As a new yoga instructor, I think the most time consuming thing is to create the yoga sequence for a lesson. Often times when you start out as a yoga instructor, it's super rare that you'll get a dedicated lesson right away so park yoga would be a great starting point. So let me share with you some tips when you are just starting out!
Tip 1: Prepare your lesson for beginners. Just have variations for experienced yogis.
Since you wouldn't have built a customer base yet, it would extremely difficult to guess what kind of people would be joining you for your yoga lesson. So it would be safer to assume that a lot of them are beginners because the last thing you want to do is to overwhelm the new yogis in your lesson.
Also in the beginning for the lesson, ask the customers what their levels are so you can change it up a little bit if there are no beginners. But if there are beginners the general idea is that you adjust it toward the beginners.
Tip 2: What asanas to include
Lets assume that the all the customers are quite new to yoga. They would have a general idea of what yoga is so to be more relevant to them it would be nice to do some asanas (poses) they are more familiar with.
Below are some of the asanas that are quite popular!
1. Tree pose
Tree asana is quite a popular pose. It focuses on your balance and grounding.
Especially in the park where the ground isn't as stable this may be the right amount of challenge for the beginners.
Also for the more experienced yogis, they could close their eyes.
2. Eagle pose (Garudasana)
This is also a balance asana that helps with focus and concentration.
It also helps with strengthening your legs and grounding. It's a pose that is often found on the internet and quite a popular pose.
3. Warrior 1 and Warrior 2
This is a super popular pose seen everywhere.
At the same time, I feel that this asana is a very effective for both beginners and experienced yogis. This asana requires a lot of leg strength and core strength.
This asana also helps with grounding. Its one of those asanas that looks easy but reality
Tip 3: What to asanas to avoid
When you are coming up with the sequence, you don't want people getting injured or hurt. Those poses we need to avoid when doing it outside where the ground may be less stable and we don't have props to support us.
1. Inversions
Any kind of inversions, we should try avoiding. Shoulder stands, head stands, hand stands.
Especially during park yoga the ground can be quite unstable and unsteady and many be difficult to hold balance especially for beginners.
2. Downward facing dog
Although downward facing dog is a very basic pose for yogis it can be quite challenging for beginners.
It may be difficult to straighten their legs if there are not very flexible and their shoulders maybe tense. If the beginners try to put themselves in positions they may not be used to, they may hurt themselves which is something that we want to avoid.
3. Poses that my require blocks
Trikonasana is a pose that usually requires some blocks for beginners. It may be difficult to bend side ways and the blocks will help you with the balance. If you do not want to bring blocks out to the park, I would avoid including asanas that may require blocks to include in the sequence.
4. Typical sun salutations
Typical sun salutations have rather challenging poses such as a downward facing dog that we talked about and chaturanga which is the pose where you do a push up. In order to do a push up, it requires individuals to have quite a bit of upper body strength and core strength. If you are trying to incorporate sun salutations, I would recommend including variations when doing chaturanga, such as putting your knees on the floor and rest your chest to the floor and moving into a cobra.
Thanks for reading my blog post till the end.
I hope this post was helpful to some of you in one way or another!
Please feel free to leave any comments and let me know what else you would like to hear!
Komen