How to structure and plan your yoga classes?

Class planning and teaching 

In terms of planning a class, it’s each to their own with how you do this. Some teachers choose not to plan at all, but have a basic idea in their head of what they want the class to be focussed on. Some teachers write down and plan the postures. Some teachers write down and plan the postures, transitions, music, props, modifications …the list goes on! Ultimately I would advise planning however works best for you, but keeping in mind some basic principals.


Yoga Class Structure

This is so important to a class. When you’re practicing alone and moving with your own intuition with no real focus perhaps, just a desire to move wherever it is that feels good on that day, structure can go out of the window. When you’re teaching a room full of paying customers, with bodies of all different shapes and sizes - structure to your class is paramount.

So what do I mean by structure?

• Having clear sections - a warm-up, middle 1, middle 2 and a cool-down to your class

• Having a peak posture or theme that you’re building students to or working with

• Moving students through an increasing and then decreasing curve of postures

This kind of structure is a way of building students through your warming postures, then introducing a little more movement through middle 1, coming up into some standing postures, reaching a peak if there is one through middle 2, and towards the end bringing students back down towards the mat for some gentle relaxation stretches in your cool-down.

Yoga Postures

When we’re planning a class it’s important to set our students up for success, and ensure the postures we give them are going to help them through the practice, that we’re giving them enough of the right postures at the right time so they don’t injure themselves.

Starting with the warm-up, this is a time for gentle warming stretches that should encompass all areas of the body, but have a focus on the peak posture or theme.

So how many, and what kind of postures should each section have?

If you are planning a 60 minute class, generally speaking in the warm-up, you’d want it to be around 10 minutes, baring in mind you probably want around 5 minutes for your opening meditation, so that could mean around 5 - 7 postures that will start to prepare your students for the more physical part of the practice.

For an example if you were planning a class to build towards Natarajasana / Dancer, in the main this is going to require shoulders, lower back, hamstrings, chest, hip flexors and quadriceps to be open, stretched and warm. 

So within our warm-up we might utilise postures such as:

Supta Kapotasana / Reclined pigeon - hip flexors
Parsva Balasana / Thread the needle - shoulders

Bidalasana and Bitilasana / Cat and cow - chest and spine
Salamba Bhujangasana / Sphinx - lower back, chest and spine

Seated/Reclined Dorsiflexion and Plantar Flexion - ankles, tibialis anterior, calf and hamstrings
Supta Padangusthasana / Reclined hand to big toe - hamstrings (modified version for a warm-up)
Anjaneyasana / Low Lunge - hip flexors, quadriceps 

(Some of the pose above use additional muscles but this is in relation to how they support Dancer)

Within our middle 1, we should be looking to plan for around 15 minutes, and here we’ll start to look at introducing some standing postures, so we might do this through some Sun Salutations, as these are a great way to start to increase the heart rate and stretch a little deeper through each round, really working into all areas of the body.

Within our middle 2 we’ll be incorporating some additional standing postures, our peak posture if there is one. Again this section would be around 15 minutes for a 60 minutes class.

Virabhadrasana 2 / Warrior 2 - hip flexors and quadriceps
Urdhva Mukha Shvanasan / Upward Facing Dog - lower back and chest
Prasarita Padottanasana / Wide Legged Forward Fold - hips and hamstrings
Ashta Chandrasana / High Lunge - hips and quadriceps
Vyaghra / Tiger Pose - hips, hip flexors, quadriceps, hamstrings, chest and shoulders
(Some of the pose above use additional muscles but this is in relation to how they support Dancer)

Towards the end of middle 2, you want to think about bringing your students down towards the mat to prepare for moving into the cool-down, so this is a good opportunity to include some abdominal work or some deeper mat level stretches again in keeping with the theme or peak, so for a Dancer peak/themed class you could use postures such as:

Utthan Pristhasana / Lizard - hip flexors and quadriceps
Eka Pada Rajakapotasana / Pigeon or King Pigeon - hip flexors and glutes
Hanumanasana / Monkey - hip flexors and hamstrings
Dhanurasana / Bridge - abdominals, chest and spine

Virasana / Hero - hips and quadriceps
(Some of the pose above use additional muscles but this is in relation to how they support Dancer)
 

…and finally within our cool-down similar to our warm-up, this should last around 10 minutes, so we’re able to offer around 5 minutes for a closing meditation. So this could be around 5-7 postures, depending again on how long you’re keeping students in these postures for and if they’re double sided. You may choose to utilise some of your open stretches to encourage the students to try and find a bit more space than they may have previously had, and some additional relaxing stretches such as:

Supta Matsyendrasana / Reclined spinal twist - spine
Ananda Balasana / Happy Baby - hips
Apanasa / Knees to Chest - hips
Supta Padangusthasana / Reclined hand to big toe - hamstrings
(Some of the pose above use additional muscles but this is in relation to how they support Dancer)
 

Intention

Although teaching points are important for a posture, if you don’t understand the intention of a it, your student won’t either. Intention is the most important aspect for your students to know when they’re in a posture. They should know and understand what they’re feeling. That’s why as a teacher it’s vital you do too. 

When you’re planning a class, linking relevant postures because you understand the intention of them is key to a successful class, where your students will leave feeling they’ve understood, learnt and enjoyed the class physically - remember this is a CLASS and you are a TEACHER, it’s not just about the physical element, you’re teaching your students to understand the why’s and the how’s to.

Triangle for example - you can teach a student to come in to this posture, but if you don’t explain once they’re in it, that they should feel a stretch in their side body, they could collapse forward to try and reach further towards their front foot and not get any benefit. Explaining what they should feel and how they can correct if they don’t is your job.

Want to know more?

If you’d like to know more about yoga or perhaps you’re considering training to be a yoga teacher, please take a look over the courses section of our website www.yogacourse.com