What Could Go Wrong During a Physical Assist in a Yoga Class?

By Amruta Kulkarni, CYT 500

Offering hands-on assists in a yoga class can be an incredible gift. Through the power of touch, you can connect with students and help them connect with themselves. While it is important to focus on the positive aspects of providing touch, understanding where an assist can go wrong is also critical.

Triggering

Physical contact, regardless of the positive intentions of the instructor, can be misconstrued by students. If a student has experienced trauma, then touch may be a trigger. While advanced training targeted toward helping victims of trauma is available, all instructors can and should be trauma-informed.

Creepy Hands

When you offer an adjustment, use your palms rather than your fingertips. Practice assists on someone who is willing to give you feedback. They can tell you if you are using the appropriate amount of pressure. A light touch may seem kind, but it can be misinterpreted by your students.

Be mindful of where you place your hands and how you position your body in relation to your student. If someone walked into your class, would they be alarmed at your physical position?

Frustration

In a society where most of us are corrected on our performance, an assist can feel like a form of criticism. Some students may think that your constant and well-intentioned corrections are signaling that they are not strong yoga practitioners. If a student hasn’t internalized the importance of being kind to themselves, they may become frustrated during assists. With those things in mind, you will need to choose your adjustments and moderate their frequency until you have built a strong rapport with the student.

Transferring Energy

A teacher can convey so much through contact. A sense of balance and calm pervades a space in which an instructor is fully grounded and focused. Teachers are human beings, and it is important to know that we all have days when we feel off-kilter. Maybe you are getting over an illness, or your significant other broke up with you, or a loved one has just been hospitalized. Maybe this is your fifteenth yoga class this week, and you are feeling exhausted. Be mindful of your own state when helping others.

While the slings and arrows of life don’t prohibit you from teaching, you may want to consider how you assist on stressful days. If you are jittery or insecure, your students will notice. If you are distracted by something going on outside of the studio, or you generally don’t like to give physical adjustments, this will come through during the assist. Our goal should always be to support our students’ safety and well-being. Avoid transferring your negative energy to students.

Injury

The potential for injury is inherent in any physical practice, and adjustments that are improperly executed can exacerbate the risks. We offer hands-on adjustments because we want to deepen students’ practices, but if we are not cautious, we can do more harm than good. An instructor should never force a student into a shape.

Understanding the anatomy of postures by using resources like those produced by Leslie Kaminoff or Ray Long can teach you the musculoskeletal underpinnings of the asanas. Anatomical knowledge offers insight into how the adjustment will affect the target area and surrounding muscle groups. Paying attention to your students’ breath and supporting communication during an assist can also prevent injury.

Despite the number of ways that physical assists can go awry, the benefits outweigh the risks. Stay cognizant of the potential pitfalls, be present with your students, and commit to doing some homework in order to mitigate the potential hazards of physical assists.

© Copyright – Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

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Teaching Yoga: Thinking Like a Beginner

By Sangeetha Saran

Any teacher comes to a place in our practice where we sometimes forget what it was to be a beginner. The fear, excitement, and anticipation - It was all new, and maybe we weren't sure it was even going to stick. Maybe we experimented for a while, and came back later. The truth is, it doesn't really matter how it happened. We didn't know that we were about to embark on a journey that would forever change us to our cores. We know now that yoga is not simply a physical practice. It's physical, emotional, and spiritual; Yoga is holistic and it can touch so many areas of one's life. Yoga is a lifestyle choice.

Unless we take the time to actively reflect on how that felt, how it felt to be clueless, it can become frustrating to instruct new yoga students who are still figuring it out. I'm sure everyone has had that one student, but really, whom has everything figured out? Don't forget where you started, be gentle, and use your passionate peacefulness to inspire others. Don't forget about why you began this practice, and no, I'm not talking about when your best friend dragged you in to her yoga class. Why did you stay? Why did you come back? What motivated you to make a change?

Change is hard. Change is scary. Changing your whole lifestyle is harder and scarier. Be gentle with new students who are just beginning. They may need a "first" yoga class six times over. You never know how hard it was for someone to begin his or her first session. It may have taken much more courage than you can see. Gentle inspiration will always go farther than irritated intimidation.

Get in the practice of beginning every session in that mindset. Others can always feel your mood and energy in the room. Do you emanate peace, serenity, and inspiration? Or can the others around you sense that you've forgotten why you're here?

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about." ~ By Wendy Mass 

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How Video Changed Yoga Teacher Education

By Kimaya Singh

Just two decades ago, the only option to become a certified yoga teacher was to spend thousands of dollars in an ashram to study with your guru. You may have traveled thousands of miles for this privilege and have to live in another country for years during this process.

In truth, you would live with fellow students and other yoga lovers for years. There was a full curriculum packed with the art's history, lessons on the body's physiology, etc. The countless hours spent receiving critiques from a guru with years of experience were priceless. Watching them walk through the room and not just seeing and hearing, but feeling how they interacted with all of the students was a great eperience. That was the learning aspect of yoga before the Internet - feeling your way through the movements and the interactions with others. As a student getting that in-the-moment feedback from your teacher was important because we did not have the information highway to exchange ideas, photos, videos, and Email, by broadband.

As with all things, change comes. In a world full of information and solutions, yoga teacher education could never remain in the 20^th century. We have moved beyond the telegraph and exchange ideas in real time with streaming video, diagrams, and rich conversations. Your job and family obligations may not allow for working side by side with your guru for five years. Now, crucial information is just a video away. With the click of a link online or by popping a DVD in, anyone can learn how to work around contraindications or help a student with high blood pressure.

Yoga, like all things has changed because of a vast information exchange. Many yoga instructors have confirmed that in order to stay relevant in the field, they must learn and participate in continuing education and video training has now become a much less expensive alternative for teachers who need to keep their studios open, while they remain current in their training.

This is not traditional, but maybe teacher education should be looked at from a different position. Video training is the perfect solution to some common challenges in the field. Practical exams, essays, and written exams are not always a part of traditional training. In some cases, a fly on the wall could receive a diploma just by paying thousands of dollars on an exotic vacation.

My point being: You cannot play around with online education. Examinations are an accurate measurement of the learning process. On the other hand, you can sleep right through an exotic vacation, hang out with teachers and students by the beach, and go home with a diploma that states you were awake, paying attention, and actually learned something.

To this point, videos can offer major benefits to experienced and future yoga teachers alike. Watching a video allows students to learn when and where it is most convenient to them. It also offers the chance to revisit lessons as many or as few times as needed to perfect, allowing for a more solid foundation and consistency. Seasoned teachers would probably have to agree that continuing their education is always a priority and with a tool like videos, continuing education get a lot simpler.

Either way, online and video learning are here to stay and are exactly what today’s teachers ordered.

© Copyright 2016 – Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division



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Spring into Action with Yoga: Core Strengtheners

By: Virginia Iversen, M.Ed

For many Yoga students and teachers, spring is the time to reinvigorate your life on many levels. This may include cleaning out your closet, detailing your car and doing a deep spring-cleaning of your apartment or house. This impetus to clean out that which is no longer serving you and spruce up your living space is a natural response to the new life, which is generated during this time of the year. Many Yoga practitioners also respond to the pulsation of new life around them by revamping their exercise regime, including their Yoga practice.

If you find that your Yoga practice has become somewhat routine and uninspired over the long winter months, the springtime is a wonderfully inspiring time to breath new life into your practice. One way of doing this is to include more core strengthening exercises into your practice. A balanced practice of traditional Yoga postures that includes standing, balancing, twisting, and seated poses, offers a practitioner many ways to incorporate core-strengthening exercises into the “regular” flow of the practice. 

For instance, simply keeping one leg raised while you flow from Downward Facing Dog into Plank Pose and Upward Facing Dog is tremendously strengthening. In the same way, weaving some core abdominal work into your Yoga practice as you flow in and out of the postures will strengthen your side oblique and abdominal muscles, without you even noticing! If you incorporate these abdominal strengthening movements into your Yoga practice several times a week, in a fairly short amount of time you will notice a substantial improvement in your core strength. 

Two of my favorite cores strengthening Yoga poses are Reclining Goddess Pulses and Dolphin Plank Pose. Reclining Goddess Pulses are a gentle way to improve your core strength if you are recovering from an injury or surgical procedure, which makes it difficult to engage in a more vigorous core strengthening exercise. Dolphin Plank Pose is a very strengthening core Yoga posture that can easily and efficiently be woven into a vinyasa-based practice. Both of these poses will effectively strengthen your core abdominal muscles and release tension throughout your shoulders and the neck.

* Reclining Goddess Pulses

Reclining Goddess Pulses are small abdominal movements that are done while in Reclining Goddess Pose. Reclining Goddess Pose is generally practiced towards the end of a Yoga class and prior to Shavasana. When you are ready to practice Reclining Goddess Pulses, lie down on your Yoga mat and place your legs in a diamond position, with the soles of your feet lightly touching. If your knees or hips are tight, you may wish to place two rolled blankets, pillows or bolsters underneath your knees for support. This movement should pre practiced slowly to avoid ballistic stretching. If you are recovering from abdominal surgery or an injury, remember to move very slowly and with compassion and respect for your body. 

Reclining Goddess Pose helps to increase the blood flow throughout the pelvic area, as it stretches out the groin and hip muscles. By incorporating a series of small pulses with your hands in between your knees, you will gently strengthen your core abdominal muscles and release tension in your shoulders and neck. To practice Reclining Goddesses Pulses, extend your arms between your legs and press the palms of your hands together with your fingers facing the front of the Yoga studio. Extend you arms fully, and begin to gently contract your abdominal muscles with each exhale. 

As you contract or pulse your abdominal muscles with each exhalation, extend your hands an inch or two further towards the front of the room or Yoga studio. This extension will help to elongate the muscles along the sides of your neck and release any tension in your shoulders. Pulse for a set of ten counts, and then lie back and rest for a moment in Reclining Goddess Pose before doing two more set of ten pulses. When you have completed a series of three rounds of Reclining Goddess Pulses, lie back on your mat and rest in Goddess Pose before proceeding with the rest of your Yoga practice. 

Virginia Iversen, M.Ed, has been practicing and studying the art of Yoga for over twenty years. She lives in Woodstock, New York; where she specializes in writing customized, search engine-optimized articles that are 100% unique. She is currently accepting Yoga and health-related writing orders and may be contacted at: enchantress108@gmail.com. 

© Copyright 2015 – Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

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