Dear Humans,
I was practicing at a studio the other week and something happened that we hope, as yoga teachers, never happens during our classes.
The class was pretty full, maybe 25 or 30 people in the space. I was practicing in the first row, right by the mirrors, so I had a pretty good view of who was around me. At one point, during a standing balancing sequence, I noticed that a woman in my row was on her knees with her head bowed.
My instinct was that something was wrong, and a big part of me wished I had done something right then. But after a few minutes she got back up and started to join back into the flow, although visibly a little shaky, and so I assumed she had just gotten light headed or something.
The teacher hadn’t noticed and I didn’t notice her again until the end of class. The teacher had left the space, and people were packing up. I was sitting up, wiping sweat and drinking water, kind of mindlessly gazing around.
That’s when I saw her, in the same position as before, kneeling with her head bowed, arms supporting her weight, but this time she was shaking and, looking closely, I could see that she was crying.
I went right over to her and asked if she was okay. She shook her head and got out that it was her back. She had pulled something and she was unable to move without excruciating pain.
By this point, the scene had gathered the attention of others in the room. A few women who knew the student better came over to her and said, “let’s get you onto your back.”
And this was a mistake.
And this is where I want to pause and ask you to reflect on what you might do, and how you might handle the situation, if you found yourself teaching and something similar happened.
I have written about “teaching through crisis” a few years back, when I was teaching and I stepped on a piece of glass.
And in that post I wrote: Typically we are totally prepared for the expected, but how do we act when the unexpected happens?
It’s just as valid a question today as it was a few years back. And it’s one worth reflecting on occasionally as a teacher, so that if and when a serious situation occurs in your yoga classes you are ready for it.
Since I already wrote some of my tips in that past post, I won’t reiterate much, but one thing I didn’t write about has to do with the mistake that was made with the student from the story above:
We moved her, and we shouldn’t have.
If you do any research on the topic, you’ll see that the recommendation when someone is injured is to move them as little as possible. I think we all know this somewhere in our brains, but when you’re in the moment, and you see someone in pain, the urge is to ease their pain in whatever way you know how.
In the scenario above, the woman had been kneeling and sitting back on her heels. Two women helped her move from her shins to her back, in what looked like a very painful few moments. But then, after the teacher had been summoned and a plan was formed, when the time came to actually try to move her out of the studio, she had to maneuver back onto her shins, before she could be hoisted to standing.
It was a lot of pain to essentially just get her right back to where she started.
I don’t think this was anyone’s fault. And the yoga teacher wasn’t even in the room. When she did arrive she did a great job taking care of the situation—delegating, communicating, staying calm.
As the teacher you are the “leader” in the space. And with that in mind, thinking through what you might do in emergency or problem situations is smart.
It could be a mini-visualization exercise even. Taking just five minutes to close your eyes and think through a few different scenarios.
I hope a situation like this doesn’t arise, but it might.
If you’re a yoga studio owner, then perhaps this is a reminder to re-visit your own policies about how to handle emergencies in the studio, or create them if you don’t have them, and remind your teachers of them.
The woman in the class was and is okay. Just a bad pull in her back. Ultimately, a few students and the teacher drove her home and they helped each other to shuttle the cars back and forth. What a beautiful community effort.
I know that a lot of people don’t like to think through emergency situations. It’s no fun to think about the worst case scenario. But just as we visualize how we’ll act in moments of success (like how we might walk into the studio with confidence), it can be equally as important to simply envision your reaction in a high-stress situation.
Then, when the moment comes, maybe you’ll be ready for it.
But, here’s the truth — we are never truly “ready” for hard things.
But if we believe what we often cue in class—that yoga isn’t meant to be an “easy” practice, it’s meant to introduce us to challenges so we are better able to face them off the mat—then we are actively preparing ourselves in certain ways already. And having tangible strategies in addition to mental ones could really make a big difference one day.
Today, I’m excited to share a practice that embodies what we’re talking about right here: challenge and ease. A mix of a restorative & yin sequence! This is what I would teach in most public yin classes, as it’s a nice sandwich of restorative shapes at the start and end, with some more classic yin shapes in the middle. Any one who has practiced yin knows that it’s not just about relaxation — it’s about challenge, too.
Free subscribers can see the full sequence and then paid subscribers get access to a video with a voiceover where I walk you through it step by step and provide some cues. That video is 8 minutes long and could easily be practiced as a bite-sized live practice! (Just pause the video when you want to stay for longer).
I hope you enjoy it!
Sending love,
Izzy
Izzy Martens
author, yoga teacher, sequence enthusiast
@yoga.humans | @martensizzy
What I Taught in Yoga This Week | June 17, 2026
Below, I’ve provided the written-out sequence of the poses and I’ve also provided you with a 8-minute video with step by step guidance for how to teach this sequence. It’s a great full-body class that I hope both you and your students enjoy!
