namasteph yoga blog » Teaching Log

Fire Drill Yoga

Stephanie — Sat, 16 May 2009 02:10:31 +0000

I was teaching a class at the gym this morning and a fire alarm went off. Thank goodness the students warned me there was a fire drill due at the top of the hour – for some silly reason, no-one at the front desk bothered to tell me, the teacher! But the alarm hit 5 minutes early and everyone missed their savasana. I can’t imagine what I would have done if I hadn’t been told it was just a drill. I guess the lesson is: Be prepared! Anything can happen in yoga class!

Out of Sync Yoga Students

Stephanie — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:58:15 +0000

I had a lot of yoga classes to teach over the weekend and had two instances of class members “doing their own thing” in yoga class. These are people who, no matter how much you direct the class, decide to do something completely different. I’ve been a student in a class where someone was moving around all over the place, and it can be quite distracting. We had a long conversation with our teacher in yoga teacher training about this, and she told us that such students can throw off the energy and flow of the class for everyone.

In the first class I taught, it was clear that the out of sync yoga student was just one of those creepy strange people who live in their own little bubble. He’d specifically asked for “flow” when I encouraged the class to tell me what they wanted to work on, and then he went off and “flowed” on his own. It was clear that he knew what he was doing (well enough), but I had to wonder why he was even bothering to show up to class when he could have just practiced at home.

I have to admit I found this man to be personally quite annoying, and I was tempted to go over and ask him nicely to go along with the class, but I managed to hold my tongue and then he left 15 minutes early. What a relief!

The second out of sync student was a different story – he was having problems with the most basic stretching exercises, and when I went to check on him, it turned out he’d had a back pain problem he hadn’t mentioned when I’d asked about injuries in the beginning of the class. Once I knew what the issue was, I was able to modify the exercises for him to be doable and more beneficial.

In working with the second student, it reminded me to be patient and tolerant when I am in a class as a student and someone isn’t quite getting with the program. While not all “go your own way” yoga students are doing that due to injury – yes, some of these haphazard yogis are just plain weird – you just never know.

Kundalini Yoga’s Effect on the Chakras

Stephanie — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 02:55:03 +0000

I taught a friend of mine a kundalini yoga set today. He wanted to see if yoga could help open up his chakras. So I read his energy before doing the set – his chakras were very shut down on the back. After the yoga and meditation, I did a second reading. The chakras had all opened up!

The great thing is, we didn’t even do the full length of the meditations, because my friend was new to yoga, and the meditations were a bit strenuous. (They involved arms being held up and waved around.) So even a shortened kundalini yoga set and meditation had a beneficial effect on the chakras. Good to remember when you are short on time and thinking that a quick dose of yoga won’t do much – it actually does have a very beneficial effect!

My First Yoga Class as Teacher

Stephanie — Thu, 08 May 2008 06:28:25 +0000

I finished my yoga teacher training on Sunday and I just taught my first official yoga class this evening. It was great! I had lots of fun. It was a good way to get started – two students in a small theater space, both at a beginning level. I am hoping the class will build to a group of 5-6 regulars (it’s a small space). The students were wonderful and made it easy for me to teach.

I found it was very rewarding to work with people who could not do yoga easily. Both students want to lose weight and get more healthy, and I’m excited to be working with them. To me, this is much more gratifying than working with people who can already do the splits. My first real students have confirmed they will be coming to class weekly, and I hope more will join soon. Hurrah!