Revisiting and evolving your sequences

// a 25 minute class opening and three other classes to revisit

Dear Humans,

I woke up this morning with a sore throat, so I’m going to give myself the gift of rest today, which means I’m not filming something new, but I wanted to send you something lovely from the WITIYTW Archives: a 25 minute class opening, featuring two seated flows, a sun A variation, and a sun B variation.

Pulling from the archives has me reflecting on revisiting our old sequences and making them fresh.

We live in an era of creation and generation. It seems like the demand for what’s “new” and “fresh” is at an all time high. But there are pros and cons to always teaching something new.

When you teach something for the first time it will always feel a little bit clunky. That’s why being a new yoga teacher can feel overwhelming, because everything is new! But overtime you get comfortable with teaching those “new” things (you start to nail down your sun salutations, you can cue through a warrior sequence with ease). With that as a base, you’re able to branch out and add more movements into your repertoire.

But if you’re teaching a class and every single sequence or mini-sequence is brand new to you, then the class is likely going to feel overwhelming to teach.

I’d like to suggest that a confident teacher always balances teaching things that they feel really comfortable teaching, while incorporating a few “stretch” elements. By “stretch” I don’t mean in the physical sense, I mean a growth area; something that you are teaching for the first or second time, so it might feel slightly challenging to teach it.

If you always have a nice mix in your classes of comfort and stretch in your teaching, then your students should experience two things: they should be able to feel centered, calm, and be able to drop in during the parts of class where your ease and confidence is shining during the familiar parts; and they should be able to see the intrigue and creativity of the new elements you’re incorporating, even if the cuing starts out a little clunky.

This is beneficial for you, too, as a teacher. It will allow you to drop in and out of ease within your teaching. Ease helps us stay calm and centered. Stretch teaching helps us evolve and grow.

I’ll say another thing here, too: Each time you teach a sequence, it will feel unique. Because you’re a different teacher every time you step on the mat. Your energy is different that day, you emotions, your intentions. The same is true for students.

So one of my favorite ways to get inspired around what I’m going to teach, especially if I’m not in “creation mode,” is to pull up an old sequence (now, all my sequences are here and I can search through them, which is amazing), and I look at that old sequence, I flow through it once as it originally was, then I see if I’m being called to tweak it or change it. Usually I do change it a little bit, and usually it’s for the better, because I can see things now that I couldn’t see the first time I taught it.

It has become a new class, but it allows me to keep practicing and working on movement patterns and cuing through a sequence that I’ve already taught, enabling me to get better skilled at teaching it.

I want to share three classes that felt like “stretch” classes for me to teach. I plan to revisit them and teach them again soon:

• This class integrates the yoga strap throughout the entire class for activation and intrigue. It was fun to teach, but definitely kept me on my toes!

• The peak flow and cool down in this class takes us to bird of paradise and also to cow face in a really fun way, I’d love to bring this back to my class!

• This heart opening flow is melty and juicy, I was inspired in the sequence by a teacher I met in Sweden, so the movements were new to me in energy, next time I teach it I think I’ll be even more comfortable! (Plus, what I wrote about in this post really connects to today’s topic)

Alright my friends, I hope that this topic was interesting to you, even without a brand new video. I hope that you get the chance to look back through this old sequences and perhaps you pick out a few things that you want to revisit or maybe try for the first time. Any thoughts? I love to hear from you!

I’ll be sending What I Read in Yoga This Month out over the new few days, so I’ll see you soon. Until then, time for bed and some tea.

Sending love,

Izzy

Izzy Martens

author, yoga teacher, sequence enthusiast

www.yogahumans.com

the opening

I started this class from our backs. I always encourage the students to move and wiggle a bit before settling in. Then I left them in reclined butterfly pose. (If you have access to blocks, a block under each femur bone is great).

opening floorwork

• knees to chest, circles

• one leg extends

• point / flex ankle

• ankle circles

• hug knee in

• supine twist (gentle, let the opposite shoulder lift)

• roll to center and repeat on other leg

seated flow 1

• roll up to seated

• arms over head

• open arm twist

• keep front hand on knee and twist chest to center

• side stretch

• swoop down and around

• side stretch other side

• inhale arms up to center

• repeat on other arm

seated flow 2

• arms up

• cactus arms

• backbend - lift gaze, pull shoulder blades together

• coil - drop gaze and bring forearms to touch

• open arm twist - elbows stay bent

• coil to center

• open arm twist -other side

• inhale arms up

• exhale hands to heart center

table flow

• table top

• cat / cows

• spinal waves from table

• downward dog

• tip toe up to rag doll

• add shoulder expansion

• release arms and coil up to mountain

• shoulder shrug

Sun Salutation A Sequence

• Half Sun Salutation A

  • mountain

  • extended mountain

  • forward fold

  • half lift

  • forward fold

  • extended mountain

  • mountain

• cactus flow from standing

  • cactus arms

  • backbend - lift gaze, pull shoulder blades together

  • coil - drop gaze and bring forearms to touch

  • open arm twist - elbows stay bent

  • coil to center

  • open arm twist -other side

  • inhale arms up

• forward fold

• half lift

• step back to plank

• lower to belly

• intimidation cobra shoulder dips

• plank to downdog

• travel forward

• half lift

• extended mountain

• hands to heart

Sun B Flow

• extended mountain

• chair plane

• one legged mountain

• open arm cactus twist

• center

• scarecrow

• dancing tree

• mountain

• forward fold

• half lift

• low lunge (one foot steps back)

• low crescent lunge

• exalted twist

• exalted twist other side

• half splits

• low lunge

• dancing pyramids with arm swoops

• wide legged fold

• add spinal waves

• low lunge

• vinyasa of choice!

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If you’re new here – hello!

Let me introduce myself! My name is Izzy Martens and I’m just a human who teaches yoga, writes, hangs out with her two cats, hikes around Colorado, and enjoys creating yoga sequences.

Read more about the history of this newsletter, Yoga Humans, and my ethos below.