When I was teaching a million yoga classes a week and tons of privates, I was always on the hunt for class sequencing inspiration. Not because my students were bored but because I personally needed to be growing as a teacher. I really wanted to be offering new class sequences that kept things fresh for me, and forced me to be creative. I wanted to keep that spark alive.
So whenever I got into a teaching slump, I’d wander around YouTube looking for some class sequencing ideas.
I often would watch hours of video to find just one tiny unique way of sequencing a few poses. I then would take that sequence and improvise on it to see what I could create. Over the years, I built an enormous repertoire of my own ways of putting poses together.
Today we’ve launched a new series on YouTube for yoga teachers who, like me, are hunting for some class sequencing ideas.
We’re calling the series, Vinyasa Shorts. And four of them dropped today on YouTube with several more in the pipeline already.
My intention here with using the word “vinyasa” is to reference the original meaning, “to place in a special way.” T. Krishnamacharya used the term “vinyasa krama” to refer to the intelligent sequencing of poses to achieve a certain effect (more detail on that in a future post).
These sequences are not fast vinyasa flows (i.e., chaturanga, updog, downdog) but rather they’re sequences or small parts of sequences that you can pop into your classes at appropriate times when you want, say, a nice hip opening sequence or a new balancing sequence.
Vinyasa Shorts are meant to be stepping off places for you to add, subtract and riff off of what’s offered, just like I’ve done. I encourage you to cultivate that creative spark within you!
Here’s a sample of the series that’s been released today…this one I call, the Rolling Vinyasa.
If you want more, head over to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
It’s much more fun to teach when you feel excited and inspired about your class material. I hope these little snippets of class sequences give you a starting place for that inspiration.
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