Well-rounded yoga

I attended a yoga workshop yesterday with Mika at the studio I teach at in Boz. I'm not sure where Jessica found this French yogi, who was not only easy on the eyes but also a fantastic teacher. Who doesn't like yoga + French accent? Anyhow, I was thinking about what makes a good yoga class/practice, and why after yoga I sometimes feel...well, to be honest, so much better than others. And I decided that well-rounded yoga is most important to me, both in practice and in teaching. What do I mean by that? If certain elements are missing from a practice, the post-yoga result is a raw, incomplete feeling. For example, if I leave out backbends, which are very important to my body, I'm out of balance. Which is not why I am doing yoga, right? It's about approaching yoga as an integrated system, vs. just doing random poses. The true art is in the sequencing. There is a sequence to follow for how you warm up, and when you practice inversions. There is a lot of flexibility to that, and like everything else, different styles produce results for different people. But imagine if you started your practice with an advanced posture, like the inversion forearm stand I posted on earlier in the week, without warming up your shoulders. Yikes. 

I'm getting ready to lead an info session this afternoon for our Bozeman YogaWorks teacher training program; I took this training at my DC studio in 2006 and it changed a lot about my yoga practice (in a very good way). The YogaWorks system is the epitome of well-rounded. You feel balanced, and damn good, after a YW practice. The training program is the same, integrating perfectly proportioned parts of asana work, teaching methodology, yoga history & philosophy, anatomy and subtle body. It's precise yet flexible. It's interesting and accessible. IMHO, it's the strongest foundation you can get for becoming a yoga teacher or deepening your practice. So I'm looking forward to sharing my theory on well-rounded yoga. If you can't find YW near you, you can experience their yoga at many of the yoga conferences around the country, or search for a YW instructor in your area. Namaste. 

Labels: