Inspiration For Yoga Teachers: Try These 5 Tips
1. Refresh Your Staples
On some days, I'd rather stab myself in the eye than do a sun salutation or a vinyasa. Rather than doing chaturangas, I like to include a side plank with a hip dip as an alternative, or I’ll practice my standing postures from an externally rotated low lunge position instead. Adding creative posture variations to my sequencing helps me re-engage my enthusiasm and explore new facets of the postures.
2. Play with the Rhythm of Your Flow
Changing up the rhythm of your practice can be invigorating to your body and breath. If you like a strong flow, try mixing in restorative postures or pranayama breaks to re-calibrate your nervous system. If you like slower-paced classes try adding in a few rounds of dynamic standing postures moving in and out of them with one breath per movement. Simple changes can have an impact on how we feel and the depth of our practice.
3. Play with the Tricky Stuff
Oftentimes, we stick to the postures that feel most comfortable to us. If this sounds like you, let go of your routine and start working on a handful of poses that feel sloppy, challenging, and scary. Seriously, flip around fall out of things, and experiment with the experience of engaging with unfamiliar postures. Play around with poses that feel out of your reach, make a mess, and have a good time.
4. Add a Mudra to Your Practice
Mudra is a spiritual gesture performed with the hands, fingers, and body. Mudras are often used in conjunction with pranayama to stimulate different parts of the body involved with breathing and to affect the flow of prana in the body. Some of the commonly used mudras are Jñana and Chin mudra. Jñana mudra invocates knowledge or wisdom; Chin mudra is the psychic gesture of consciousness. Adding mantras and mudras to your yoga practice helps strengthen your psychic abilities, willpower, devotion, and the power of manifestation. Try it!
5. Reconnect to the Heart of Your Practice
Self-care is all about honoring your connection to yourself. Embracing life's incredible inconsistency and accepting that your yoga practice will ebb and flow from time to time will help you focus on what's most important about getting on your mat, which is to connect with yourself again and to be present with your body and breath. Allow your mat to be a place of sanctuary, a sacred space where you can celebrate yourself. Honor yourself for arriving, take a deep breath, and make peace with the fact that no matter what your practice will always be there for you when you need it.