Yoga Sequencing

Saturday & Sunday, 11am - 5.30pm at the lake. 

You may take this module at a time of your choosing, there is no set order for taking any of the 300 modules

There are six weekends, which can be taken in any order & run once a year. Each weekend is 15 hours of CPD, there are 12 hours of self-study required whilst you take the 6 weekends. This module is mandatory for 300 Hour Teachers, it can be taken standalone & will include 2 hours of self-study. 

Yoga Sequencing – Who is it for?

Deciding what to teach is my favourite area of my teaching life; I love thinking about who will be with me, what they need as supposed to what they want, considering my long-term students’ likes & dislikes, their injuries & abilities. Equally as rewarding is turning up to a class of people I’ve never met with yoga-experience or not & introducing them to yoga that allays their worries about competitiveness & performance. Feeling into a purpose & delivering an opportunity for hard-working people to experience their own bodies, consider this moment & take a break from life is the privilege of teaching. It deserves our highest attention. Walk away from this weekend with several templates for the methods you teach, devised by you with my help, that can be fine-tuned for your own clients, to suit their needs. We sequence for them.

Choosing how to Categorise for Sequencing

We do need to know what the classical categorisation of poses suggests according to the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Similarly, the energetic response you have to poses along with your anatomical understanding will inform your sequencing. Synthesising this knowledge then determines your sequencing. Go simple, go complex – this is where your creativity comes alive. Body-parts, energetic directions, breathing, bones, planes, muscles, injuries, pose groups… you are an endless wealth of focusses.

The Feeling behind the Sequencing

This is a vast & personal area of teaching; we arrived at yoga-teaching after falling in love with yoga that made us feel something or healed us or gave us space to have a relationship with ourselves. That yoga that spoke to you is perhaps how you can translate your teaching for others. Aspects of history, philosophy & the mind-stuff help us theme & once the Bhav or feeling of the class is found, our pose ideas can be put to paper. Your students will get to know you through the way you communicate yoga to them – never underestimate the depth of connection that can be fostered through holding space for your students to feel.

To copy or not, how to use the work of teachers who inspire you

 “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”- Oscar Wilde.

We all use the teachings of others to inspire & fuel our own creativity but copying is felt by the students & whilst a winning formula is to be studied, admired & can be utilised as stimulus for our own ingenuity, if we remember Asteya as the third Yama in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali,  it emphasises the importance of not taking anything that does not belong to us, whether it's physical objects, ideas, or even time. Making your yoga work at a spiritual level requires us to think about how we affect others. How do we take another teachers work & use it appropriately as our own.

Sequencing for Long-Term Teaching Programmes

What is your purpose as a yoga teacher? Do you know?

One area that we perhaps aren’t as clear about when we first start teaching is what we are selling because it seems distasteful to ‘sell’ yoga. Yet the more people who practice yoga in our world, the better – we all agree on this.

Firstly, devising a programme that delivers for the students is key – so what are you delivering over time, what is their learning?

Secondly, having a programme that you can return to, maybe seasonally or by having semesters or terms allows you to manage your energetic teaching output. You need to know what’s required of you; by having a syllabus to refer to, you can manage time better, avoid physical fatigue & creative weariness borne of searching for ideas for next week’s classes.

This module runs twice a year is mandatory for 300 Hour Teachers.