I love teaching vinyasa. Love, love, love it. It allows me to be creative in my own practice and in planning classes for you. It is beautiful. It is flowing and graceful. It is meditative. And it can be very trans formative. There are however times when I feel like a little like a puppeteer of sorts. How? As many of you know, the vinyasa practice links poses together with the breath. So for a big chunk of any class, I'm cuing to you "inhale and stretch your arms overhead....exhale and fold forward...inhale, lift your head and flatten your back....exhale and step back to downward facing don....and so on (yes, I know that some of you can recite this is your sleep ;-) I do throw and occasional "please" in there just so I don't feel like a drill sargent and I do always remind you of the great job you're doing. I do always remind you to be an active participant in your yoga class. These are the things I do to make me feel like less of a puppeteer as I lead you through the style of yoga class that I love so.
One of the reasons that I love teaching the yin yoga class is because it allows me to teach you to be an even more active participant in your yoga class (meaning that you don't rely on me the whole time to guide and lead you to places). And I think it's easier for you as a student to do this because we have more time in the poses, there are more pauses and places of stillness for you to really pay attention to your body. You have time enough to ask yourself "Why do I feel such an intense stretch in my hip?" and "What can I do to make myself feel more at ease?" These are the questions that I remind you to silently ask yourself. Again, this makes me more passive and you more active in your practice. And I think this is a good thing, because....well you live in your body. Not me. I can only take you so far, then it's completely up to you.
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