Here are the various posts from the Varsity Yoga series collected in one place.
When the drishti (gazing point) of a posture is on the thumbs or the toes, focus your attention on the chest.
In short, use the heart to get the head and eyes into position.
I’ve been struggling with exactly how to put this but here’s an attempt:
It is incumbent upon white people to live in an inclusive and anti-racist way.
It is not incumbent upon anyone who experiences racism and injustice to teach us how to live differently.
Artists have chosen to teach us through their work.
One of the best ways that we, as white people can educate ourselves about the vastness of human experience is through studying and financially contributing to artists and their work.
This is maybe the most important part: We need to seek out these artists and works regardless of how explicitly or implicitly they address systematic racism.
We cannot just take one seminar or read one book and call it a day.
We have to do this every day.
PHILOSOPHY
I intend for my students to spend more time practicing Yoga than learning about it. However, I would do a grave disservice to not illuminate Yoga’s philosophical and cultural origins. I modulate this content slightly depending on the constitution of group of students but, in general, I cover the following:
A brief history of the physical practice, focusing on the Mysore temple and its diaspora
Yoga Sutras (brief overview of the Eight Limbs (one per day for two weeks, selecting one yama and niyama for more in-depth discussion)
Samkhya (brief discussion of purusha and prakriti and dual vs non-dual perspectives)
For our purposes, I describe Yoga as a dualistic worldview, as does Patanjali. In this view, nature and consciousness are both real. A discussion of non dualist ways of thought in Vedanta and certain Buddhist traditions may be appropriate, especially if your students have studied eastern religion in other classes.
You may have students in your class that have grown up with these philosophical and cultural traditions. Do your best to make them feel comfortable sharing their experiences if they choose to, and only if they choose to.
When describing these philosophical concepts, begin with the assumption that your students are smart, capable, and willing to explore the full complexity of these ideas. Resist the impulse to simplify or sugar-coat. There are certain aspects of the practice that will be reassuring and there are certain aspects that will be very challenging. It is your job to stay present with the full spectrum of the students’ experiences.
The most powerful way of communicating Yoga philosophy is to model it in the way you lead the class and interact with the students. What follows are some examples of ways to embody the guidance of the Yoga Sutras in a teaching situation. This advice will mainly focus on instructing asana. You might be more moved to offer guidance from the Bhagavad Gita, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika or other Yogic and/or Buddhist texts.
The following translations (in parentheses) come from Gregor Maehle’s work in his book, Ashtanga Yoga: Practice and Philosophy. Guidance is mine, except where indicated.
I.2 Yoga is the suspension of the fluctuations of the mind.
II. 28 From practicing the various limbs of yoga, the impurities are removed, uncovering the light of knowledge and discernment
The Eight Limbs
Yama (restraints)
Ahimsa (non-violence)
Encourage the students to practice in a way that challenges the body in a healing way rather than a harming way. Encourage the students to practice with inquiry.
Any situation in which some men prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence;… to alienate humans from their own decision making is to change them into objects.”
― Paulo Freire
Satya (truthfulness)
Speak from your own experience. Refrain from speculating about topics that would be better discussed by a scholar or medical professional. Be comfortable saying “I don’t know” and expressing the limits of your knowledge.
Asteya (non-stealing)
Start and end on time, always.
Brahmacharya (sexual restraint)
As Ashtanga Yoga was designed for householders (those with jobs and families) as opposed to monks or renunciates, this guidance means to only engage in sexual activity with your partner. Other modern commentators and teachers have broadened this guidance to mean ‘appropriately managing your energy.’ You can embody brahmacharya by arriving to class rested and alert so that you are ready to assume a leadership position for your students. As has been addressed in previous posts, you can also model brahmacharya through refraining from giving physical adjustments and engaging in inappropriate relationships with students. My opinion is that the power imbalance is too great in a school situation for teacher/student physical contact to be appropriate. Consider deeply the dichotomy between intent and impact.
Aparigraha (nongreed)
Allow the students to practice without feeling the need to achieve or perform. Praise the work ethic and commitment of the students rather than the outcome or the shape of a specific posture or transition.
Niyama (observances)
Shaucha (purity)
Arrive to class dressed and groomed with a professional appearance. Work to abstain from thoughts of “greed, jealousy, envy, hatred, anger, and so on.” -Maehle
Santosha (contentment)
Cultivate in yourself and in the students a sense of gratitude for the opportunity to practice together. This can be accomplished through a brief statement before or after class. Never use your position as a leader to complain to your students about another member of the school community or about your own circumstances.
Tapas (austerity)
Within reason, the practices should be challenging. Cultivate the skill of assessing when a student is ready for the next stage of a posture or for further refinement and when they need to rest. The practices should involve examining our conditioning and re-making it, as necessary. Challenge yourself through your own practice. Cultivate an appreciation for healthy discomfort.
Svadhyaya (self-study)
Practice and study consistently no matter now much or how little you are teaching. The formal practices are important, of course, but more important is the way you live your life. For the most part, you should have answers to the students’ questions and know when to withhold an answer to preserve the spirit of inquiry. Vyasa describes the process of self-study as chanting the syllable OM. My experience has been that students do not typically wish to participate in chanting though some find meaning in hearing OM chanted. If you include OM in your teaching, also include a thorough explanation of its meaning.
Ishvara Pranidhana (devotion to Supreme Being)
Patanjali and the commentators give us some options here, in that Being can be an entity or being-itself (consciousness). Every aspect of the physical and contemplative practices should serve the goal of ’waking up’ in whichever way you have decided to characterize this experience. This understanding of Supreme Being opens the possibility of participation in Yoga to those with religious or non-religious backgrounds.
Asana (posture)
Whether standing or seated, your posture should reflect the intention and clarity that you expect from the students. As much as possible, communicate with your own posture that you are fully present in the practice with the students.
Pranayama (regulation of the breathing process)
Emphasize breath in all aspects of the practice, encouraging the students to breathe evenly and ‘with sound’ as is appropriate for the style of Yoga you are offering. Monitor your own breathing while teaching.
Pratyahara (sense withdrawal)
Emphasize drishti when instructing postures. Minimize personal distractions. Leave your phone and smart-watch out of sight and silenced except in the case of potential emergencies
Dharana (concentration)
“Fix the mind to a place.” -Maehle
Choose whether the day’s session is oriented towards moving through a full practice or breaking down certain postures and transitions. I have found more success when refraining from mixing the two. In the physical practice, giving the students a sequence to memorize allows the students to concentrate on their own practice rather than constantly listening for instructions. In the seated practice, offer meditation on objects like breath, sound, or light in the heart.
Dhyana (meditation)
“Uninterrupted flow of awareness.” -Maehle
Adhering to the previous limbs, and removing the emotions, mind, and body as obstacles will make it easier to direct your attention fully to your teaching. Communicate to the students and reassure yourself that while we can create the conditions for meditation, meditation itself occurs through grace.
Samadhi (bliss)
“Fluctuations of the mind have ceased.” -Maehle
The practice and the teaching shine forth without traditional input of the mind.
INCLUSION
I am a white man from Alabama who learned Yoga primarily from white women. It is important for me to recognize these facts when teaching this Indian vehicle for awakening. My efforts to acknowledge my own identity, the identities of my students, and offer an inclusive Yoga environment include the following:
Adapting the physical practices for the abilities and body types of the students in your class.
I have heard many teachers say something to this effect,
“Even if prana is the only thing moving or taking the posture, that is enough. The body is secondary.”
As described in previous posts, I give modifications and options for every posture and invite the students to find the option that works best for them as they balance challenge and sustainability.
I refrain from demonstrating or practicing while I teach. This restraint keeps the students from feeling like they need to adapt their practice to “look” a certain way.
I avoid telling students what they are feeling. The students are there to go inward, not to adapt themselves to an external concept. It might be useful in some situations to describe what they “might” be feeling, or guide them towards evenness of sensation. For example:
“If you are feeling more sensation in the hamstrings than the back in this forward fold, try bending the knees a little.”
Acknowledging and celebrating Yoga’s Indian origins, including communicating about the history of the particular style I am offering.
My teaching and the students’ practice should align with Yoga’s philosophical framework as a vehicle for awakening, including the principles of non-violence, non-attachment, austerity, and contentment (among other concepts). For this reason, I prefer to offer the students the Ashtanga system as it addresses asana, pranayama, and pratyahara within the physical practice. That way, sitting for meditation seems like a logical part of each class.
Use sanskrit numbers and posture names alongside English terms. Work towards memorization.
Cultivate an atmosphere of inquiry rather than achievement.
Fostering an environment in which the students can learn from each other.
I will often invite the more experienced students to lead part or all of a practice, including the asana, meditation, and/or restorative portions.
I have often had students of Indian descent in my classes or who have practiced Yoga outside of school. These students may feel like:
A. Sharing a lot about their cultural practices and background.
B. Not sharing anything about their cultural practices and background.
C. Anywhere in between.
Wherever any student of any background is on the above continuum, they should feel comfortable in your class.
Make it ok for you and your students to say “I don’t know.”
As is appropriate, being open about power dynamics.
Prepare to have frank discussions about instances of emotional and sexual abuse in various Yoga communities and how students can protect themselves when they go to classes outside of school. My advice to my students has been:
If you feel uncomfortable in a situation, your feelings are valid. Leave the situation or use language to establish a clear boundary. Talk to a trusted adult about what you experienced as soon as possible.
You can make a determination about if and when to bring up these topics, but be ready if and when the students ask. One day, a student asked, as class was about to start, “So, Mr. Hooten, have you seen the Bikram documentary on Netflix?” A healthy discussion followed, even though I did not anticipate the class taking that direction on that particular day.
As I’ve said before, my opinion is that there is too great of a power imbalance between an adult teacher and a minor student in a Yoga class for any physical adjustments to be appropriate, regardless of consent or intent.
Partner with an administrator and/or counselor before having these discussions, if possible.
PEDAGOGY
General Notes
The asana practice can open up a path of healing, growth, and awareness. The practice can also own a path to vanity, narcissism, and obsession. The best way I’ve found to keep the students on the former path is by thinking very carefully about the way I deliver information and guidance.
My classes typically unfold this way…
Take attendance (I sometimes do this during savasana)
Take questions: This gives me an opportunity to get to know the students. I take two or three questions and keep your answers clear and succinct. It is perfectly acceptable to say, “I don’t know.”
Asana practice
Savasana (at least five minutes)
Brief closing thoughts and space for one on one questions as students are leaving.
Whether I am instructing the students into a new posture or refining a posture the students already know, I start by cueing what is touching the floor and move up from there. Often, if a standing posture looks unstable, the root cause will show itself to be gripping or lack of energy in the feet.
Beyond the sequence, which is usually planned in advance, I always teach to what I am seeing and hearing from the students. Once the students have been practicing for a couple of weeks you should be able to say, for example, “Inhale, parsvakonasana on the right” and then wait until the students have entered the posture before you start giving additional cues.
My ultimate goal is to empower the students to practice on their own and to offer led classes with a minimum of verbal instruction.
Demonstrating
I teach without demonstrating. I do not put a mat down when I teach and I do not demonstrate or practice the sequence while I am teaching it. There are many reasons for this and my friend and fellow teacher Francesca Cervero has detailed many of them. I highly recommend exploring her work. If, in the middle of practice, you absolutely must bring the students out of the practice to demonstrate or discuss a particular posture or concept, do so quickly and clearly so that focus and energy do not wane.
The students need to feel seen and taken care of. You cannot see and evaluate their practice if you are concentrating on your own postures. The students should feel like this is a time for them to have their needs met, not a time for you to practice. If you drop into demonstrating a complex posture without having warmed up you are more likely to sustain an injury.
It may be necessary, from time to time, for you to demonstrate a posture or transition but you should do this only after the class to come out of their postures and into a seated or standing position so that they may observe you. Having an experienced and willing student demonstrate a particular posture or transition is also a great option.
Physical Adjustments
I do not offer physical adjustments to my high-school students. This may seem like a unique position coming from an Ashtanga practitioner. Ultimately, my feeling is that the power dynamic is too lopsided for student-teacher touch to be appropriate. There are plenty of good reasons to give hands-on adjustments to adult students who have acknowledged that such physicality will be part of the practice. However, I have not found physical adjustments to be necessary for my high school students to experience the benefits of an asana practice.
As with all potentially triggering interactions, the teacher must consider that intent and impact can be very different. Intent is irrelevant if a student feels abused or violated in any way by the teacher. Finally, taking hands-on adjustments off the table forces a teacher to refine their verbal cues, making them as clear and precise as possible.
Where to Stand
In conjunction with physical adjustments, where you stand in the room can have a profound effect on students’ comfort level and focus. Consider the maturity level of your students when deciding what types of postures to explore. For example, prasarita padottanasana and/or adho mukha svanasana might create unwanted distraction for less mature students. The tone you set will go a long way toward mitigating this type of challenge. During led classes I try to stay in front or off to one side of the students. For balancing poses, I might move to the back of the class so that I don’t create a distraction. Balancing poses are an excellent vehicle for working on dristi. In general, I avoid being behind the students when they are practicing postures that involve putting the rear or the groin “up in the air.”
Teaching on Zoom
I was initially very skeptical about teaching yoga classes via Zoom. I was concerned about student privacy, clandestine recording, and ultimately whether or not the students would feel comfortable.
Conducting classes on Zoom has proven to be very successful. I teach sitting in front of my computer, with little to no demonstration. I suggest the students place their computers at their right shoulder when they are standing at the top of the mat. As a side note, depending on the posture, you might want to cue “Step one foot back and turn to face the camera” if a student has their camera on the left side and you are moving into prasarita padottanasana.
Wrist Watch
One the most valuable tools you can possess besides your own presence, experience, and empathy is a wrist watch. You need this to make sure you don’t go over the allotted time and also as a reference for the pace of the breath. Ashtanga teacher Eddie Stern says that, traditionally, each inhale should last four seconds and each exhale should last four seconds. I gradually work the students up to this ratio, maybe starting with two or three seconds for each half of the cycle.
You should monitor where the breath tends to speed up or slow down in your own practice as well as with your students. I tend breathe more quickly in balancing postures and backbends and tend to slow down in forward folds.
Humor
As is true with any group of people, and especially young people, the quality of attention rests on the edge of a knife. There is always a place for humor but it takes practice to find this place and to know how often to visit. I often use humor to break the intensity of a long hold for inexperienced students or to make students feel less self-conscious about trying something new. Obviously, we never want to inspire laughter at another student’s expense. Use humor to allow all involved to take themselves a little less seriously.
Sanskrit
I use both Sanskrit and English posture names initially and transition to as much Sanskrit as possible by the end of the season. The use of Sanskrit serves the important function of connecting the student’s practice Yoga’s Indian heritage.
Modifications
What you will see in books and in photographs are often the traditional forms of the postures. These shapes are possible for some practitioners but not for the majority of students, and not usually during the first years of their practice. Offering modifications in a non-hierarchical way is essential for creating an inclusive environment. I hold true to the fact that if a person is breathing, then they are participating in vinyasa. Every other aspect of the physical practice is an extension of, rather than the heart of that fact. I encourage my students to accept that coming back to the experience of the breath even once during a practice is more important than creating any of the traditional shapes. In the spirit of preserving this attention to the breath and offering a physician practice that can be healing for all students involved.
Quick disclaimer: These modifications address practitioners who are generally able to get up and down from the floor with relative ease.
Surya Namaskar
As I cue each posture and transition, I make sure inhales and exhales are equal in length. Eddie Stern says the traditional pace is four seconds per inhale, four seconds per exhale. I wear a watch with a second hand and check in with it frequently. For younger students and those less experienced, I generally go with a six second breath cycle (three seconds per inhale, three seconds per exhale). This may seem like a lot to keep track of but adhering to an even breath cycle is one of the most therapeutic aspects of the practice and sets the stage for pranayama and meditation.
In forward folds, I encourage bending the knees if I observe that students are rounding their backs.
In ardha uttanasana, I have students initially bring their fingertips to their shins but move them towards keeping their hands in the same place as in uttanasana.
I offer stepping or jumping back to plank or chaturanga. If students are having wrist issues, I give them the option of doing the vinyasas on their knuckles or omitting them altogether.
For adho mukha svanasana, students with wrist issues may bear the weight on the forearms instead of the wrists. This orientation is more challenging, however. Bending the knees is also useful here, especially early in the practice.
Standing Poses
l observe a lot of variety here. I try not to overwhelm students with information. Have the students work towards more refinement of the postures over the course of the whole season rather than the end of an hour or so. Most students won’t put themselves in an injurious position automatically but if the teacher pushes the students down a path that is more aesthetic than healing, this is where injuries can occur (remember that they can occur anywhere). Bending the knees is always a useful option in forward folds as it can ease some of the strain and bring opening into the back.
I make sure to reinforce gazing points (if you are addressing those) as they have a profound effect on the mental and physical benefits of the postures.
You might notice that trained dancers tend to turn their feet out in asymmetrical standing postures. Remind them to keep the front foot pointing straight forward.
Seated Poses
I encourage bending the knees if students are having trouble reaching the feet. While the bend will make the hamstring opening less intense, the contact between the feet and the hands can facilitate the circulation of prana and is calming to the nervous system (in my experience).
There are varying opinions about whether or not to let the back round in forward folds. There are advantages to either a rounded back or a “straight back.”
A rounded back can stretch the muscles on the posterior chain, including the back of the neck, and allow for more focus on the bandhas.
A “flat” back with a lifted heart can create a more energized posture and help to maintain focus. This orientation is most useful when a student already has a deep forward fold and their ribs make contact with their legs.
More important than the round/flat back position is accessing how the students are breathing. Look for a lifting and spreading of the upper back and ribs.
As necessary, remind students to keep their eyes open in forward folds.
Arm Balances
These can be fun and accessible ways for students to encounter and work with fear. If you are going to offer these postures, also offer how to fall out of them safely.
bakasana
parsva bakasana
pike jumps out of utkatasana
kick-ups out of virabhadrasana II
koundinyasana I and II from plank
I do not offer many (if any) arm balances when teaching remotely as there are too many variables at play, including position of furniture or other items and difficulty assessing student strength and readiness.
Inversions
The health benefits of inversions are numerous and the challenge they pose will be exciting to many students. However, depending on the space where you are practicing and teaching the risks might outweigh the rewards. As is true arm balances and other “impressive” postures, you must pay special attention to when the ego wants to see students accomplish challenging postures.
If there is clear wall-space available, this can be useful for having the students work on handstands and headstands. I encourage students practicing headstand to come up with straight legs, as this releases pressure on the neck and minimizes the use of momentum to enter the posture.
If no wall space is available and if the mats are sufficiently far apart, experienced students may practice handstand and headstand in the center of the room. If a student can get their head to the floor in prasarita padottanasana A, they can practice tripod headstand.
For shoulderstand, I highly recommend beginning students practice a “piked” version of the posture and that all students place a blanket under their shoulders.
All students can practice headstand preparation as long as this does not create too much pressure on the neck. If teaching in person, look to see if there is space between the neck and the mat and that the natural lordotic curve of the neck has been preserved.
With all inversions, I have the students minimize the use of momentum and work to keep the breath steady and even.
Closing Postures
Leave at least five minutes for savasana. No exceptions. Leave at least five minutes before savasana for closing postures that calm the nervous system (seated forward folds, prone postures, reclined twists, and meditation). I recommend having the students hold these postures for ten breaths each. The teacher should minimize verbal instruction during this time.
Refrain from playing music during savasana unless this is strongly requested by the students. If it is, work to remove the music by the end of the season.
Lotus
This posture, in its full form, can be extremely healing and centering but it can also lead to serious injury when practiced in an unskilled way. Some students will easily be able to arrange their legs into padmasana but most will not. When teaching in person, I will lightly touch on half-lotus by offering the following progression. I advise them not to proceed to the next step until the previous one can be practiced with ease.
Bend your right knee and bring your heel to touch your sitting bone
Lower the right knee to the side so that the right leg rests on the ground
Hug your heel into your navel
Keep the heel in the navel and shift the leg forward to bring the outer edge of the right foot into the left hip crease with the sole of the foot facing up
Bend the left knee and draw the left heel in towards the mid-line
I advise the students to pause wherever they feel a restriction or back out of any place where they experience pain in the knee or hip.
Ultimately, for most students, there are plenty of other valuable things to work on besides lotus.
After practice
Observe how the students move around the room, put their mats away, gather their things and speak to each other (if they do). A successful practice will most likely leave the students calm, clear, and capable.
Practice Yoga to see clearly.
Practice Yoga to withstand the euphoria and trauma that seeing clearly brings about.
PHYSICAL PRACTICE
What Should the Practice Feel Like?
My students spend most of their time practicing Yoga rather than learning ABOUT Yoga. Though it is hard for me to do, I try to limit any initial talking to five minutes or so before moving directly into the practice. To say it another way: I try to let Yoga class not feel like a traditional class. For example, when I discuss the Yoga Sutras or other philosophical ideas, I pick a small topic, speak briefly, weave the idea into the physical practice, and continue the discussion the next day.
When leading any group of people and especially when they have assembled to practice something physically, it is crucial to maintain an awareness of one’s own ego. For the teacher, it can be fulfilling to guide students into complex postures but this path can lead, without awareness, into the realm of unsustainability and danger. The asanas are not for display, nor are they performative. The asanas are vehicles for awakening.
One must keep in mind the many reasons that a student might be drawn to Yoga. Many students have a genuine interest in contemplative practices. Students may not wish to participate in the competitive environment of team sports. Students may join Yoga because their friends are participating.
With the above in mind, there is no one way that the practice should feel for each student. The best that teachers can do is create a space for healing and strengthening of attention.
Led Classes or Self-Guided
When I started leading our program, I was practicing in a Vinyasa style, taking and teaching classes in which the sequence was different every time but followed the usual blueprint:
Questions and Observations (from students)
Warm-up
Sun Salutations
Standing Poses
Seated Poses
Inversions
Closing Postures
Savasana
Essentially, I was coming up with a new sequence every day. After many years of practicing this way and a year or so of in-school teaching, I started practicing Ashtanga and Mysore-style. When I later started offering a version of this sequence and way of practicing, I noticed a dramatic shift in the energy of the class. Students were more focused, more curious, and more inspired. I fully expected that moving away from a new sequence every day to practicing the same sequence every day might leave the students bored and uninspired but this was not the case. The students were interested in memorizing the postures and transitions as well as learning the Sanskrit names for them. The number of students signing up for Yoga increased as well. I now offer a mostly Ashtanga-based sequence with some additional ‘drills’ and the occasional led class that would more clearly simulate what one would encounter in a non-Ashtanga Vinyasa class. Once a week or so, we practice Mysore-style, where the students move through the sequence at their own pace while I give suggestions and answer questions. I have had few experiences more profound than sharing the space with thirty young people silently practicing yoga together.
If you are not familiar with the Ashtanga Primary Series (give it a shot!) I might recommend organizing your classes by one week or two week segments with a particular physical focus (external rotation at the hip, internal rotation at the hip, etc…) with at least one ‘well-balanced’ class included as well.
Injuries
One can be injured practicing Yoga. I make this clear to my students from the very beginning and include the following statement on my intake form:
As with any physical activity, there is a risk of physical injury when practicing asana. Throughout your practice, listen to your body and alert the teacher if you feel that you need modifications or if you cannot continue. If you are working with any pre-existing injury or condition, please alert the teacher prior to beginning to practice.
The way you instruct the class can also mitigate the chances of someone injuring themselves. I repeat the following phrases often:
Cultivate a sense of healing
Only go 75%
Keep it mellow
Keep it extra-medium (a personal favorite)
Reach for the toes, the ankles, or the shins
To the aim of inclusion and safety, I offer many options and modifications for postures and transitions, which I will discuss in the next post.
One cannot take the path of non-attachment.
SETTING AND SCHEDULE
Setting
You may not have much choice as to where you hold your classes. I have housed classes in a dance studio and in an atrium-like area of our library. If you do have a choice, your practice space should be described as follows:
Quiet: Obviously, a quiet environment is conducive to a Yoga practice. Ultimately we are practicing refining the quality of our attention. Consider also how much information can be gained by listening to students breathe. A loud air conditioner in your room or music and sound coming from an adjacent room can present challenges.
Isolated: People walking through or around the space can create a distraction so try to find a place with little to no foot traffic.
Hard floor / bare walls: This is very important. I and many others have injured our wrists practicing on carpet or other soft surfaces. If you have no other option, have students do their sun salutations on their knuckles or omit weight-bearing on the hands altogether. Bare walls creates a safer environment for practicing inversions.
You may not have the option to choose the location of your class, but if you do, choose wisely as space may be at a premium at your school. Teaching and practicing in challenging locations is an opportunity for deep learning.
Schedule
We may not get to determine when or how often our class meets but these factors can greatly influence our content and pedagogy.
My class meets Monday through Thursday for an hour and fifteen minutes, directly after school. We generally do a full asana practice Monday through Wednesday and then a shorter asana practice plus restorative practice on Thursday. If the class was Monday through Friday, we would keep a similar blueprint with restorative practices on Friday.
Most of the students preferred meeting less frequently for longer duration and I have to say I share their preference. One hour is a tight timeframe in which to take care of attendance and announcements and give the glass an appropriate arc, including time for at least five minutes of savasana.
We must make sure we are not overextending ourselves, all puns aside. If you already teach at the school, keep in mind you will be teaching a full day of classes already as well as trying to maintain your personal life and personal practice. I spent one Fall season teaching my full course load, after-school Yoga, and serving as pit orchestra director for our musical. I only attempted this once. Yoga met in the Winter and Spring in following years.
The more often the students practice, the more conditioned they will be. Consider this when planning for the intensity level of your classes in terms of strength, endurance, and range of motion.
Music
I am a musician and music teacher and I do not use music in my Yoga classes. In a situation where I am trying to listen to students’ breath and have them listen to their breath, music creates a distraction. Occasionally, I will put on a drone if distracting sounds or music are coming in from outside the practice space. I do, however, know other teachers who have found great success through incorporating music into their classes either through recordings or live performers.
Cultivate beginner’s mind without becoming attached to novelty.
VARSITY YOGA
Introduction
I started practicing Yoga on the advice of a therapist whom I was seeing to work with anxiety and depression. After experiencing the healing that the practices brought about, I set out to learn how to teach these practices to others. I’ve been fortunate to lead the Yoga program at my school during my five and a half years there and I am grateful to the colleagues who started and fostered the program before me. What follows are some of my experiences and advice for developing a Yoga program for high schoolers, a program they have affectionately named Varsity Yoga.
You might be asking “What are some of the main differences between adult students and high school students?” I must say that I haven’t noticed many glaring differences. My high school students have shown the same range of qualities and interests as my adult students. A more important question we must ask is “What am I assuming about the group of people in this class?” When teaching Yoga, or any subject for that matter, it is important to teach to what we observe, not to our fixed ideas about what to expect. In doing so, we create a space where the students can learn to observe and ultimately take ownership of their own awakening. I have focused on the high school program here because that is what I’ve spent the most time cultivating and the environment presents some unique challenges and opportunities.
Yoga is offered for an athletic credit at my school. During the Fall, Winter, and Spring students must participate in two of the three seasons over the course of each year in order to graduate. When the Yoga class was meeting in-person (we are currently virtual), I offered Yoga in the Winter and Spring. I spent one Fall season teaching my full course load, leading after-school Yoga, and serving as pit orchestra director for our musical. I only attempted this once for reasons that are certainly obvious. During my time there, the number of participants and the quality of interest have steadily grown, which is a credit to the students themselves and to the profound benefits of these practices.
The content of my teaching grows from my own practice. I have been most effective when I have taught what I was currently practicing. When leading a program, we must consider deeply the path we are asking our students to take and make sure we have traveled and continue to travel this path ourselves. Our class currently practices a sequence closely related to the Ashtanga Primary Series on most days and practices Yoga Nidra and/or meditation once a week and on Moon Days. That said, we should all be teaching what we practice. I try to structure each session so that the students spend more time practicing Yoga than learning about Yoga. More on this later.
My guiding principle is that the practices of Yoga are vehicles for liberation and ultimately liberation in themselves. Though the practices can, when approached sustainably, offer many physical benefits, I do my best to create and hold a space for students to heal and to wake up while perhaps getting stronger and more flexible. In this light, I encourage my students to notice small changes rather than seek out huge ones. Just like the mind can create the conditions for mediation, we can create the conditions for awakening, starting with examining ourselves.
It is important, through inquiry, to teach and to hold space with same care that we bring to our own practice. The following are some questions we must ask ourselves that will assess whether or not we are able to access our practice outside of its formal structure:
Am I quick to anger?
Do I lack integrity?
Do I struggle to listen deeply to others?
Do I struggle to stay present?
How often is my ego inspiring my actions and reactions?
When we have committed to staying in constant dialogue about our own challenges and when we feel ready to hold this same space for inquiry for our students, we can start asking more logistical questions about our Yoga program and how it aligns with the mission of the school.
What time of day is the class?
How long is each class?
How often does the class meet?
Where will the class meet?
What other athletic activities are the students doing?
What other contemplative activities are the students doing?
Which department does your class fall under?
In the posts which follow, I will offer up my experiences and advice around these topics as they relate to high school Yoga programs:
Setting and Schedule
Content of the Physical Practice
Modifications
Content of Contemplative Practices
Pedagogy
Yoga Philosophy
Inclusion
This essay originally appeared in RVA news in 2009.
Sing or hum your favorite tune, or any tune for that matter – even a tune you hate. What kinds of sensations do you experience? What words come to mind? Now read on to find out where this is going…
Sing, hum or otherwise produce your favorite tune, or any tune for that matter, even a tune you hate.
What kinds of sensations do you experience?
If you’re vocalizing, you probably feel your throat and face vibrating a little, and you will eventually feel the need to breathe again. You might also feel a little self-conscious, depending on who’s around.
Now think about your tune for a moment.
What words come to mind? Besides words like “happy” or “sad,” you might be thinking with terms like “up” and “down,” “short” and “long.” If someone asked you to sing the beginning of the tune, you would know “where” to start, likewise with the end. We might just as easily talk about the beginning or end of a road. A unity of sense perception reveals itself here in that we use some of the same words to describe both time and space. The very experience of being human centers around our awareness of events and things, along with the void, sit between them. We seem to have an intuitive sense of the void, a void that our minds constantly and compulsively divide, rearrange, and reassemble. Like the human experience, all music, including the tune you just sang, plays with these dimensions. When listening to or playing music, we constantly experience sound and silence, space and time in combination, and nowhere is this play more apparent than in a musical line. But first, a brief word about words.
Speech, the most ubiquitous of human sonic acts, involves placing one sound, one word after another to create both contour and cadence. Up/down contours are intimately familiar to us. Just imagine how many different ways there are to ask the question “How are you?” Different combinations of inflection and cadence can give the words overtones of compassion, sarcasm or puzzlement. In addition to what we say and how we say it, the spaces we take to breathe and to listen give our sentences meaning, humor, gravitas and power. It is no surprise, then, that most of what sticks with us about music has to do with line, the tune, the melody of a song or a guitar riff, musical ideas that place one sound after another.
In the previous installments of Framing the Void, we explored the ways in which music 1. Defines a period of time, 2. Manipulates our perception of that time’s passing through rhythm, and 3. Defines space through fundamental pitches with overtones. The combinations of these elements results in what we can call a musical line: A succession of single pitches, one after another, often with spaces in between. Imagine time running along the horizontal X axis and space running along the vertical Y axis. A musical line “moves” through both axes, which is only possible when we recognize both points and space. In fact, when we draw a line on paper, or listen to a piece of music, we generally experience more space than anything else. We seem to have a fundamental, instinctual awareness of the void’s infinite possibility but gravitate towards the relatively minor divisions that lines create. As mentioned above, all musical ideas have elements of time and space within them, yet lines play with both in tandem most explicitly. These lines may take the form of melody, counterpoint, bass-line and there is even a concept, known as linear drumming, which allows non-pitched percussion instruments to carve melodic shapes out of negative space (see below). The following are a few examples of the ways composers and improvisers use line in music.
The opening melodic statement of Bela Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra expands with each repetition, creating dramatic sense of space. Woodwinds hover high above as the low strings rise from the depths.
CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA: BARTOK
On Aquas De Marco, Elis Regina and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s conversational vocals cut an almost horizontal line across the sonic space while the bass and piano move steadily downward.
On Blues Connotation, Ornette Coleman’s saxophone creates melodically playful knots, twists and turns, giving the listener a sense of time and space bursting forth and retreating. In contrast, the bass marks steady time.
Blues Connotation: Ornette Coleman
No exploration of line would be complete without a nod to J.S. Bach. In the prelude to his Cello Suite no. 2 in D minor, a single line occupies the totality of the musical experience. Interestingly, the listener also gets a sense of the ‘implied’ harmony as the cello outlines the notes of the chords in succession, alternating steps and leaps.
Cello Suite no. 2 in D Minor, prelude: J.S. Bach
The bass line from Parliament’s Flash Light gives a clearly defined, super-funky sense of time and space. The line moves down then up at regular intervals and, like all great bass lines, provides a steady foundation for “cosmic slop” swirling above it. Notice how, at around 1:04 the line reverses directions to signify a kind of ‘breakdown’ section.
Flashlight: Parliament Funkadelic
On Cissy Strut by the Meters, the bass and guitar plunge from high to low over Zigaboo Modeliste’s “linear” drum groove. The groove is called linear because the drummer almost never plays any two sounds simultaneously, just as a melody leaves one pitch before moving to another.
Despite the fact that music has evolved into countless forms and has been intellectualized, studied, codified and recognized as high art, even its most complicated manifestations embody the basic experience of being human, moving through space and time. Rhythm, harmony and line play with and rearrange these elements just like our minds do when we see white clouds against a blue sky, recognize the tone of a friend’s voice, wait at the doctor’s office or feel the cold wind of an on-rushing storm. Our awareness of these ‘things’ is only possible, however, because of our instinctual conception of a universally empty space, the void. It is interesting to note that all the names we give to things, people and locations or the spectrums of sound and light and movement we fracture to create art always point back toward a common experience, something we can listen to, see and feel together. The awareness that we merely rearrange this void, a space we never truly leave and can never fill up, is humbling indeed.
What are we asking of each other that divorces work from self-care?
This essay originally appeared in RVANews in 2009 (lightly edited)
In the West, we generally conceptualize time as running along the horizontal dimension, from left to right. Having previously touched on the ways that music lives in this dimension, let us turn our attention to the vertical.
In parts I and II of this series we explored the ways in which music frames and manipulates our experience of time. Music creates these boundaries through its definite starting and ending points and though the phenomenon of rhythm, whereby the repetition sound events give us a sense of the rate of time’s passing. In the West, we generally conceptualize time as running along the horizontal dimension, from left to right. Having briefly touched on the ways that music lives in this dimension, let us turn our attention to the vertical.
Most music students are taught that melody occurred before harmony. For the sake of argument, I will contend that humans recognized harmony first, but maybe without knowing it. We can loosely define harmony as the simultaneous sounding of different pitches. As we move about in our world, we are constantly bombarded by ambient sounds, ticking clocks, ringing telephones and bells, wind moving through the trees and people’s voices. We describe these sounds as high or low, harsh or mellow, and so on. Unless you are listening to a sine wave, you are very rarely hearing only a single frequency in any sound. Almost every sound has its own most-audible frequency called the fundamental, but without getting too nerdy, we also hear all the other frequencies, called overtones, “above” it and some “below.” I think that humans experience harmony first because the combinations of pitches (fundamentals and their overtones) along with the way they are attacked give different sounds their identifiable quality.
A fundamental pitch is the note you sing or the note the bell rings or the note the instrumentalist plays. We describe “high” pitches as those that are closer to the “top” of the audible range and “low” pitches as those closer to the “bottom.” A fundamental pitch divides the negative space of the total range into two parts, whatever is above and below. Low pitches give us a sense of lots of space above them while high notes do the opposite. You can picture fundamental pitches as drawing horizontal line through the vertical audible range, just like the beginning of a piece draws a vertical line through the horizontal experience of time. Every fundamental pitch creates overtones above it that are arranged in the harmonic series. These overtones play with our sense of space just like rhythm does with time. Musicians describe harmony with words like close, tight, spread, open, even and so on, further affirming the concept’s relationship to negative space. If you are alone in the room or if those around you don’t mind if you make some noise you can experience this phenomenon yourself.
Sing any note on the syllable “Ah.” Make sure you are getting a nice, resonant sound. Your face should feel like it’s vibrating a little. Now try to “look around” at the sound with your mind’s ear. Depending on how high or low your fundamental pitch is you will be able to hear at least one other note sounding somewhere above the one you are singing. That note will probably be an octave, a minor seventh, a fifth or a third above the fundamental. Musicians call these numbers intervals and they measure the space between sounding pitches relative to notes in a scale. Starting with “Ah,” hold the same pitch but make an “Oh” and then and “Oo” sound. If you listen closely you will notice that the loudest overtone sounding above your fundamental pitch will move “downward” as you change vowel sounds.
Notice that, towards the end, when you make the Ooo-est possible sound, more, even higher notes jump out at the top. This is not some special vocal technique or digital effect. What you are hearing is just a slowed down version of what happens when we use vowels in speech. Hopefully you can now hear how combinations of pitches (harmony) give meaning to our aural experience.
Here’s the real thing from the Tuvan tradition. Notice how the singer keeps the fundamental pitch mostly constant while creating melody with the overtones.
STEPPE KAGYRAA SUNG BY SEVEK ALDYN-OOL
You will find this phenomenon out in the inanimate world as well. If you are near a land-line phone, pick it up and listen to the dial tone. It is really at least two tones, an F and an A. Oddly enough, I’ve heard a lot of commercial air conditioning units resonate at a Bb, with an Ab hanging out somewhere far above it. The way these overtones spring to life at the attack of a note when spoken, sung or played tells us who is talking, what instrument is playing or to get off the railroad tracks. We can now hear how harmony (the interaction of fundamentals, overtones and negative space) plays a huge role in orienting and giving meaning to our experience.
Here are a few examples of how composers and improvisers manipulate our experience of harmony to create timbre, color, texture and myriad other effects in music
Notice the open, shimmering intervals used by Radiohead on the track, Hunting Bears, from the album, Amnesiac. Listen for the overtone phenomenon that was present in the above vocal example.
HUNTING BEARS BY RADIOHEAD
On his version of Creole Love Call, trombone legend Albert Mangelsdorff sings along with himself, alternating between harmonic and melodic statements.
CREOLE LOVE CALL BY ALBERT MANGELSDORFF
Listen to oscillation between “bright” and “cloudy” harmonies in Igor Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments.
SYMPHONIES OF WIND INSTRUMENTS BY IGOR STRAVINSKY
The final installment of Framing the Void (coming in June) will deal with the combination of horizontal and vertical space, namely, musical line.
Allow the techniques to be opportunities for observation rather than links in a chain of cause and effect.
Open eyes may still the mind more fully than closed ones.
This essay originally appeared in RVA News in 2009.
In Framing the Void: Part I we explored the way that music divides our existence into what we experience before, during and after a piece. We also explored the relationship between this experience and the way our bodies spontaneously divide our reality into things, events, colors and individuals. Strangely, it is this shattering of reality that gives us common experience and allows different people to show up at the same place at the same time or to converse about the same topic.
Within the start/end boundaries of a piece of music, composers and improvisers play with the negative space that this time measures, creating the illusion that time is passing more quickly, more slowly or with more wrinkles than it actually has. All this negative space manipulation can be summed up in the term rhythm. Repeated sonic events like the tap of a drum or long note from a violin break silence into sections on a smaller scale so that the performer and listener can have the common experience of this rhythm. The following pieces explore the ways that rhythm manipulates our perception of time and in most cases I have chosen examples with limited melodic and harmonic motion in the hopes that the pulses will be most apparent characteristic. For added proof of this phenomenon, try not to look at the clock on the player while you listen to the examples and see if you can list them in order of length. Look for the answer at the end of the article*.
(2020) I couldn’t find my old files that cropped each track. Sorry!
GET UP I FEEL LIKE BEING A SEX MACHINE: JAMES BROWN
This classic track from James Brown perfectly illustrates how symmetrically distributed negative space feels wonderfully natural, like a heartbeat. Underneath Brown’s call and response vocals, the drums, guitar and bass carve out a relentless groove, each instrument spending equal time in sound and silence.
DA PACEM DOMINE: ARVO PÄRT
Slower tempos allow sonic events to unfold at a glacial pace, stretching our perception of time’s passing. Some music, such as Gyorgy Ligeti’s piece Lontano, discussed in my earlier article, As Rome Burns, even seeks to stop our perception of time. While not totally static, the piece Da Pacem Domine by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt creates an almost imperceptibly slow, but natural pulse. Try inhaling on one note and exhaling on the next.
BLUES TO ELVIN: JOHN COLTRANE
Perhaps the most obvious choice for illustrating negative space in jazz would be Miles Davis but instead, I decided to go with a lesser-known recording by an equally ubiquitous artist. On this track from the album Coltrane Plays the Blues, Coltrane utilizes two dimensions of negative space. His tenor saxophone slides beautifully ahead and behind of the steady, walking pulse laid down by drums and bass, pushing and pulling the “time.”
On a small scale, his playing creates tiny pockets of tension and release with each pulse. On a large scale, he spends significant amount of time not playing, following the natural rhythms of a good conversationalist. Each breath simultaneously punctuates the previous phrase and cleanses the space for the next idea. This track represents a fascinating use of negative space by an artist known for his impossibly dense improvisations.
BRAGADA: TITO PUENTE
This example from Tito Puente gives us the impression of time’s passing at a steady rate through the combination of various poly-rhythms. We hear the longest pulse from the low conga, while various other instruments play what are called sub-divisions of the beat, some divided by two, some divided by three. Think about the lines on a yard stick that divide it into feet, then into inches etc…Initially, the voices emphasize the smallest subdivision but notice how, at about the 1:20 mark, the vocalists switch to a more lilting feeling instead of the rapid delivery of the opening. They create this effect by shifting their emphasis to a larger sub-division of the beat. While the overall pulse remains constant, this ensemble shows how even a slight rearranging of negative space can change the entire feeling of a piece.
SECOND STRING QUARTET, MOVEMENT III: GYORGY LIGETI
(starting 9:19)
In the third movement of Ligeti’s Second String Quartet, marked Come Un Meccanismo Di Precisione, each instrument repeats a single note but at different tempos respectively. Some patterns accelerate while others decelerate or remain constant. Out of an initially disorienting web of sound, coherent rhythms pass in and out of phase and these mechanical processes use time to destroy our natural perception of it.
PANASONIC YOUTH: DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN
Here is an example of a piece with almost no truly negative space. The vast majority of the sonic events pass with extreme rapidity. Switching between pulses at a break-neck pace, rarely expanding or contracting smoothly, this music creates an experience less like our heartbeats and more like the random firings of our neurons. Listening to math metal is not so unlike trying to pay attention to the myriad, unrelated thoughts that constantly rise and fall in even the most peaceful mind. Watch out, this is LOUD!
In the above examples, we can see how composers and improvisers manipulate our perception of time, or rather the negative space, framed by the beginning and end of a piece. Through music, we tap into this negative space with pulses as steady as our resting heartbeats, as fast as our most frantic moments and as slow as our most relaxed breathing. The above examples represent only a few of the ways that music frames the void of silence and each new composition or improvisation gives us a different common experience. In the next article, we will explore negative space along the vertical plane through music’s use of melody and harmony.
No lesson on resilience is complete without illuminating injustice.
No lesson on boundary setting, on saying ‘no,’ is complete without illuminating the resources that such an action requires.
This essay originally appeared in RVANews in February 2009
Place your fingers on your neck and feel your pulse. Continue to do this for a moment, and for that moment, stop reading this article.
Pay attention to your breathing without trying to control it. Continue doing this for a moment and for that moment, stop reading this article.
Our hearts beat in perfect time. We breathe in and out in regular intervals. When we walk or run our feet spend equal time traveling through the air, as do our arms. We try our best to keep our hours of sleeping and waking regular. Nearly identical events distributed evenly through time make up many of the human body’s basic functions. Our health is often determined not by these events themselves but by their regularity, by the space between them. Take, for example, the concepts of the heart rate, the running pace, and the circadian rhythm. Many of our body’s functions keep us alive by framing a negative space. Since it is the product of the human body, music uses nearly identical events distributed through a negative space, time in this case, to create meaning.
This is the first in a four part series of articles exploring music’s relationship with negative space. For simplicity’s sake, we will deal with this negative space in two directions, horizontal (time) and vertical (melody and harmony) even though each is inextricably tied to the other. In this article we will explore the ways in which any piece of music, through its beginning and ending, creates a frame around our experience of time. In the following article, we will explore how a piece of music alters our perception of time’s passing through the rate at which it presents sonic events. We will cover similar concepts in two more articles dealing with the vertical dimension of music.
Visual artists are familiar with the idea of figure and ground. However, musicians and listeners often overlook the way that sound (figure) and silence (ground) work together to create music. Music without lyrics envelops the listener in a series of totally abstract sense impressions and is one of the few cognitive phenomena that can be experienced this way. For example, it is nearly impossible to look at a printed word in our own language and see only the shapes of the letters without inferring its meaning. On the contrary, we often listen to musical sounds without wondering what they represent, outside of themselves. These sounds are juxtaposed against silence before the beginning of the piece and after the end as well as in between sounds made during the piece. With these sounds, music – like theater, dance and motion pictures and unlike literature and visual art – must be experienced with in a given frame of time. For example, books may be left unattended for days, weeks or months. Photographs, sculpture, paintings and other forms of visual art need only be engaged in for as long as the viewer wishes. In contrast, the audience experiences music in a rigid and universal period of time, which is objectively the same for all listeners. Generally speaking, a piece of music begins when the first sound is heard and ends when the last sound dies away. Within this time-frame, the listener perceives one event happening after another. Through the use of sine waves and limiting the range of the sounded pitches, music may restrict or even negate its vertical dimension (melody and harmony). However, music can never escape its bondage to time. Since it is formed by compression waves traveling through a medium (usually air) sound can only be perceived as periods of pressure and release encountering the ear-drum with at relatively high or low frequency. This fact is analogous to the principle that points and lines are only theoretical constructs in geometry but have no objective reality. Carrying this idea out to its logical conclusion, one can easily see that, in our minds, there can be no isolated events, no isolated things, no figure without ground and vice versa. Thus, music experienced only while this nothing, silence, in the background gives it form and context.
A striking example of this framing function of music is can be found in American composer John Cage’s three movement work, 4’33”. Premiered in 1952, this piece begins when the performer sits at a piano and opens its lid. The performer then closes and opens the lid briefly to mark the end of the movements, while making no recognizable musical sound for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Much of the fascination with this piece has been due to its allowing for ambient sound to be the music but its revolutionary concept is also primitive. This piece, like all music, exists as a frame, and in this case, a totally vacant one. I invite you to perform your own “watered down” version of this piece. If you are sitting at a desk, open or close a drawer or perform some other sound to mark the beginning of the piece and do the opposite to end it after an appropriate period of time. You have just framed time’s negative space and engaged in one of music’s most basic functions. (To see a video performance of Cage’s 4’33”, click here).
Traditionally notated and performed music works in much the same way, creating a time-frame with the definite beginnings and endings of the aforementioned experimental piece. The rate at which sonic information is presented within this frame plays with our sense of the passage of time while never totally escaping it, creating some experiences that are even, some that are accelerated or decelerated and some that almost destroy time altogether. In this way, no matter its level of complexity, music always affirms the experience of time and thus the experience of performing or listening to music is inextricably tied to fundamentals of human consciousness.