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OPEN MIND OPEN BODY Ideas for Your Yoga Practice |
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Teach
A Yoga Pose Teaching
yoga is the clearest mirror onto your yoga practice, for one simple
reason: teachers tend to teach their most current lesson. Find a friend,
family member, or co-worker, and offer to teach them a yoga pose or two.
Then observe what you choose to teach and how you present it. Pay attention to whether you explain the physical aspects of the practice, the psychological aspects, the breath, the philosophy, or the benefits of the specific pose. Are you most interested in alignment or sensation? Is the pose itself the point, or is the pose merely a way to explore a bigger idea (such as compassion, attention, or precision)? For example, if you teach downward facing dog, do you focus on the placement of hands and feet (alignment), the lifting of the hips and rotation of the arms (actions), the feeling of stretch in the legs and chest (sensation), or the integrity required to stay grounded in the pose, with a calm, steady breath (quality)? What
is conspicuously absent from your explanations? Is it also absent
from your personal practice? Use your words as a mirror, and study the
reflection. Savor
sharing these lessons, from the most minute insights about alignment to
the most life-changing insights about philosophy. These lessons, big and
small, are the fruit of your own practice. Teaching yoga illuminates the
heart of your current practice. If you give yourself the opportunity
to teach - even informally - you will hear yourself revealing your
most recent lessons.
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