Too Many Ideas

In conversation with my friend and assistant, Kim, I started dipping into teaching principles I've drawn on for decades. Some come from my former dance teachers. Some from high school teachers I had. Some are ideas from my yoga teachers, Roger and Kari, and some from other yoga and movement colleagues.

So here goes. A few thoughts on pedagogy and yoga that I've adapted over 23 years of teaching:

• Get people moving. At first, moving will be enough. When they start to have questions, then you can begin to take them into deeper levels of self-awareness.
• If someone doesn't take corrections repeatedly, it is time to stop offering that information and trust that the student is getting something from being in class even if they choose not to do what is being suggested.
• Just because it works in my body doesn't mean it works in yours.
• Yoga shouldn't hurt.
• Know the difference in your own body between waking up new muscles (and the soreness that comes with that) and hurting yourself.
• Fear is secondary. If you are afraid of a pose such as headstands, it is often because your body already knows it isn't ready to support that. The fear is a result of your brain listening to your body.
  
• To overcome the fear, do the preparatory work. If your body knows it is ready, you will no longer fear going into the challenging pose.
  
• Doing a fancy pose doesn't make you an advanced yogi, nor does it make you more evolved. Some of the most advanced and self-aware practitioners I know work in very simple poses. 
• Only work on the joints you want to keep mobile.
• Weight-resistance and strength work are vital.
• You can't work on alignment in the fancy poses. You have to have good alignment first and that comes by working in the simple poses.
  
• No one movement is bad in and of itself. It's repeatedly moving in limited ways that creates problems and potential injuries.
• Being open to new ways of moving doesn't mean letting go of critical thinking.
• When I say "It's all yoga," I don't mean that anything at all is yoga. I mean that doing something with awareness and presence can be yoga.
• Posture isn't the same thing as alignment.
• Actions speak louder than shapes. (Making shapes isn't yoga; it's gymnastics.)

Finally, I have taken a former dance teacher's ingredients for what makes a good dance class and transformed them for my yoga classes:

• Something up on your feet
• Something down on the ground
• Something requiring balance
• Something that twists
• Something that everyone can do
• Something that no one can do

I have no idea if this list of ideas about yoga and teaching is of interest to you. But I have so many recent failed blog attempts because I had to get all this out of my head.

NOTE: Related blog post on my heretical yoga thoughts can be read here:
www.lynnshuck.com/blog/thoughts-from-a-yoga-heretic