This blog post is one in a series of articles all month long on the topic of Sequencing To The Individual hosted by Kate over at You & the yoga mat. Many awesome yoga experts are contributing to the blog tour throughout the month. Be sure to check out Karin Monaco’s post on Reaching the Individual in Group Classes. And check in with Samantha Harrison for tomorrow’s post, too. Want to get all the #sequencingblogtour posts? Use the hashtag #sequencingblogtour on Instagram and swing by here to get emails with each post to your inbox all month long.
Whether you’re someone who unrolls your mat at home or a seasoned yoga teacher who leads multiple classes a day, the order in which you put your poses during an asana session can say a lot about your approach to yoga—and even about your approach to life as a whole. As a longtime yoga class hopper (in more than a decade of practice, I’ve yet to commit to one teacher or style of yoga) I pay attention to the pose sequence to tell me a lot about a particular teacher’s personality, training, and so much more. And paying attention to how you sequence and identifying the WHY can be a great self-reflection practice, too.
Here are some sequencing styles and what I believe it says about where you’re coming from.
You always put the same poses in the same order, always. There are several schools of yoga that teach the same poses in the same order every. single. time. There’s a good chance if you always practice the same poses in the same order, your training is in one of those schools. What it might say about you: If you gravitate toward those styles, you’re probably someone who loves structure, loves knowing what’s coming next, and loves having a plan laid out for you so you can concentrate other things such as those tiny little adjustments that make such a HUGE difference in your postures or connecting to your breath.
You always put the same pose groups in the same order. A traditional sequences in this lane would look something like this: Warm up stretches, Sun Salutations, standing poses, hip openers, backbends, inversions, Savasana. You may choose different standing poses, backbends, and inversions every time you practice or teach, but you usually stick with this general order for your sessions. What it might say about you: You like tradition, structure, and having a plan. You don’t want to change something that has been proven for many years to be an effective way of approaching sequencing, but you also like having the freedom to mix things up a bit, be creative, and adapt the practice to how you (or your students) are feeling that day.
Work up to a different challenge pose every time. So you love deciding on a pose you’d like to work on, then letting every pose leading up to offer an action or energy that will help you nail it? That might mean you work predominant on backbending one day or arm balancing another. What it might say about you: You love a challenge, and you like to be fully prepared to meet that challenge when the time is right. Yoga is a source of confidence, connection, and creativity for you—and you thrive most when you see yourself progressing.
You wing it. Maybe you hate planning, and you prefer to be spontaneous. Or maybe you’re just really tuned into what you need in the present moment, so instead of painstakingly planning out your asana session, you just, well, wing it. When you feel like a side stretch, you do it. When you’re ready to rest, you call it a day and settle in for Savasana. What it might say about you: There’s definitely something to be said for going with the flow and responding to your body’s (or sometimes your students’ bodies) needs as they arise. If this is your predominant sequencing style, it could mean you’re super intuitive. It could also mean you’re in an experimentation stage, where you’re testing many different things to see what works for you. Or maybe you’ve just got a rebellious streak and you love questioning the status quo.
Of course, most of us don’t do things ONE way all the time. We are all living, breathing, dynamic creatures, after all.
In sequencing, I do all of the above. I’m not an Ashtanga or Bikram practitioner (styles that follow the same sequence every time), but I do often get almost obsessed with my own little sequence of poses and practice them over and over again, until I’m ready to move on. I usually sequence my yoga classes either in the way I learned is traditional or working up to a challenge pose. And when I unroll my mat at home alone, I love winging it and do what feels good.
The most important thing to remember, I think, is that there’s no right or wrong way to sequence poses, as long as you have a good reason behind it and you’re willing to change your ways as the situation (either in your life or in your teaching) changes.
What do you think? Do you agree with my assessments? Or do you have a completely different reason to sequence your classes the way you do? I’d love your feedback!
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