Mark's Musings
These writings are informal reflections on practicing and teaching yoga. Click on any title to read the entire piece.
Despite being a source of health and wellbeing, yoga is not immune to cultural forces. As yoga gains increasing popularity in the West, the popular “no pain, no gain” mentality easily finds its way into yoga classes.A Note on Demonstrating Asanas
Hands-on cues and assistance are only one of several methods of giving clear instructional guidance to students. To the extent that you give clear verbal cues combined with effective demonstrations, most students will not need tactile cues. To make your verbal cues most effective, speak slowly while simultaneously moving slowly into the asana you are teaching, giving slightly dramatic emphasis to whatever you most want to highlight while transitioning in from a position in which you mirror your class with maximum visual contact between you and all of your students.
Beyond Dualism: The Bodymind (Part I)
Whether one seeks the meaning or purpose of yoga from ancient texts such as the Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali or Hatha Yoga Pradipika or looks to more modern or contemporary sources for guidance and inspiration, awakening to or cultivating conscious awareness, more awakened being and a better, healthier life are constants.
Teaching Yoga: Basic Sensibilities
Excerpted from the "Introduction" to Teaching Yoga
Teaching yoga will change your life. It will continually bring you back to your earliest motivations to practice and add abundant clarity to the first questions you asked yourself about yoga.
The Simple Reality of Teaching Yoga
Teaching yoga is at once profoundly personal, predicated on sharing, and shaped by context. It is also inevitably surprising. We have no choice but to start from where we are and who we are, with whatever knowledge, skills, and experience we have in the moment. We also have little choice but to work with whomever shows up for class, teaching students whose conditions, intentions, learning styles, and needs are widely varied.
Groundedness & Spaciousness
When casually standing or sitting, the tendency is to connect passively with the earth. The effect is that the body collapses into itself, each joint compressing as the body slumps and sags. But the moment you consciously root down into whatever is on the floor, the immediate effect is creation of space in the body.
Teaching Yoga & Student Leaning Styles
The primary goal in teaching asanas is to enable students to perceive and understand more clearly what they are doing in developing a sustainable personal practice, whether in a class or independently. But there are many different ways of learning that require a varied approach to teaching. How people learn is closely tied to what educator Howard Gardner (1993) refers to as “qualities of multiple intelligence,” which vary considerably in any given class of yoga students.
Sustainable Yoga
5 Ways To Sustain Your Yoga Practice
If you’re like most yoga students, you imagine practicing for the rest of your life. There is little else that creates such a sense of bliss or that takes you so deep into simply feeling good, clear, joyful and connected with a sense of spirit.