Advanced Yoga Postures

As a Yoga Teacher should we be teaching advancements in class?

As a student should we be taking advancements in class?

Yoga Teachers

Adding in advancements to postures is really down to the class you’re teaching. If you’re teaching a class for beginners, aimed at beginners, in a room definitely full of beginners, they don’t need advancements. Those students need the beginner friendly postures, and modifications, focusing on understanding the breath, the intention and the correct alignment, so they’re safe whilst practicing. As a teacher you need to be ok with that, and not lead your students with any sort of ego, expecting and wanting more than a beginner can give. Remembering that each time you step on the mat to teach, it’s about your students practice and you’re holding space and time for them in that moment.

If you’re teaching a mixed abilities class adding advancements can become a little tricky. You have to trust that your students know their bodies and aren’t going to push themselves somewhere they’re not ready to go. Some people who come to yoga for the physical aspect alone will always be the type of student to push their bodies to the absolute limit, forgetting the one unwritten rule for yoga: listen to your body.

There’s a couple of ways you can bring advancements in to a mixed abilities class, but this is depending on the students you have in front of you …and only you will know which one will work better at the time.

Taking Bird of Paradise as an example…

Option 1
If you were teaching this in a mixed abilities class, a great way to break this down and ease people in, is to access the posture from a Side Angle Pose and build from there, offering a bind to start, a step forward, a foot lift, standing, to extending the leg - lots of space and options for people to try.

Option 2

If you have students in class that you know aren’t quite ready for this advancement yet, but also students who you know might just try to take it anyway, another option you have from Side Angle Pose is to teach up to the bind, and simply offer Bird of Paradise as an option for anyone familiar with the posture - so no teaching points here. Sounds a bit scary I know, but bear with me as I explain…

Your less experienced students will remain in the bind as you’ve taught them, and your intermediate and advanced students can carry on in to the posture if they choose. If any students move in to the advancement and you notice something you’d like to say as a teaching point, you can always offer it as a point for the whole room, ‘anyone that’s moved into Bird of Paradise, don’t forget…’ etc. 

Don’t worry about your beginners at this stage, they can’t do what they don’t know, i.e if you don’t teach it to them, they’re unlikely to do it. Whilst people are coming in to the advancement option, encourage everyone else to get the full benefits of where they are, so ..roll the top shoulder back, open the chest more, stay strong in the back leg, keep that front knee stacked etc. There’s lots to learn from every posture each time you step on the mat, whether it’s your first time practicing or you’ve been practicing for 20years. Advancements to the postures you give are important though, because it gives your students that regularly practice something to work towards, something new to try that they might not approach outside the classroom in their own personal practice, and it encourages them to keep practicing.

Yoga Students

As a student how do you know when you’re ready to move into a more advanced posture?

Yoga isn’t like anything else, the physical aspect alone by its name teaches us that what we’re doing is practicing - there’s no end to learning with yoga, or the postures you do.

Yoga Teachers will talk a lot about not practicing with ego. What that basically means is that unlike your generic exercise class, asana practice isn’t about pushing the body to it’s absolute limit, it’s about being inquisitive about the space you can create for yourself. So practice, and practice hard if you want, but don’t push, and remember to always listen to your body. Asana practice is about feeling the sensation of the posture, but never about pushing through pain or discomfort.

Remember if you’re new to an asana practice, moving your body in the way in which you will do during a yoga class, is unlike probably anything you will have asked your body to do before. Think how long it takes a child to learn to stand, then to walk, then to walk well! New movement takes practice and small steps to start, and everyone starts somewhere.

You should never feel judged in class because you haven’t taken an advancement option. Advancements aren’t for everyone on every day. If you’re practicing asanas you can be focussed on many things, your breath, your movement, space, even alignment - but your neighbours practice isn’t one of them, and yours isn’t theres. 

Each pose or pose variation has its own set of benefits, and intentions for you. In sports, quite often after we’ve accomplished a certain goal, we move on to the next and we don’t ever have the need to go back to the first goal, because we’ve already moved on. In asana practice that isn’t the case, advancements to postures, doesn’t mean they’re better or you’re doing better. Childs Pose for example will remain an important posture for all levels, when practiced with the right intention, today, tomorrow and every time you step on the mat.

Want to know more?
 

If you’re already a 200hr teacher, our 300hr Teacher Training has a full module on advanced postures. If teaching is something you’re interested in pursuing you can join our brand new 500hr Teacher Training course which also covers our advanced postures module - to see the full syllabus for all 3 courses, please visit the courses section of our website.