Old Moon Yoga

My theme was the very bland “breathe”. After themes like “twist and shout” and “Jacques Cousteau” this really seemed lacking. I convinced myself it was Yogic, a return to simplicity, the basics, the core. Pranayama is, after all, the next limb of Yoga beyond Asana.  But somehow it seemed flat, ordinary. Was I drying up, running out of ideas? I needed something to drive my imagination and creativity. Somehow class did not feel quite together.

It’s like that scene from “Shakespeare in Love” “Don’t worry, it will all work out.”  “How?”  “I don’t know, it’s a mystery” Hey Dawn made me watch it, 4 times.

I did not have to wait long. It was a regular student who came to the rescue. “I have been feeling really tight in the hips, can we do some hip openers?”  That was all the invitation I needed. “What is your favorite pose for that” is my obvious response.  “Pigeon.”  She replies.

Perfect, in my usual, organized, methodical forward thinking way I had arrived at class with no clear plan only the idea, breathe.  All that was needed was one word and I had a focus, a direction for the class.

What was odd is the I don’t usually get unsolicited requests for poses. When I ask “Any special request” I get a list of poses people don’t want to do.

Building the class around hip openers is easy, of course. There are plenty of poses that get into the hips but it is the pigeon focus that has my attention; So many poses in yoga can be performed in different orientations. Basic pigeon pose, everyone knows. But you can lie on your back and do pigeon by crossing the ankle over the other knee and reaching the arms through.  The same pose can be performed standing on one leg of course, and variations here include “tea with the queen”.  Bend forwards and take it to an arm balance and it becomes Eka Pada Galavasana (Flying Crow) .  Now legs up the wall and take the restorative version.

My daughter Lib, self reflection

Phew! not quite finished though. How about proud pigeon, twisted pigeon and of course double pigeon.

After class I asked the Yogi, “So did you open up the hips?” “Oh yes she replied.”

All of this got me thinking about poses and how they are reflected in other poses. All of that led to the inspiration for today’s class. Reflections.

Thank you for that one word inspiration, “pigeon”. Today I go to class with a plan, well sort of a plan, well more of an idea really; well mostly it’s just one word again.

I picture the scene now as I walk in all prepared. “Hi Clive, I have been having trouble with my shoulders”  “What poses do you like for that?”

“Crocodile”

How does the class go in this case?   I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

“Top of a push up” the instructor commanded. I was new to Yoga then but knew this just did not sound right. “Plank pose” is what most teachers had called it up until now. To the uninitiated it might seem like a nothing pose. It does not appear to have a Sanskrit name. A pose to pass through on the way to somewhere better? Plank is a great pose in its own right and worth pausing for. Worthy of a little attention. Top of a push up is most certainly is not.

I am holding what I believe to be a pretty good plank, why then in the instructor pushing my stomach up and at the same time trying to adjust my shoulder. The problem is that it is so easy to see when someone is out of shape in plank pose. It is one straight line with the body. Any imperfection is easy to spot. Other poses don’t suffer this scrutiny. There can be multiple up or down dog poses in the class. The perfect dog pose is hard to define.

Plank is simple but very deceptive. As I look around a beginner class I see various attempts that range from “dangling cobra” to a sort of semi down dog pose. So how does an instructor correct all of these variations. I picture myself in the beginner class like a guy spinning plates. Raise the tummy on this Yogi, rush to the next, push down the butt on the second. On to the third. Not bad, but straighten the legs more. On to number 4 no wait number 1 has started to sag again. Rush back to one raise tummy, back to 4. Ah no number 6 just crashed on to their mat.

There has to be a better way. I found this technique as a way to teach plank. Variations of this work for all levels and seems to get great results in all class levels.

The prep.

Starting on all fours, shoulders over the wrists. Fingers spread wide. Middle fingers face forwards. Eventually the thumbs point towards each other. Step the right foot back them the left. Have the feet a little wider than hip width.

This gets the body into the right position to begin the focus…..

Feeling the core.

The next step is to show that the core muscles are highly active in this pose. Take you right hand and touch the heart and your left side. Putting that hand down. Now take you left hand and touch your right side and your navel. Having marked out a diamond it is much easier for the Yogis to focus on the next stage. Tightening every muscle in that diamond.

Now the core is actively involved we are ready for the icing….

Every muscle is engaged.

Tuck the butt, pull up on the kneecaps, push the heels back. Now push down with every finger and thumb, starting with the pinkie working towards the thumbs.

There you have it a perfect plank pose every time. Plank is intense. It core work its shoulder work, leg work and arms. Its not a pose to pass through but one to perfect.

Top of a push up it is not. The results are perfect plank poses every time and no broken crockery.

The Show must go on

The music to Mary Poppins is filling the room as the Yogis start to trickle into the studio. The whimsical and very un-Yogi music makes the regulars smile as they put out their mats. Let’s go fly a kite indeed. It’s Saturday morning Yoga, it’s show time.

I have been teaching John’s class on Saturday morning for some time now. It is one of the best classes of the week. The people are great fun and ready to enjoy the weekend. The time slot is perfect at 10:30am on Saturday morning. Recently I started introducing themes as a way to add a little more fun into the classes.  The idea was that the theme would just give focus to some aspect of the yoga for that week. The class in reality is largely the same.

We have had themes such as

• Excess  (just before Christmas) a session where poses were taken to the extreme. “ and if you want more ……” was the catch phrase for that class
• Twist and shout …  I tell you when to twist, you shout when you have had enough
• Core Blimey – a focus on core poses and of course the reason for the Mary Poppins music at the start
• Jacque Cousteau  — poses to do with the sea, mostly
• Warriors  — Super bowl weekend of course

Anantasana

There are a lot more that I have in mind too.  The cynic might be incline to believe I am trying to mock yoga, with my tongue in cheek intro music and stretches (yikes there is that pun again) on the themes. “Couch pose…” I explain as we all recline on our sides, holding the big toe while pulling the leg high in the air, “….because this is where most of us watched Jacque Cousteau”.  Mocking is the furthest thing from my mind though. Entertainment is the name of the game I think. 90 minutes of dry yoga listening to a monotonic delivery with no music might be some people’s idea of true yoga but that feels to me like “Charles Dickens Yoga”. Rather than beat people with a stick let’s make them smile.

The Yogis that come seem to like it. Maybe they are just indulging me. Just grin at him, won’t be long and John will be back. “Nice class Clive, how is John ?”  Of course I choose to believe they actually like the themes, I have even been given suggestions for new ones ….. but these theme are taking over my life!

Saturday class has become my version of a full scale Broadway production. I plan and create special music tailored not just of the class but for the intro to the class while people are coming in and setting up.  I rehearse various poses and sequences in the classes leading up to Saturday morning. There is even a Saturday afternoon encore at my evening class. This week I am going a step further, there is a gift for every Yogi and I have invented a new pose that I will debut at the class. I am out of control. Each production has to be bigger and better than the last. Apart from my obsessive nature taking over, what is going on?

The Show, that is what is going on. “They come to be entertained” my mentor told me once. I think he was absolutely right. Yoga can be fun and deep and revealing all at once.

That’s why if you come to class this tomorrow, as you are setting up your mat, you will hear excerpts from the sound track to West Side Story. But what is this rather unusual prop I am handing you. Bet you have never received one of these in a Yoga class before, much less know how to use it

Hey it’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow and I have been practicing for the world debut of “cupid pose” all week.

Last week the sum total of Yogis in my morning classes was 1. This week there were 13. What changed?  It’s a mystery.   I rushed to check the schedule on the website of course. Perhaps another teacher had been posted by mistake. Being a very analytical person by nature and trade, I have, of course, recorded the class attendance for every class I have taught. All plotted in Excel charts in pretty colors that I cannot distinguish, but what do these stats tell me?  Why do they come? Why do they not come?  What does it take to build a class? How long does it take to build a class?  Yoga studio owners stop reading now, my theory, if right, is expensive.

Building any class is hard for a new teacher.  The Yogis don’t know who you are so why should they risk their $20 on Mr.Unknown?  There is only one chance to impress them too, they don’t like our first class, and they are never coming back. That’s a lot of pressure for anyone, especially a new teacher. We can’t afford to have an off day.  In retrospect the time I taught a class and finished 15 minutes early by mistake was not my finest hour.

Too cold for Yoga

“Yogis will eventually find the teachers they like.” I convince myself as I sit alone cross legged on my mat at 6:00am waiting listening to Elton John belt out  “Sacrifice” at a volume loud enough to wake even the soundest sleeping Yogi. Building an early morning class must be the hardest. It’s cold, it’s dark, it’s raining, “I don’t bend in the morning” all factors in the motivation to get to class. If you are a Yoga teacher following this particular “right of passage” your mission is to get it all right first time every time. The sequences, music, poses, timing etc all have to be perfectly delivered at the crack of dawn with a cheering manner, and in the dead of winter, while Dawn is still snuggled up in bed along with all the other sensible Yogis.

In all the classes I now teach, there are regulars. People I have seen more that three times in one of my classes is my definition of a regular. Yogis presumably do not come back the third time by mistake, so there must be something about the class the keeps them coming. Even with this growing number of Yogis the class sizes can vary hugely. There are so many factors that stop even the most dedicated yogi from appearing in class. The traffic, work commitments, being out of town, vacations, etc etc all play a part. I have had a yogi disappear for 4 weeks or more and then start coming back to class. Of course paranoia sets in and I start to think “must have been something I did”.

Clive’s theory on how long it takes to build a class.

James, my son and fellow Yoga teacher, and I, believe you have to have about 50 regulars who like the class to expect to maintain an average class size of 20.  This is because of all the above factors.  So assume, optimistically, that 1 new yogi a week likes your class. It is going to take a year to build up a regular consistent class of 20.  I told you studio owners to stop reading!

Every number tells a story

The good news though is that the classes become more and more friendly and full of wonderful people because they are all of a similar mindset. The class becomes more of a social event, a meeting of family and friends, who do Yoga too. That is the magic. Yogis in these classes even tell me in advance when they can’t make one.  How cool is that?  We have become friends, not just faces in a class.  Take a look at this graph from my Nandi Sunday morning beginner class. The very optimistic eye can begin to see a trend, up and to the right. Just another 6 months to go Wendy

So what can we do to accelerate this?  Sub like crazy. Subbing classes gets you in front of many new faces. Hopefully somewhere in that crowd is someone that likes my style. Yogis won’t come to me so I have to go to them.

As I mentioned in the beginning, I am very analytical. So here is a stats mystery I can’t solve. This weekend marked the 1000 visitor to my blog.  This is an exciting and to some degree, scary milestone for me. I started this craziness simply as a challenge to myself. It is really hard to believe the blog has had 1000 views. Even harder to believe, that I can find something each week to ramble on about.   Whoever you are, thank you for reading. The problem is you are only encouraging me.