People often ask, “When we come out of deep relaxation in Savasana, why do you always have us roll onto our right sides? Why not the left side?” I sometimes jokingly answer, “I want everyone to roll the same way so they don’t bump into each other, and since most people are right-handed, I’m fairly sure they know which way … Read More
Articles for Yoga Teachers
Articles from https://www.expandinglight.org/free/yoga-teacher/articles/
Teaching the Art of Discovery – Part 1
Does this feel familiar?—You’ve been teaching a group of students for a while, and you’re seeing signs that they’re bored with the “same old poses.” One or two of them might even have said so, or lobbied for more advanced poses. What should you do? All of us have experienced this to some degree, but when I read David (Uddhava) … Read More
Insights from a Master Teacher
Swami Kriyananda, the founder of Ananda and of Ananda Yoga, was a wellspring of wisdom and inspiration for teachers of any subject. His teaching style balanced deep insights with common sense, and inspiration with practicality—all delivered with delightful humor. I am endlessly grateful to him—and he in turn always gave credit to his guru, Paramhansa Yogananda. He even said, “Ananda … Read More
Teaching the Art of Discovery – Part 3: Discovery via Challenges
Continued from Teaching the Art of Discovery Part 2 As we go deeper into this series, I now want to offer some broader thoughts about how to refresh your approach to teaching, make your classes more magnetic and rewarding for your students, and increase your own satisfaction and magnetism. In recent years, I’ve seen that some teachers let Ananda Yoga … Read More
Teaching the Art of Discovery – Part 2: Teaching More-Advanced Asanas
Continued from Teaching the Art of Discovery Part 1 . Continuing with the topic of how to keep your classes fresh and interesting—to nurture your students’ spirit of discovery rather than merely teaching a constant stream of new poses—I’ll now focus on strategies for teaching more-advanced asanas. (In the next part of this series, I’m going to suggest a change … Read More
Are Your Students Bored?
Once I received a phone call from a student who had taken my “Yoga for Seniors” class. She had been teaching Senior Yoga for about two weeks and had run out of new postures to teach. She was calling to ask me what she should teach next. It was interesting to me that after only two weeks she was looking … Read More
New Twists on Energization
Generations ago, when Naresh’s father passed away, all the relatives gathered at his house for the funeral rites. As Naresh was performing the ceremony, a dog strayed into the house. Someone quickly caught the dog and put it outside. After a short time, the dog wandered in again, and was again put outside. When the dog came in a third … Read More
Engineered for Upliftment
Over the past few years, I’ve seen remarkable growth in the number of people who practice and teach Ananda Yoga®. It’s truly wonderful to see so many people taking to Ananda Yoga with such enthusiasm. Why has this happened? Certainly the “yoga boom” is one big reason. With hatha yoga nearly everywhere — gyms, churches, businesses, hospitals, the media — … Read More
Engage Your Core?
Unless you’ve been living in a cave for some years, you’ve heard yoga teachers telling their students, “Engage your core.” This didn’t happen until recently. My guess is that it arose from the popularity of Pilates classes (where “the core” is a key focus) — many yoga teachers simply decided to “import” into yoga some Pilates principles. Although Pilates practice … Read More
Helping Students Master the Asanas Part 2: Proportion
Seeing the Differences Visualize a group of students sitting comfortably crossed legged on the floor with good posture in Sukhasana, Easy (sitting) Pose. In preparation for the next pose, you give them the first instruction: “Place your left hand on the floor.” Now do you see in your visualization everyone maintaining good posture as they place their left hand on … Read More
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