What to watch out as a newbie yoga instructor
Start to be a yoga instructor can be either exciting or anxious to different people.I believe as long as you have been practicing yoga routinely for more than two years and had gotten the YTT200 certificate, that means you are ready to go. Teaching experience is important but not limitation. You can develop your own style of teaching. At the beginning , newbie yoga instructors are easy to get nervous especially leading a big group of students. You might forget the instructions, the posture names, the sequence or mix out the left and right site. Just take it easy as anyone will make mistakes. Take it as a learning curve. Never stop seeking advise from those experienced instructors, they will share with you how to handle unexpected situations during the class. You don’t really need to master all those advanced asana. Maybe just add one advanced asana in your one hour class will do, ideally that is the asana that you are able to demonstrate. So at least the students will think the class is challenging but doable. Don’t just demonstrate all the postures without adjusting the students. After one round demonstration , it will be better to walk around for adjustments. Always provide modification postures to the students. So the students can feel they do have improvement after attending the class. Don’t add on too many unnecessary stuffs to the class . Like background music. Especially when you are new. You need to focus on the teaching and the music might distract your focus . If the volume too loud the students might not be able to hear the instruction clearly. And no aroma therapy or candles, no all the people will like the smell. Just ensure personal hygiene and classroom clean is sufficient .
What I have achieved in these three months YTT200 course
Remember the first day attending YTT200 course, Jessica was asking us what we expected to achieve after complete YTT200 course. My intention to take up YTT200 course is to teach among my friends . And for myself I hope I can do all those inversion pose without leaning against the wall and middle split. How time flies! It comes to the final week of the YTT200 course. I have managed to give three yoga classes to my friends and have one private session to teach one of my friends to do tripod headstand. I think it’s a big achievement as I always wish to have yoga session with my colleagues after work in office. So they won’t be having excuses like long journey to go down to gym or too crowded in the gym. Although I didn’t manage to unlock all the inversion postures without leaning against the wall, I’ve managed to do Tripod headstand , supported headstand and elbow headstand against the wall. As long as I keep on practicing, I think I can achieve them by this year! Really appreciated Jessica and Alexis ‘s patient and kindness guidance through these days.
Good habits while practicing yoga
I would like to share some good habits with all the yoga practitioners which help us enhance our yoga practice. 1. When we practice yoga, everyone’s body is different. Yoga is not a difficult asana competition. Each process is a kind of asana, if we keep comparing with other and not listen to our own body feeling. Soon or later, you might feel physically and mentally exhausted and even injure yourself during practice. Listen to the feelings of the body, practice as much as you can and enjoy the process of yoga. 2.Other than a healthy body, there should also be a yoga soul. Yoga is not only asana practice, but also a broad and profound culture. Reading and understanding the history and culture of yoga will help us improve our routine practice. 3.Yoga is a combination focus of the mind and body. So if you are worrying or bothering something. Please don’t practice yoga until you are confident to put all those distraction aside and only pay your attention on your practice. I would suggest to go for a run or swimming if your brain is overloaded and you are unable to remove them through your mind. 4.Relaxing postures are also important for yoga practice. We used to see people walking out to the class before savasana as they think it’s just lying down and sleep. In fact, savasana can quickly relax all parts of the body tension, eliminate fatigue and refresh our mind. It’s as important as surya namaskar practice. 5. One hour before and after yoga practice is not advised to have food as yoga practice involves twisting, forward bending ,inversion and other movement. It might caused dizziness, nausea or gastric reflux if you are having a meal right before yoga class. As we all know, yoga practice is not only just stretching of body, it lies in the feeling and awareness. By improving your body awareness, you can only body in alignment and avoid injury , but also make faster process in yoga asana.
How can we do yoga gracefully?
In yoga practice, people love to pursue those difficult postures blindly, including myself:) I have no patience to repeat those fundamental postures day by day. Just wanna get to do split or inversion immediately. Frankly speaking, I don’t even bother to do pranayama breathing during my routine practice. Also not keen to keep doing surya namaskar routine. I just wanted the instructor to help me train up the core and can achieve those difficult postures then take nice pictures:P After I joined for YTT200 course then I realized that asanas are used to precipitate, not to challenge. As chinese saying 水到渠成,the fundamental practice is very important for yoga practice, even the breathing technique and gazing point also play important parts while doing asana. Yoga may begin with a focus on the body, but it will eventually lead to our awareness of consciousness. Should feel the combination of asana and body, feel the balance between strength and flexibility, relaxation of the body and concentration of the mind. Yoga requires continuous practice and self-discipline. Even if you practice less, it is still better than not practicing. But neither is as good as the right practice. After all, we don’t only aim to achieve those difficult postures and most importance, we wanna practice yoga in a grace way.
How to stay hydrated before and after yoga class?- Shivonne
I would like to share how to stay hydrated while practicing yoga. I am kind of people easily get thirsty and dehydrated especially doing exercise or staying outdoor. It has become a habit to bring a water bottle along wherever I go . However, many yoga instructors discourage drinking water during the yoga class. Many of them believe drinking water during yoga practice is a distraction for your mind and interrupts your breathing and flow. What’s more is that slurping and gurgling noises may disturb other students in class. If you drink way too much before and during practice, you eventually have to leave class and rush to the toilet. Having a lot of water moving around in your stomach can be uncomfortable while you are practicing certain postures. ( Yes, I’ve ever felt that water was throwing out from my throat while doing inversion due to too frequent water intake in the class.) If you got watch some sports games like soccer or cycling, you will notice that those athletes spit out their drinks instead of swallowing it. Or some will only rinse their mouth or take sips of water in between the games. I think this shares the same rationale as discouraging fluid intake during yoga practice . Unfortunately people like me who easily get dehydrated might feel sick if not enough fluid intake or sweating too much while practicing yoga more than a hour. The trick to stay hydrated is avoiding becoming thirsty to begin with , as thirst can be a signal of dehydration. If you are heading to a super sweaty or outdoor yoga class, make sure you drink up before you arrive. Do not drink a whole bottle of water right before the class begins, otherwise you might end up feeling bloated during the class. The best way is keep you hydrated is always having a couple of sips of water in between the sequences and postures without filling the whole stomach. Also, re-hydration is just as important as pre-hydration. Don’t forget to drink after class in order to replace the fluid you lost during practice. Nutritionists recommend drinking at least 0.5L of water after the practicing. Nowadays sports drink are very popular but myself still prefer drinking lukewarm water after exercise as most of the sports drink in the market are with sugar contain or with gas. Understand there are a lot of researches showing that sports drink not only help re-hydrate the fluid loss and also replace electrolytes and energy before and after training or competition. I would say depends on your own preference. Especially yoga is not really a very intense exercise thus we don’t expect the body will be losing that much electrolytes during our practice. At least for myself, I don’t really fancy sports drink.
Do you hyperextend your joints?- Shivonne
I would like to share a common mistake that many regular yoga practician used to make. While attending yoga class, we always heard the instructor say , “Don’t overextend your elbows” or “Do not lock your knees”. However,people usually overlook it and end up injuring themselves . What dose overextend or hyperextend actually mean in yoga? It means the joint movement in which the angle formed by the bones of a particular joint is opened,or straightened, beyond its normal,healthy,range of motion. The normal angle of the joint depends on whether it is a natural hyperextension or hypermobility in the joint. Look at the picture below,while straightening the arm, it should like to one flat line. If the joint goes beyond 180 degrees, it is hyperextension. What kinds of injuries might cause for hyperextension of joints? Hyperextension of joints shouldn’t affect much in our daily life. But it might cause injury to the body for those people keep doing routine exercise with their joints A hyperextended elbow or knee can damage ligaments,cartilage and other stabilising structure in and around the joint. How can we avoid hyperextend while practicing yoga? Do not lock your elbows or knees .Try to micro-bend and externally rotate your arm for those postures requires straightening the arms. Micro-bend your knee for standing postures or any postures require extend the legs.Don’t put all the body weight on the joints. Find support for your pose by engaging the muscles rather than joints. Doing yoga helps us stay fit and healthy. We should prevent ourselves from unnecessary injuries caused by wrong practice habits.
