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Yoga Theory > Principles of Teaching 2 > Flashcards

Principles of Teaching 2 Flashcards

1
Q

Families of Poses

A 
Meditation Poses
Surya Namaskaar/Vinayasa
Standing Poses
Active Hip Openers
Hand Balancings
Inversions
Backbends
Seated Poses
Reclined Poses
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2
Q

Meditation Poses

A

Beginning and the end of the practice
Facilitate inward-focus and self-awareness
Although Balasana belongs to this group, it’s mostly not used for meditation but as a resting pose during the sequence

Benefits:
Grounding
Centering
Quieting
Calming
Teach spinal length and postural alignment
Freedom of breathing
Risk factors:
Pain specially in back, knees, ankles
Stiffness
Discomfort
Anxiety
Fidgety-ness
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3
Q

Surya Namskaar Benefits and Risks

A

Benefits
Heats up the body
Mobilizes the main joints
Gets students out of their heads in the beginning of the class

Risks
Shoulders: Chatturanga and Plank can be very taxing for the shoulder joints, when too little stability
Lower back: Overarching of the lumbar in Urdha Mukha Svanasasana or Bhajungasana

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4
Q

Standing poses

A

(From accessible to less accessible)

Neutral Symmetrical
Externally Rotated
Neutral Asymmetrical
Neutral Standing Twists

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5
Q

Active hip openers

A

a

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6
Q

Hand balancings

A

a

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7
Q

Inversions

A

a

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8
Q

Seated poses

A

a

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9
Q

Reclined poses

A

a

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10
Q

Surya Namaskaar Sequencing Tips

A 
Generally practiced at the beginning of the class to warm up the body and lubricate the major joints
Can easily be modified to suit the needs for the peak pose of the class
Different types: B more challenging while more difficult poses are incorporated into it
Surya Namaskaar A and B derive from Ashtanga tradition
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11
Q

Neutral Symmetrical Standing Poses

A

Tadasana
Utthanasana
Utthkatasana
Prasarita Padottanasana

Benefits:
Grounding and Stabilizing
Midline Educating
Brings body back to neutral
Reveals common misalignments of the students

Risks:
Relatively risk-free, however past injuries or balance could be an issue for some students

Common component parts:
Neutral, square hips
Midline hugged in

Teaching tips:
While these poses resemble tadasana, they will show you student’s common misalignments and possible compensations

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12
Q

Externally Rotated Standing Poses

A 
Virabhadrasana 2
Vrksasana
Parsvakonasana
Ardha Chandrasana
Trikonasana
Utthita Hasta Padangustasana B

Foundation:
Heel-Arch-Alignment

Benefits:
Activation of external rotators of the hip
Strengthening of the legs in general
Some of the poses open up the hamstrings

Risks:
torquing of the back knee if the pelvis and the back foot are not aligned properly

Common component parts:
External rotation of one hip
Broad chest

Tips for sequencing/teaching
Build in early in sequence, while fairly accessible
Teach the foundation clearly
As the key benefit of these poses is the external rotation of the hip, teach to maximize that benefit

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13
Q

Neutral Asymmetrical Standing Poses

A

Includes lots of poses, for example:
Virabhadrasana 1+3
Pyramid pose
Low and High Lunge

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14
Q

Neutral asymmetrical poses

A

Benefits:
Grounding, Energizing, Challenging, Heating, Opening (like Hamstrings in Pyramid Pose or Hip Flexors in Lunges)

Risks:
A bit trickier to balance, specially in poses with heel to heel position
Straight legs: Risk of hyperextension, Hamstring pull
Torquing of knee in poses like warrior and pyramid
Lumbar hyperextension in poses like high or low lunge

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15
Q

Neutral asymmetrical poses

A

Sequencing tips

While some of these poses are readily accessible like lunges, lots of these poses are quite challenging and should, as general rule, come rather later in the sequence
Use lunges to prepare for backbending (peak) poses
It’s advisable to link neutral symmetrical poses to other neutral symmetrical and asymmetrical to asymmetrical to avoid confusion

Common component parts
Midline
Neutral hips (or working towards such)
Outer hips hugging in

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16
Q

Neutral Standing Twists

A 
Benefits:
Body heating
Core engaging
Energizing
Spinal Rotation
Improves Balance

Risks
Possible spinal or disc injury
Hips not neutral
Poses with straight legs: Knee hyperextension, hamstring overstretching

17
Q

Neutral Standing Twists

A

Sequencing tips:
Rather challenging, so use other standing poses to educate the hamstring opening first
It’s useful to teach them right after their foundation pose aka revolved triangle after pyramid pose etc.
While twists mobilize the spine and open the chest, they are excellent preparation for backbending poses

Common component parts:
Midline
Neutral hips
Outer hips hugging in
Spinal rotation

Teaching tips:
Cue neutral, square hips to stay stable in the pelvis
Use the strength of the adductors (“hug your legs together”) and the abductors (“hug the outer hips in”) to create the stability before students do the actual twist
Cue lengthening of the sides of the waist
Encourage “pure twists” without flexing or over -extending the spine or flexing sideways to get the biggest benefit out of the pose for your students

18
Q

Active Hip Openers

A

Benefits:
Opens the hips and the hamstrings
Prepare for deeper poses
Energizing, Strengthening

Risks:
Knee issues
Hyperextension of the legs
Overstretching
Loss of stability, balance
Lumbar compression in certain poses
19
Q

Active Hip Openers

A

Sequencing Tips:
Some (Malasana, Ardha Hanumanasana) are relative mild and can be done relatively early in the sequence
For most, the body must be warmed up sufficiently
Help to create the deep opening necessary for backbends and inversions

Common component parts:
Midline
Outer hips hugging in

Teaching Tips:
To protect from falling into gravity and overstretching, teach the hugging in of the midline
Treat the knee as a pure hinge joint, cue tracking the knee with the ankle for example to avoid knee injury

20
Q

Hand Balancings

A

Poses include:

Bakasana
Vasisthasana
Eka hasta bhujasana
Bhujapidasana
Tittibhasana
Eka pada koundinyasana
etc
21
Q

Hand balancings

A

Benefits
promote scapular stability
energizing, strengthening
fun, enlivening, boundary busting

Risks:
Wrist/Hand/Shoulder issues and injuries
Falling or fear of falling
Anxiety in general

Common component parts
Midline (engagement of adductors)
Wrists/Hands awareness
Core engagement
Often hip flexion

Sequencing tips
Most of the poses in this group should be practiced more towards the end of the sequence
Active hip openers are often a good preparation directly before hand balancings in a sequence

22
Q

Hand balancings

A

Teaching tips

First educate the position and the action of the hands clearly. Use other poses like adho mukha svanasana to start educating the hands before moving into more complex hand balancings
Use root-rebound cues to activate the lifting out of the gravity feeling
Engagement of the whole midline including legs so they don’t become dead weight
The shoulder girdle becomes the weight-bearer in most of the hand balancings and is therefore extremely important to adress to
To stabilize the shoulders, teach the universal paired action of the shoulder with front ribs drawn in, collarbones wide, shoulder blades stable
Always include a non-weight-bearing option or use navasana as preparatory pose before coming to hand balancings so some students can go back to it if they for some reason cannot do the hand balancing option

23
Q

Inversions

A

Roughly divided in two different categories:
Heating and Cooling inversions

Heating inversions include poses like:
Handstand (adho mukha vrksasana) or
Forearmstand (pincha mayurasana)

Cooling inversions include poses like:
Shoulderstand (salamba sarvangasana)
Plow (halasana)
etc.

Benefits:
Heating inversions strengthen the whole upper body and teach proprioception
Change the gravitational impact on circulation of blood and lymph and can thus support with issues like Edema of the legs and so on
Cooling inversions can be very pacifying and restoreative
“turn the world upside down”

Risks:
Falling
Fear, anxiety
Arterielly hypertonie may be a contraindication
Students with low bloop pressure should be aware that sitting or standing up after the pose might cause light-headedness

Common component parts
Midline
Core
Hands/Wrists
Shoulder stability
Shoulders in flexion and external rotation

Sequencing tips
For average practicioner, heating inversions (or stages to it) are usually the peak pose, cooling inversion are often taught right at the end of the class (maybe right before savasana)

24
Q

Inversions

A

Teaching tips:

Teach at the wall
Do a demonstration first to show the key points
Teach key stabilizing actions, specially the shoulder girdle, before the students are weight-bearing
During the pose, restrain the cues to very simple ones:
For example “straighten your arms instead of “externally rotate your upper arms”
Offer clear stages, so everybody has something to work on
Show students how to get out of the pose safely using stabilizing cues
For weight bearing poses for the head and the neck, take care for the students to properly align their necks
Teach using the props

25
Q

Backbends

A

Backbends can be divided in two categories
Strengthening and Opening

Example poses

Cobra (bhujangasana)
Upward facing dog (urdhva mukha svanasana)
Locust (salabhasana)
Camel (ustratasana)
Sphinx
etc.
Benefits
Opens chest and the heart
Opens the shoulders
Strengthens the back line of the body
Can improve the posture

Risks
Low back or cervical spine compression
Shoulder, hand, wrist injury in certain poses
Spinal injury specially in opening back bends

Sequencing tips
Strengthening backbends can be done earlier in the sequence versus opening backbends, which are often used as a peak pose
Twists are often perfect to warm up- and cool down from- for the opening backbends

Common component parts
Midline
Neutral hips
Hip flexor opening
Core engagement to protect the lumbar spine
Thoracic extension
26
Q

Backbends

A

Teaching tips

Use universal paired actions to ensure the protection of the cervical and lumbar spine
A useful cue is to “reach chest forward and up” to create a sense of lifting the body out of gravity and lengthening the whole spine
Stabilize and engage the pelvis and the core before moving into an opening backbend
Press the upper inner thighs back- an action to counteract the engagement of the glutes which will happen naturally when doing a backband

27
Q

Seated poses

A

Benefits
Grounding
Mostly more relaxing because no need to hold the body weight
Really safe in general

Risks
When student hat tight hamstrings, often rounding of the spine
These poses are still supposed to use some muscular engagement, but while students are on the floor, it can happen that they “relax too much”

Sequencing
Usually towards the end of the class during the integration part
28
Q

Seated poses

A

Teaching tips

Offer props that help in keeping the spine long
In poses that target hip opening, make sure that students keep their knees safe (from hyperextending or torqueing)
Universal actions are still valid and offer stability even in these more relaxing poses

29
Q

Reclined poses

A

Benefits
Floor acts as a support and helps keep the spine in proper alignment
Lying on the floor helps the students improve their proprioception
Grounding, calming

Risks
Generally safe, but oftentimes the use of props (like a strap) might be useful to help with optimal alignment

Sequencing Tips
At the end of the practice

Common component parts
Use of simple and paired actions to maintain alignment
Body awareness

Teaching Tips
Cue the students to use the floor to give feedback and use the simple and paired actions to make them maintain some of the muscular engagement and not to let loose completely
When used in the cool-down, a good spot to cultivate breath-awareness

Yoga Theory (32 decks)

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