This year have been totally fantastic ! I got the chance to go to a Teaching Training Course, TTC in Yoga and I have had the chance to teach yoga when I came back from India ! it turned out exactly how I wanted it to be and I am so grateful.

I had the intention to start teaching yoga in a small scale and the pieces of the puzzle felt together nicely. Students showed up from unexpected places and situations I was worried about beforehand got a very nice ending.

Before going to India I did not know the  TTC would have so much focus on the importance of teaching yoga to children and now when I look back at it it makes perfect sense. I teach yoga to my girlfriends daughter  in a fun way and for me it is a chance to discover how much fun yoga can be. Since me and my girlfriend had just started to date when I went to  India for 4 weeks I was not sure how it was going to be when I got back. As a happy surprise she is really interested in what I do and she supports me 100 %.

My girlfriend visited me for a week and and she wanted to learn some relaxation techniques and she also wanted to
have a reminder about yoga techniques. I planned a class consisting of 3 exercises from the Pawanmuktasana series followed by pranayama and then relaxation. Since I know her health situation I did not give a full health- questionnaire which I would do in a class. Outside of the lecture I played a cd I bought in India to her with Anuradha Paudwal & Kavita Puadwal.

First class was a short yoga nidra :

1. Preparation for the practice
2. Resolve
3. Body rotation
4. Breath awareness
5. Externalisation / Ending the practice

Second class

instruction during the whole class was

” do it slowly and with awareness and in a speed you feel comfortable with. If you feel pain in any of the movements stop the practice or take it much slower. it is not about how far you can reach in each asana. It is about doing the
practice with awareness and feeling your body from within. “

1. initial very short relaxation and tuning into the class in
   Shavasana
2. Skandha Chakra – shoulder socket rotation and then sitting for some time afterwards and feel the effect of the practice
3. Poorna Titali Asana – full butterfly and then sitting for some time afterwards and feel the effect of the practice
4. Chakki Chalanasana – churning the mill and then sitting for some time afterwards and feel the effect of the practice
5. Jhulana Lurhakanasana – rocking and rolling
   feeling the effects of the practice in shavasana
6. Gradual introduction to yogic breathing. first abdominal
   breathing , chest breathing , clavicular breathing and then together.
7. Checking if some nostril is blocked before the practice
8. First stage/ preparatory practice with nadi shodhana pranayama with: 5 inhale and exhale through left nostril , 5 inhale and exhale through right nostril and then 5 inhale and exhale both nostrils. Then sitting for some time afterwards and feeling the effect of the pranayama and feeling the natural breath
9. Short relaxation with listening to sounds and body/breath

awareness. I gave a recap, not the full instructions for each asana
but a short description, of what practices we have done. I gave the
instructions to visualize/remember how it felt doing the practices.

feedback: We talked some time afterwards and I realised two mistakes.
Instead of doing full butterfly I should have done Ardha Titali Asana
- half butterfly and I should have stayed with abdominal breathing as
the first pranayama. I forgot one asana in the short ending relaxation
when we went through the postures mentally. she wanted me to teach her
again and she was happy with the class in general so I guess I made
some things right

Third lesson

I include the instructions I gave on top of the ones given in APMB.

a general note: I watched my student all the time and whenever I
noticed that she looked a bit tensed I repeated ” do the practice so
that it feels comfortable for you. if it feels better to do smaller
circles then do that. the most important thing is that you are aware
of the movement and that it feels good. ” when it comes to repetitions
I said the instruction of the prescribed number first and then a bit
into the practice I said ” whenever you feel that you have done enough
of this practice let your arms relax and sit in the base position”.

1. shavasana – I instructed my student to start in Shavasana on her
   own and feel her body from inside and feel the breath as she
   remembered it from yesterday. So I let her lay down for a while with
   some time to try to remember how the short relaxation is done. then I
   started to give instructions “feel how your body is laying down on the
   floor” short body awareness “feel your body from head to toes and
   notice if there are some tension somewhere.  and breath awareness and
   then ” now prepare yourself that you are going to do a session of
   asanas and pranayama. “- to tune in to the yoga lecture
   “when you feel ready open your eyes and sit up in a comfortable
   meditation posture”
   when the student is sitting up “now we are going to practice the neck
   movements”
2. greeva sanchalana – neck movements
   after the student have done the practice for some time “close your
   eyes and feel the movement from within, feel the neck area and the
   shoulders”, “if there is pain in a position stop there and feel the
   pain from within”. “do the practice slowly and with awareness”
   after the student have finished the practice “sit with closed eyes for
   a moment and feel the neck and shoulders after this practice. how do
   this area feel ?” – similar instructions I give after each asana and I
   tell the student to notice the area of the body that is affected by
   this asana.
3. manibandha chakra – wrist joint rotation
4. goolf chakra – ankle rotation
5. Skandha Chakra – shoulder socket rotation
   “how are you doing ? are you OK ? ” here the student said she had some
   pain / strain in her back so I changed the order of my scheduled plan
   and instead of doing ardha titali Asana next I gave the instructions
   for rocking and rolling.
6. jhulana lurhakanasana – rocking and rolling
7. Ardha Titali Asana – half butterfly
8. Abdominal Breathing in Shavasana
9. Nadi Shodana – step one. One round in a comfortable meditation pose with the back straight.
   - 5 inhale and exhale through left nostril ,
   - 5 inhale and exhale through right nostril
   - 5 inhale and exhale both nostrils.
   “sit for a while and let your breath come back to normal breathing.
   Feel your stomach. feel how the stomach is expanding when you inhale
   and contracts when you exhale. it is a normal breathing and you do not
   affect it in any way. when the breathing is totally relaxed and you
   feel ready for it open your eyes”
10. Shavasana – relaxation with listening to sounds, body awareness and breath
    awareness. instruction to students ” go through the practises we did
    today and feel how they affected your body. now feel your body from
    inside and feel if there is some difference in your body. Now go back
    even further in the day and remember your day. what you did in the
    morning and what happened during the day. was there something that
    made you really happy or was there something that made you
    frustrated ? “. then return to your body and feel it from inside and
    then remember how the room around you looks start to move your body as
    you would do when you wake up in the morning …

Advertisement for yoga lecture and fourth lesson

I am living in a big house together with 7 other people and I wrote a note that I will be having a free lecture in yoga for those who are interested. I wrote that no previous experience is needed and it is going to be simple practices for the back, neck and shoulders. I just thought about the aspect of doing something for the neighbour. In
the house we cook food for each other and we are responsible for different tasks. You could say it is a small ashram with not so strict rules.

fourth lesson

I held a lecture to one of the people in my house after he answered to my advertisement. My first male
student since I arrived back from India and he is roughly my age and we know each other since we live in the same house.

He said he wanted postures for the back and I know he have done some yoga before but I made the decision to go with a beginners class as close as possible to what our wonderful teacher told us in Rikhia Peeth. People say they want advanced postures but when I teach Pawanmuktasana Series and stress the importance of doing it slow and with awareness they really like it in the end.  I asked before the class if my student have some back pain or other things he take medications for and he said he have had some back pain but that it was fine now.

I asked him already in the base position – Prarambhik Sthiti how he is feeling and I am happy I asked because he felt pain in the arms and I tried to be aware of this. I told him to stop whenever there was pain and to change sitting position for example. I also made clear that the most important thing is the awareness and he should do it so it is
comfortable for him.

This lecture was held at 21:15 in the evening depending on work schedules etc. and I pointed out to him that the best time is to do the practice is in the morning according to tradition. At the same time we have to accept reality and do the best out of it.

I could really see that he got more relaxed when I made sure that it is the best to do the asanas slowly and with awareness.

This is the program I prepared before the class:

all dynamic postures are from Pawanmuktasana Part 1

1. Initial relaxation in Shavasana
2. Goolf Naman – Ankle bending
   
3. Goolf Chakra – Ankle rotation
4. Ardha Titali Asana - Half Butterfly. I said before the half Butterfly that we hold a lot of tension in the hips and thighs and it affects our posture and back. With the half butterfly we loosen up the knees and hips. “sit for a while and feel the effect of the posture you just did”
5. Skandha Chakra -Shoulder Socket Rotation . before shoulder rotation I said this is a practice which is really good for when you have been sitting in front of a computer for a long time or similar.
6. Natural Breathing in Shavasana.  I talked a little bit about how beneficial it is to lay down in shavasana and do some awareness on the natural breath before sleeping
7. abdominal breathing in Shavasana
8. Relaxation in Shavasana -  with body awareness , breath awareness and finally visualisation of all the practices we did today. externalisation

Feedback: He said he was really happy with the lecture and slept very good during the night. He especially mentioned that he was very pleased there was no goal like you have to be able to sit in a perfect Padmasana or similar. I mentioned that I will probably give this lecture again when I am back from Germany and more people have the possibility to attend. He said he would like to have the same lecture several times.

Yoga lectures for a child

After giving 5 lectures to my girlfriend in yoga I started to feel that her daughter, 7 years old was left out and actually she asked about if I could teach her some breathing exercises and postures. I read the  Yoga Education for Children recently and I received teaching in how to educate children in Yoga on the TTC in Rikhia Peeth but still I felt nervous about it since it is such a big responsibility.

I started to teach some easy yoga practices to my girlfriends daughter. The asanas I introduced are skandha chakra – shoulder socket rotation, greeva sanchalana – neck movements , ardha titali asana – half
butterfly. I had a rough idea of how to introduce these postures but at the same time I wanted to do it in small fragments which we later could put together into a series of postures. I wanted to see how she reacted to these postures and if it could be done in a fun way.

It all began when we were in the living room and we danced/jumped around to stupid music on the radio and she showed me moves she learned in Judo for warming up. That was the first point where I showed her some of the yoga practices from pawanmuktasana part 1. She did it really quickly and I repeated several times “do it slower and
with awareness”. I decided that it was the wrong point to do slow yoga since she was excited after dancing/jumping around.

Later in the evening her daughter came down to me in the living room to say goodnight and I noticed she was much more calm at this moment and I took the chance to explain Skandha Chakra – Shoulder Socket Rotation again and now she did it very nicely with a slow movement and big circles. I repeated the instructions for Greeva Sanchalana – neck movements and Ardha Titali Asana – half butterfly . To my surprise she ran away looking at something that caught her attention in the middle of everything. I realise that you really have to talk to the child all
the time to keep them in the yoga practice. When her mother came down to pick her up  I told her to show the asanas she had just done to her mother. She was really proud to show it and I reminded her of the starting
positions but the rest she remembered. I was really surprise how enthusiastic she was after the yoga practices. She found the book Yoga Education for Children on the table and she wanted to do the
asanas she saw on the pictures.

I felt very happy in evening and at the same time a bit surprised how open children seems to be to dynamic yoga postures. I also noticed how easy it is for them to understand pictures compared to text.

The next day my girlfriends daughter arrived back from her violin lessons and wanted to see TV and I said that first we are going to do a yoga practice. I started to show her Surya Namaskar – sun salutation and she started doing it by looking at what I did. I told her to sit in the sofa and I did the practice with her in the audience but very soon she was on her feet and this time it was much easier for her to follow since it was the second round . In total we did 2 rounds and we were both laughing and I did not force her to do it very strictly and to my surprise she corrected the posture herself and she remembered which leg to put forward when we did the second part of the round.

So much fun to teach yoga to children and at the same time it is demanding.