When talking about styles of yoga in regard to sequences there are two types:
- the ones which are always the same – like Ashtanga or Bikram – and
- the ones that are always different – like Vinyasa.
BOREDOM AND BURNOUT
I come from an Ashtanga background. I know what it’s like to always teach the same sequence. You learn it once. You teach it constantly. You get to focus on perfecting your cues, learning all variations possible for each pose, learning to read the bodies of your students and adjusting them doing those poses. You can become very proficient at it. It’s brilliant to begin with…
…but for me, after a few years, it got boring! Especially when I was teaching lots of led classes.
So, I turned into Vinyasa Yoga: the BEST for creativity.
Vinyasa is the style that always ends with students giving you the most praise. Every class is different, there is funky music, you never get bored, it’s so much fun! However wonderful those words feel, when you’re teaching fifteen classes a week, you end up exhausted from having to create a different flow for each class – sometimes a completely new class. You end up in burnout!
It seems like a Catch 22 – you either suffer boredom, or you suffer burnout. But there is a third option.
THE YOGA WITH ESME LOOPHOLE
In the last two decades, I’ve learnt how to keep teaching yoga fun without growing bored of it or burning out. (At least most of the time!)
I’ve created a simple template that begins with warmups and sun salutations, moving through various asana families, and ending with finishing poses.
What I suggest is that, rather than creating a brand-new sequence each class, we focus on one thing – a yoga sutra, a part of the body, a season or a poem, for example, – for a period of four to six weeks, and within each cycle, you repeat more or less the same poses or at least the same focus point. It’s the perfect balance between a set sequence method and Vinyasa.
For the teacher, this allows you time to perfect your sequence in whatever style of yoga you teach. Like with set sequences styles of yoga, you can work on your cues, you can pay attention to your students and help find variations for them.
For the student, there is consistency, the chance to measure their progress, and they know what to expect.
THE ART OF CREATING SEQUENCES
My new course gives you freedom while preventing stress.
It’s fun. It’s logical. It’s energetic.
It’s practical.
That’s really important for me – what you learn has to be something you can apply straight away. This course gives you that.
- You get a template that will help you easily create balanced and intelligent sequences.
- You get lots of mini flows based on mobility and stability, strength and flexibility.
- You get the capability of picking poses to pair with different objectives.
- You get an understanding on how to make your transitions seamless, so your classes flow beautifully.
- You get the ability to respond to the needs of the class in a specific moment.
The best bit? You can reuse what you create in six months or a year, so you don’t have to always create fresh classes!
If you haven’t learnt enough about sequencing and aren’t too sure what to do to be balanced because of it, or if you teach Vinyasa and want more structure and consistency –
THIS COURSE IS FOR YOU!
The Art of Creating Sequences will be running both in person and online 3rd and 4th of June 2023. It’s a weekend of meeting like-minded people and building a community to support you on your journey, and learning techniques you can immediately apply to your classes. You even get a 15% discount if you enrol by 1stMay!
The only way you’ll regret it is if you don’t get in touch to register your interest now! So GET IN TOUCH!
Check out our taster here: https://yapta.yogaallianceprofessionals.org/courses/art-of-creating-sequences
or, better still, enrol in the real thing here: https://yogawithesme.com/service/art-of-creating-sequences/
Want more information?
Get in touch by e-mailing esme@yogawithesme.com or WhatsApping 078 0085 0307.