to contemplate how they will take that sense of self-discipline into life.

(Photo: Andrew Clark; Clothing: Calia)

4. Chakras

Sequencing class around a selected chakra includes guiding your students through poses that embody the energy of a selected chakra. Again, this requires a studied approach to the poses and their potential effect on the subtle body. Some examples include:

Other sequencing considerations

Even if you feel confident in a sequence, your work isn’t done. The actual learning begins if you attempt to teach it to others. When it comes all the way down to it, one in every of the best skills a yoga teacher can have isn’t what number of hours you place into creating the proper sequence, but in developing the flexibleness to alter the plan based on the scholars who’re in front of you.

Do fastidiously observe your students. You’ll learn to know when that you must change your verbal cues to make a transition easier to understand or when a transition simply isn’t intuitive or accessible for many of the bodies in front of you, regardless of what verbal cues you employ.

Don’t change into so carried away with the difficult portion of sophistication that you just shortchange students at the tip. At all times include proper counterbalancing poses throughout your sequence and permit time for college students to chill down in mat stretches prior to Savasana (Corpse Pose).

Do adapt as needed. You will have spent hours developing an incredible sequence for tight hips but the scholars in your class ask for help with tight shoulders. You propose to deal with the center chakra but you hear from students that what they really need is grounding. The very best thing you’ll be able to do to your students is give them what they should the very best of your ability, even when that’s different from what you had in mind.