Articulating asana breakdown

This post was written for aspiring yoga teachers.

A recent conversation with a yoga student in teacher training inspired this blog post. She was sharing with me her experience teaching her first asana (posture) and mentioned the class were given the choice to follow a script or not. Our chat brought back so many memories I experienced during my own trainings over the years. The very first lesson on day one of my first training, was designed to open our minds to the teaching realm. Our teacher Shakti Mhi sat on a chair wearing boots with laces which were untied and she said “please teach me how to tie my shoelaces.” What I learned if not that day but sometime over the nine months that followed was that when teaching an asana, say only the words that are needed to let your students know where they are going to next, edit out ALL other words. If you don’t edit it’s mumbo jumbo, they will grow tired, be confused and there will be no flow in your flow. You will learn very quickly through your own practice, that you need to keep it short, listen to your teacher next time you practice and during your own home practice speak out loud what you are doing as you do it and find your own way to say what you want.

Learning to teach each posture while walking around will be of great benefit to you, so that you can move around your class, attend to your students while carrying on with the flow. Something I feel worth mentioning here is that there will be times a student catches your eye, they need help, have questions and meanwhile you have your students in a balancing pose. If you feel you need to speak with that student  right away, be sure to remember to say, come out at anytime or come to childs pose and then you take care of them and also can then spend another very small amount of time with that one that needs your assistance. Often the first word that proceeds the posture you will take them to next is ‘inhale’, so once you have said it, you need to follow immediately with a simple clear phrase of direction. Consider how long your in breath is and you will figure out pretty quick what to say and how to most effectively say it because once they begin to exhale, they need direction. For myself I learned to say “inhale and as you exhale bla bla bla” now they have arrived in that pose you can give some alignment and benefit info if you choose and let them be until its time to move on to the next asana. PRACTICE teaching your asanas and how to link one to the next.

There are plenty of ways to express what you want to say on or off the mat, the key is to be clear and precise and to the point. I continue to find it helpful to name the posture they are going to next at some point. For example moving from downward dog to pigeon pose you can say “inhale and as you exhale raise your right leg up, look between your hands and slide your right knee behind your right wrist for Pigeon pose” OR you may say “inhale rise up onto your toes, pigeon pose, slide your right knee behind your right wrist” Or “we will move to pigeon pose next, inhale to your toes, exhale right knee to the top of your mat.” There will also be times where you are teaching an advanced class to experienced students and you will not need to explain half of what you might in a Hatha or flow class that has beginners.

Five years after my first training in Vancouver, I traveled to India and studied with a teacher in Mysore. It was the first time I ‘had’ to learn all the Sanskrit names for every asana. Our daily practice was 2.5 hours including various Sanskrit chants at the beginning and end of practice plus 2 other lengthy ones before each sun salutation, clearly it was A LOT. Everyday after our morning practice, I would take a break and then do my afternoon practice, and I would say each Sanskrit name aloud, while I was in each pose. I practiced this way until I knew them all. Thank you for reading, I hope this post will be helpful to some.