Tag: exercise

In our more recent classes, we have been working on creating our own personal mini yoga sequences. It has been a lot of fun and it’s always so interesting to see the different choices that people make and how different we all are. For one person, the downward dog pose feels like an easy-going pal – a posture they happily hang out with – but for someone else, downward dog feels like their ‘bête noire’ – a posture they would rather not hang out with at all!  

I thought I would share some of the things that we have learned during these sessions so that you can put together your own yoga sequence at home. If you’re a yoga teacher doing this in a class setting then I highly recommend that you have your clients/ students do this exercise in pairs, with each person developing their own sequence but collaborating on the process itself. For one thing, having an extra person there helps when it comes to weighing the options as to which pose to do next. It also helps in memorizing the sequences. One person might forget their second posture, for example, but their partner might well remember it. It also makes it a more dynamically creative process because people can bounce ideas and thoughts off one another. When it comes to planning and performing your sequence in front of the class, it’s also less pressure and more lighthearted when there are two of you.

No matter whether you are creating a sequence with a partner or on your own, I suggest that you begin with 4 postures. This may not sound like many, but bear in mind that Salute to the Sun (Surya Namaskar) constitutes of only 4 main poses. The rest are simply repetitions, either repeated on the same side, or on the other. You can always expand on your sequence later on by adding transitional postures and movements in between the key postures or by adding extra poses at the beginning and end.

So, what criteria should you use to decide on your postures since there are so many to choose from?

One way to categorize yoga postures is by your orientation to the ground. We have standing postures; mid-level postures, seated postures, front to ground postures, back to ground postures and four points postures (hands and knees/feet).

Standing postures include: Warrior Pose (I,II & III), Triangle Pose, Palm Tree Pose, Tree Pose, Forward Bend, Goddess Pose

Mid-way postures include: Low Lunge, Lizard Pose, Camel Pose, Patient Crane Pose, Bird Dog

Seated postures include: Boat Pose, Seated Spinal Twist, Staff Pose, Butterfly Pose, Churning the Butter

Four-Points Postures include: Plank, Table, Downward Dog, Frog Pose

Front to ground postures include: Sphinx Pose, Cobra, Crocodile Pose, Bow Pose, Hare Pose, Threading the Needle

Back to ground postures include: Shoulder Stand, Universal Spinal Twist, Bridge Pose, Rocking the Baby, Fish Pose, Corpse Pose

Here are 9 tips to building your own bespoke yoga sequence.

1. .Create a sequence with postures from at least 3 of the levels listed above, moving from a standing pose downwards. For example, you could choose two standing poses, one four-point pose and one front ground pose.
2. Begin by choosing postures that are the most familiar to your body. You can always add postures that feel more advance to you later on.
3. Choose one posture in your sequence that is a bit of a bête noire for you. The reason for this is that the postures we find the most demanding are almost always the postures that we learn from the most. You don’t want to overdo this and have all the postures be ones your body struggles with or else practicing your sequence won’t be much fun, but 1 in 4 should be manageable.
4. Create as much fluidity and conservation of movement as possible between one posture and the next. For example, shifting from Warrior Pose directly into Hare Pose is cumbersome unless you include a transitional pose such as Downward Dog.
5. The length of time you stay in any posture is up to you but try to stay in each posture for at least 10 and up to 20 seconds.
6. Once you have chosen your 4 postures, begin to practice them every day.
7. People often struggle to remember their sequence. A good memory trick is to create a ‘story’ with your postures. For example, Tree Pose to Warrior II to Downward Dog to Hare Pose could become The Tree shaded The Warrior while his trusted companion Downward Dog chased a Hare through the woods.
8. Once you have become familiar with your sequence, begin to repeat the ‘double-sided’ postures, meaning that allow for the same postures on the other side. Take the above sequence, for example. You can do Tree Pose starting with the left leg up, then shift into Warrior II with left leg behind you, then into Downward Dog and lastly into Hare Pose. You could then return to Downward Dog, move back up into Warrior II except this time with the right leg behind you (perhaps first transitioning from Downward Dog through high lunge) and then back into Tree Pose with the right leg up.
9. Feel free to get creative and make your practice truly your own!