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
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
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
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
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
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
